Fascinating to watch so many facebook entries tonight. Lots of excitement. Lots of fear and anger. Lots of worry. And i certainly understand it all. But, and i haven’t really blogged much about politics but there is something to say here. I watched 18000 students and leaders make their way to Bigstuf and home this summer. I stood in front of 12000 leaders just recently at Catalyst. Stopped by the NYWC in Pittsburg last week. Gonna be standing on a stage at Northpoint and Buckhead in a few weeks. And, frankly, when i look out from those platforms, looking at thousands of faces… I see students ready to change the world…and who are doing that now. Adults who seek to learn more and lead. Parents, with some worry but a lot of hope, Leaders who stood and wept and sang as 23 little incredible kids from Kenya (who have no money, no floors or doors in their homes, no electricity and most who have no parents.) And those kids led 12000 leaders who have more than they deserve, into a time of worship that went way beyond something that started on this planet. There is phenomenal evidence of God working in the lives of individuals, who have a lot…and who have nothing. What we all have is an opportunity to walk with and experience the character and wonder and grace of the Creator of this Universe. I have yet to see negativity, fear, cynicism (ok well i kinda like to be a cynic now and then) rudeness, blame,and a mean spirit, to take anyone down the road to the wonder of God.
I have seen people who are dissatisfied use their gifts and influence to make a difference in all of the lives around them.
The character of people of God has historically been used in times of doubt to take us to new and incredible places. Things are the way they are. God hasn’t given us the spirit of fear, but of LOVE , and POWER and of a SOUND MIND. The world needs us to reflect him more than ever before, no matter who may have won this election. What do you say we decide to show the world now who God is….I am more convinced than ever that our 410 Bridge is based on a verse that we should adhere to with grace and humbleness….and strength. “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”
So, grow up and follow… and lead… and watch what God does.
This is our planet. Hold on to the one who made it and help to light it up!

If you don’t know Jack, then before you read this blog…go back to all the blogs that are about jack…watch his videos, read the blogs and then come back here and read this…and if you do the same thing reading as i am doing while i am writing, you are gonna need some tissue.(There are a number of them with Jack’s name on them, so this will take a while…but you have nothing at all that will be any better for you than this.)

Last Friday Night, we had our annual fund raiser called Night for Africa. We showed the two videos posted on the earlier this summer about Jack. Then Jack came to the stage. He was kinda quiet at first.
He sat across the table from me on a huge stage in front of 2500 people. He spoke of how thankful he was for all the people who had blessed him and who had helped him to get his arms. As i started to walk with him off the stage he whispered (into my mic) which wasn’t then really a whisper. Mr. Lanny may i say something else? I was a bit nervous but what was I going to say? Sure Jack, say anything you want. I wish i had it recorded, because i won’t do it justice here. But it went something like this. Imagine if you will this monologue in a very broken Kenyan accent spoken from a young man with two artificial arms, who has grown up in the slums with almost no education, but with a beautiful smile and a heart as big as the globe.
“In the book of Joshua, there were men who surrounded a city and they obeyed God and screamed and yelled and made enough noise to bring down the walls of the city of Jericho. There is hunger and poverty and AIDS and death in my country and i would like you to stand and make noise and let it be loud enough that your very voices in this place would begin to ring out loudly and bring down the walls of hunger…and poverty…and disease….and death….and when those walls come down we will have hope. Will you stand with me now and shout?”

Holy Cow (my words) 2500 people stood to their feet and began to shout and i stood on that stage and watched a young man who just months before had been orphaned and trying to figure out how to pick up scraps of food outside of restaurants in Nairobi with no arms to accomplish it….and I saw God’s grace and mercy pouring down on this young man as he valiantly lifted his prosthetic arms to proclaim that we as a people can be used by God to bring down the walls that destroy us.!!!
That, my friends, was combined with the spirit of God working through Jeff Foxworthy, and then the Daraja Children’s Choir to show us the smiles and songs and beautiful face and wonders of God.
Add to that…TONIGHT…

