Well friends, if you live in Northern Ireland, chances are you will
have heard about Summer
Madness. Each summer thousands of young people gather for this Christian
festival to hear different speakers, camp out together, attend seminars,
worship together, and just have a lot of fun. At least this is what I gathered
from my first experience of Summer Madness a few weeks ago!
Ruth and I had a stand at SM and held a seminar called “Life After
No More Traffik.” Our stand was in the Urban Saints tent (thanks for
sharing, guys!), which was also a café and a concert venue. A lot going on in
our tent! YWAM was also with
us in the tent and it was really lovely to meet some fellow Americans that are
serving with YWAM in Rostrevor. Anywho…
We were really proud of our stand, which you can see here. Ruth did
a great job while I was in the States getting everything ready for this. Loved
the cardboard idea! So simple but it looked awesome. We wanted to tell people
Mien’s story and take them along her journey through the board. (To read Mien’s
story for yourself, click here.)
Since it began, IJM has rescued thousands of victims, so we have loads of
stories of hope to share with everyone. We printed several stories on the back
of photo cards and asked people to take a card, pray for that specific person
and pray for others like them who are still waiting to be rescued. Our goal was
to have 200 people take these cards and we met that goal!
Ruth and I had some really incredible conversations with young
people and youth leaders over the weekend at SM, both at the stand and as a
result of our seminar on the Monday. About 50 people attended “Life After No
More Traffik” and we held four discussion groups which were led by Ruth, Evangelical Alliance, Belfast Abolition
Collective, and Craigavon
Stop the Traffik Act Group. The aim of our seminar was to push beyond simple
facts and awareness and into action. Each discussion group led by the various
representatives focused on different ways to act against the injustice of human
trafficking such as: Fairtrade chocolate, lobbying your government, utilizing
the resources from various NGOs and challenging the demand for trafficked
victims in your own community. How exciting!
I must tell you, though… as wonderful as being at SM for IJM was… I
was also BEYOND EXCITED about meeting Aaron Weiss! For those who are confused
about who this is, he is the lead singer of my favorite band, mewithoutYou. Aaron is friends with
Shane Claiborne (If you are confused about this name as well... shame on you!
Go read the Irresistible Revolution.), who was one of the main speakers for the
weekend. As Shane travels very often and likes to live in community, he invites
a traveling companion, and this time it was Aaron Weiss.
YWAM asked Aaron to hold a workshop, which consisted of him allowing
us to request songs (I, of course, asked for Timothy Hay first!) and ask him questions about anything. This time with him
was very encouraging for me. He answered questions about his relationship with
God and his answers caused me to think about God in a much bigger way than I
ever have before. I may blog about this a bit more, actually, so I won’t go
into detail here. Remind me if it isn’t up soon!
We also spent some time with Aaron after the workshop, learning a Sacred Harp
song, which was good for the soul! Paul and I are going to look into Sacred
Harp meetings in Belfast. Let me know if you want to join us! All together,
meeting Aaron and spending a bit of time talking to him and singing with him
was one of my favorite experiences… ever. I am so thankful for this random
meeting at a castle in Northern Ireland.
Although I was completely exhausted and had a cold by the end of
Summer Madness, I am so thankful that I got to experience it as part of my
internship with IJM. I loved sharing about our work and telling loads of
stories of freedom and justice. We met so many wonderful young people, each of
them so capable of doing great things in God’s mission for justice. I am
excited to go to other festivals this summer and continue to spread the hope
that God is doing great things for the oppressed and encourage fellow believers
that we GET to be a part of it!
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