This past weekend Bill and I went to the Passion Conference in Atlanta, GA. This is an event for college students and draws over 20,000 participants. We went with Matt Tipton and met a group of young adults from New Orleans. I was so excited about this event! It had speakers like Beth Moore, Francis Chan and John Piper just to name a few!

We had a great time at the conference and enjoyed every aspect of it. They had an area devoted to several social justice organizations and it was amazing how much money the students (their parents) donated during the course of the weekend. With a matching gift over 1 million dollars were raised to help the poor and oppressed all over the world.

We had the privilege to attend a break out session led by John Piper and the “topic” was reaching unreached people groups. But in general it was about reaching people for Christ who have not heard the truth or are hard to reach. One thing in particular really stuck out in the session to Bill and me.  It was the fact that Paul really longed to be in Rome but he was not able to be there because God had called him to do other work and that work was not yet finished. And that is exactly how we feel some day. We long to be in Chattanooga with our families or we long to be in New York City because we love it so much but we can’t do those things – yet. We must do what God has called us to do which is move to New Orleans. Maybe someday God will allow us to do these things that our hearts desire and long for. Paul did eventually get to go to Rome (of course it was as a prisoner – but still he went!)

One of my prayers recently has been that God would continually reenforce to me His calling for us to move. And the session with John Piper did just that. We also had a great time getting to know the New Orleans folks – it will be nice to know a few people when we get there!