At about seven thirty this evening, most of us were preparing to watch the debates which would potentially tell us the fate of our nation ( to a degree). But about 30 of us were gathered around a swimming pool watching a story with so much more drama, so much more spirit, so much more of the things that make life what it is. I stood beside Jack and grabbed his upper arm ( he wasn’t wearing his prosthetics) and we walked out into a pool together. We laughed because it was cold. We joked because i am old and might not pull him back up in a minute especially since he had nothing to hold on to me with …so it would be all me. I mentioned the story of Mephibosheth in the Bible, where for so long this young crippled boy ran away from David because he thought David would punish him. He wasn’t aware that David was pursuing him to show him his love. Jack had believed for a while that God had punished him but …like Mephibosheth, Jack has learned that God wants jack to sit at the Kings table and eat the kings food…Just as David wished that for Mephibosheth. Becuase He loved him and wants the best for him. God loves jack and wants the best for him and has shown him that in the past few months. And then in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, i slowly brought jack down into the water, held him for a sec,
and raised him back out. His small arms were raised and his smile beamed across his face. for a moment i just stood there thanking God for letting me right there in the center of that cold pool, holding on to a man whom God was holding on to.
Many of the people who entered into Jacks life were there to watch. The man who first heard of him and said he would like to give money to get Jack some arms. The Dr of Prosthetics, who formed Jacks arms and got them to fit. The man who takes care of Jack while he is here. The people who donated special funds and houses and time and energy to take care of Jack while he was here. It was a powerful night.
A young man from the streets of Kenya today professed his faith in Jesus in front of 30 people in a swimming pool in Alpharetta GA. There is a chance that that particular incident will affect more lives than either of the candidates we watched debate tonight. He is going back to his country on Monday.
His whole life is in front of him. Just the way Billy Graham’s life was in front of him when he was 25.
He lives in a starving nation of 32 million people. Maybe he or someone he touches will set his world on fire and help to men to see the real issues. Or maybe, watching him tonight, will help US to see the real issues…and not worry so much about the ones we heard on the Fox network tonight.
Think about that.

On Sept 8 2008, Jessie got to get rid of all of the pain she has experienced for so long. She now gets the hugs and smiles of her heavenly father and feels no more pain forever.
The last few days, we got to let Jessie and her family know that many of us have seen her as a young princess warrior for a great King and that the amount of people she has influenced in her short life of 16 years is amazing. Talking with Louie Giglio today convinced me even more as he mentioned her influence on him and the message of hope that he has preached literally all over the world ….and it was much about Jessie. She is certainly missed and i cannot begin to fathom the mixed and very strange emotions that her family has to bear at this time. However, God has shown his grace and mercy throughout this whole journey and Jessie’s parents are evidence of being held up by a loving father. This is the 3rd anniversary of my good friend Rick Pearson going to see Jesus. I smiled some today when i pictured Jessie and Rick pain-free, worshipping together the God who loves us all enough to keep us from staying on this planet longer than we should.

I told you about Rachel Kent in the last blog. Bigstuf host lots of incredible students who exemplify a wonderful spirit even in the midst of the hardest of times. Rachel is one of those students.
This is a bit of her story.

At camp we ask people to write letters to us to let us know about students who are here who have been through the worst of times and yet still seem to shine a light beyond the darkness of their circumstances. These are the some of the most meaningful times of my life.
Last week I got a letter about a girl named Rachael. The letter was from a youth leader explaining what happened to her and how as she lay on a hospital bed, unable to move, and with almost no hope of ever walking again, she stated that she knew God was going to use this somehow. He said she was the kind of student that every youth minister hoped to have in his group and talked about her vibrance and influence.
I knew she had been to Bigstuf the year before in a wheelchair and we had prayed for her as she sat in that chair out in the audience. This year,from the stage, i surprised Rachael and asked her in the middle of the session to come up to the stage. She walked up to the stage and i helped her come up the stairs and she began to tell her story. A car had run over her and crushed her spine and the doctors gave her a two percent chance of ever walking again. As she told her story, she stopped in the middle and looked at the audience and said….I JUST WALKED UP ON THIS STAGE AND I NEVER THOUGHT I’D BE ABLE TO DO THAT!!! She lost it for a second and so did i. Heck, i am crying just typing this story. Rachael is one of the many students whose story has impacted lives in a huge way. some of the stories are like Rachaels and they display God’s love and grace as He healed. Many of them are stories of hope and light and life in the middle of God healing the soul and not the body.
I stand in awe and often in tears as God uses so many teenagers like Rachael and Jessie, and others whom i hope to write about, to show us who God is even in the midst of pain and unanswered questions.
I would love for you to hear this story in Rachael’s own words, so be looking for a video coming up soon so you can see and hear the heart of this inspiring young lady.

