Ruined for the Ordinary

Louie Giglio is the founder of the Passion movement, a ministry among college students throughout the world. As part of the Passion network, Louie heads sixstepsrecords. He is also a regular speaker for 7:22, a weekly gathering of single adults in the metro Atlantic area. I met Louie after one of those gatherings in January 05…
I had just arrived in the states with two of my own students from Zilina University. We were traveling around the East Coast, recruiting interns for our summer camp program and meeting with the leaders of summer camp teams. I knew about the Passion movement through the music, but I had no idea that Louie was such a powerful speaker with an amazing gift for describing the grandeur and mystery of Christ! I was captivated by his passion for Jesus and very pleased when he sent word that he wanted to meet us after the program. After 45 minutes of talking about our love for college students in two different countries, Louie invited me to bring up to 10 Slovak students to Passion06. Passion is an annual worship conference for college students. Passion06 was to be in Nashville, TN January 2-5, and more than 16,000 students from around the world were expected to attend. I remember thinking that it would be absolutely amazing if 10 of my students could attend, but simply could not imagine it actually happening! That was just the beginning…
AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?
A few weeks after I returned from my trip to the states, I was praying about the invitation from Louie. As great as I thought it would be to take students to Passion06, I simply could not imagine how it would be possible! I began to add up the cost of 10 plane tickets, 10 registration fees, transportation, hotel rooms, food, etc, and I was quickly over the $15,000 mark! I told God that I was willing to do whatever, but He needed to make it clear to me that HE was the one opening this door and inviting us into this particular adventure with Him!

THE PASSION TEAM
A couple of months later, I received an email from a member of the Passion Team in Atlanta, Georgia. She told me that they had been faithfully praying for us and that they beleived God was really behind the dream of bringing 10 Slovak students to Passion06. She said that the Passion Team would be willing to pay for all of our registration fees AND our hotel rooms for the time at the conference. I took this as a direct answer to my prayer, and with the confidence that God was the one directing this plan, I called all 10 girls from my university class to my house for a meeting. Most of the girls were not professing believers, and a few had even stated strong views of opposition regarding the church. I did not want the girls to feel like I was trying to manipulate or coerce them, so I simply told them the story and admitted that I had no idea how we would come up with the money for the rest of the trip, but if they wanted to try, we could start walking this path together. There was a unanimous decision to start trying to raise the money for plane tickets and see where all of this might lead. One of the girls said that day that if we were able to come up with that much money in such a short time, it would be proof to her that God was real and involved in their lives.

PICKING UP MOMENTUM
Many people who came over for our summer camp program got super excited about the idea of 10 Slovak girls going to Passion06. They began to write the girls encouraging emails and some even got involved in raising money in the states. There was a group of college students in Columbia, SC that held a benefit concert and donated all funds to the girls. There was a group in Alpharetta, GA that held a bake sale and donated all funds to the girls. Some people sent in personal money. The Passion Office continued to pray, and even wrote the girls individual letters saying that they had paired off the girls with members of their team who would be committed to praying for them personally up until the conference. When October came, we had all of the expenses for the conference covered, and we had many people in Atlanta offering to keep people in their homes and help out with transportation. We also had people offering to raise money for events once we were in the states. For example, one church group said they would raise money to take all of the girls to dinner and then a hockey game! But even with all of these efforts, when we reached October, we were still far away from having enough money to pay for the plane tickets.

CHICK-FIL-A TO THE RESCUE!

Three weeks from the day we would have to say yes or no to the plane tickets, I could barely look into the faces of the 10 girls who had dared to believe it might all be possible. We were so close in many ways, but I couldn’t imagine where the money for the tickets would come from. I stood in my backyard and cried that day.

And then…just a few hours later, I had an email from my friend at the Passion office. Would you believe that the executives of the popular restaurant chain Chick-fil-a had been praying earlier that month about sponsoring international students to come to Passion06? Would you believe that after praying, they felt led by God to sponsor students from SLOVAKIA?? Would you believe that they contacted the Passion office with Slovakia in mind WITHOUT KNOWING ABOUT US AND OUR EFFORTS TO COME? Would you believe that just a few days later, almost exactly one week before our deadline, they wrote a check for the entire remaining balance of our trip??

IMMEASURABLY MORE
The entire journey to Passion06 was a testimony to me of God’s extravagant love and pursuing grace! I am reminded of Ephesians 3:20 where it says that God “will do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us”. I found it hard to believe that he would provide the money for us to all attend a conference, but He provided, through the extension of Himself on earth (His church) SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. Wonderful friends opened their homes to us for the time we were in Atlanta, and because of the incredible generosity of our American friends, we were even able to do some fun things around the city! God’s presence and personal care was communicated clearly through our friends, and I can say that we were all deeply affected by it. The Passion conference itself was something I’m not sure I have the words to describe. It actually began with Louie telling the story of our journey from Slovakia and one of our own girls, Mata, opening the event by praying in Slovak. We were then ushered into the presence of God by such worship leaders as Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, David Crowder, and Charlie Hall. I’ve never before been surrounded by 18,000+ young people worshiping God with such reckless abandon, and it was incredible! In addition to this, the messages of Louie Giglio, Beth Moore, and John Piper were filled with the kind of words that linger in a person’s mind and heart. Louie challenged us to look beyond ourselves and gaze upon an utterly indescribably huge God who is as personal as He is vast and incomprehensible. Beth talked, very authentically and practically, about the pits we sometimes find ourselves in. And John Piper challenged us to see that God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him…especially in the midst of suffering. And on the last day, almost every one of us rose up out of our seats when the invitation was given to stand if you want to life a life surrendered to God!