I mentioned in the last post that at Bigstuf we ask students to write letters about people they want to call or people whose circumstances are displaying God’s love.
So…words can’t do justice to the night that Zack melted everyone’s heart. Here is a bit of the rest of the night.
It was the birthday of a young lady named Heather. She had celebrated that without her dad on birthdays number 15 and 16 the past two years. This year you could sense the excitement in her handwriting as she explained that her dad was back from Iraq and was even “right here” in Panama City at her favorite place, Bigstuf. She was here with her Hero…her dad. All i did was read a few lines from the letter before i got to the part where everyone knew her dad had been in Iraq and as they came to meet me in the center of the room, the roar of 1500 voices boomed in celebration for this man who served our country and for his daughter who held him close and cried as we celebrated with the two of them. To make it a better “bigstuf moment”, Davis, our keyboard player who is actually a trombone wonder, played happy birthday on the trombone while everyone sang.
A cool moment for a lot of people and especially for a dad and his daughter who had all she needed or wanted for her 17th birthday.
Shortly thereafter we called a mom and her daughter to the stage. They were a bit nervous having not been warned this was coming but ….we shared with this mom the letter her daughter had written about her….”the hero mom”. She hadn’t served in Iraq, but she served here in life as she watched her friends and family lose their lives in various ways. Over a very short period of time this wonderful mother had watched 8 people whom she was very close to leave this world to go to the next. Just a few weeks before this mom was called when her son had rolled his car but miraculously lived to avoid being number nine on this heartbreaking list. Katelyn, the daughter, held her moms hand as we prayed over this family that God would lessen the pain. And indeed, the pain became less when her mom listened to the words her daughter had written “she is an amazing mother, person, and friend and she has proven that you can make it through anything when your relationship with God is right”
Mom and daughter made it through a few emotional moments on the stage at Bigstuf and showed 1500 people a glimpse of how God gives hugs and kisses when we are hurt.

I mentioned the song Oh how he loves us in the earlier blog today….which…if you just read the top one here you are missing out. Go watch Jessie’s video.
So I thought i would put the song here for you to hear the way we did it on our cd this year.
By the way ….don’t rip it off here. go buy it. It’s just a powerful song. And Mandy Miller is incredible singing it.
And, Jessie this is dedicated to you.
Words follow…click arrow to play.

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He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And the heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

He loves us….

It’s the stories of the lives of people and how they intersect with God that allow us to open our eyes and see beyond our own little universe to something that can transform us .
Jessie’s story is like that. Every time I talk to her i am reminded of His light and warmth and glory.
Below is part of Jessie’s Story on a video. Her story also is echoed in the words of the
song Oh How He Loves…
“When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.”
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And the heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…
He Loves Us…”
Watch this…

Some of you are now coming here because you know there are stories that are happening that can’t be made up. Well i guess we could make’m up but …here is another great God thing from today.
Standing on stage i held up three Compassion packets and asked if anyone wanted to just come up and take them and sponsor a child. ( not your ordinary way to do that) Three people came up and i sensed that one of them should be the one we surprised today. She took the packet of a little boy named James. i informed her that sometimes we like to call the lady in Kenya who is director of the projects and let her know that one more child just got sponsored. This young lady was very poised and seemed anxious to go along with me and do this skype video call. Susan is the lady in Kenya who answered and i introduced her to the young lady and asked Susan if she knew little James in that project.
She said yes. I asked her when was the last time she saw james. ( this was all a set up) She said she just saw him.
All this is going on up on the video screens in front of 1500 people.
Susan moved out of the screen and little James’ face showed up right on the screen. The girl on stage who had decided to sponsor james gasped and her hand went over her mouth in disbelief. She was meeting her sponsored child in person right there. Now we discover that this young lady on stage had grown up as a missionary kid in Nairobi and had been back in the states now for three years and was really missing her home back in Nairobi and was wishing she could be connected there again and here she was on stage looking into a computer at a young child who had never seen a computer until today and they began to talk to each other in Swahili. When james said thank you to her ( asanti) this girl just wept and fell into my arms and ….well…God just did his thing there on the Bigstuf stage today.
And the life of a 17 year old girl in the United States and an 8 year old boy from a rural area outside of Nairobi Kenya will be changed forever.