This last weekend, I was at History Maker in Chilliwack; this is the annual youth convention for our church's district of British Columbia. Normally it's held in Kamloops, but this year it was in Chilliwack because the majority of its participants are from the lower mainland, and having it in Chilliwack would reduce the travel time.
The start of the trip was interesting. I had just gotten back from California, and my plane landed in Victoria at 12:30am because of a delayed flight by Horizon Air. I got to bed by around 2:00am. I woke up, unpacked and repacked, then we were off to History Maker. This year I was a chaperone for History Maker instead of a youth; I suddenly felt very old.
The ferry trip to the mainland was pretty slow going as ferries were arriving and departing late. We managed to catch the 5:00pm ferry. Once we got onto the otherside, the ship slowed down and waited because there was too much traffic at the terminal, so our arrival was delayed. Once we landed, the drive to Chilliwack wasn't too bad; I was expecting it to be far worse considering it was a long weekend.
When we arrived in Chilliwack and got out of the van, my first thought was.... ugh, what is that smell? There was a lot of agriculture around, so the smell of manure was very prevalent.
For the weekend, we would be sleeping at a church with no showers, so that was going to be interesting. Lets just say, washing my gargantuan head in a sink is not easy.
Anyway, onto History Maker which started on Saturday night. There were over 3,000 people at the venue. It featured bands such as Amanda Falk, Leeland, Desperation Band, and the main event, Starfield. I really liked the line-up that they had this year; good solid rock.
The speakers they had this year were really good. I really enjoyed Reggie Dabbs who preached very well, and taught us all how to be a bit more black. Out of all the speakers that I've ever heard at History Maker, Reggie was probably the best.
This year's theme was revolution, and there was a lot of talk about how we can change the world and fight injustice. Reggie talked about the Scottish revolutionaries who fought against injustice (fighting the British), and ultimately won independence for Scotland. He talked about the story after William Wallace dies (see the movie Braveheart to learn more about William Wallace). Basically, Robert The Bruce screws over William Wallace and hands him over to the British. In exchange, the British gives a bunch of land to the Bruce family. Robert The Bruce's son becomes king, and continues the fight that William Wallace started. King Robert The Bruce wishes that he had joined William Wallace instead of screwing him over.
Anyway, one of the key figures in the Scottish independence war is
James Douglas who is the most revered revolutionary in Scotland. He was the personal body guard of King Robert The Bruce, and his grand father had fought alongside with William Wallace. When the King became old and senile, he kept asking his body guard to carry his heart into battle one last time. When the King finally died, the nobles came to James Douglas and told him that he could have anything from the King because of his years of service. He could have anything, wealth, land. Instead, James Douglas wanted the King's heart, and he climbed on top of the King's body, cut it open, and took the King's heart. He burned the heart and took all of its ashes and put it in a silver locket. This was done to symbolically honour the King's last request of taking his heart into battle one last time. He used it as a reminder of his king and it served as motivation and inspiration to fight for his people. James Douglas continued fighting until Scotland gained its independence from the British.
At James Douglas' last battle, he had 99 men versus 3000 men. He was able to rally his men to stand their ground and to fight instead of fleeing. He asked his men, who will fight for the heart of the King? He then took the King's heart and threw it at the advancing army, and he fought his way through the enemy to retrieve the King's heart. Ultimately, the Scottish were able to defeat the enemy, but Douglas died in battle. They found his body 3 miles from where he started; he managed to cut his way through the enemy. In his hand, they found the silver locket containing the King's heart. This illustration was used to challenge us to carry the heart of our king into battle, even when it's against overwelming odds. History is freaking awesome, they should totally make a sequel to Braveheart.
In another session, Reggie also talked to students who were struggling with lust, suicide, and a few other topics. One quote that I'll never forget was, "a lot of people are in a relationship with someone not because they love that person, but because they are afraid of being alone."
To carry on the theme of changing the world, an offering was taken to support a number of missions around the world to stop injustice. One project was to increase AIDS awareness in Zambia. Another major project was to send missionaries to Slovakia which is located in Eastern Europe. The focus was to stop human trafficking in the region because people are being bought in Slovakia and sold in North America and Europe. It'd be interesting to know how much money they were able to raise for these efforts.
I also attended a talk which covered some of the tough questions for Christianity. They covered questions like, why do bad things happen to good people? Why is there evil in the world? Anyway, a lot of the talk was inspired from C.S. Lewis' (author of the Chronicles of Narnia) writings on apologetics. I think I'm going to pick up a few of his books.
Anyway, it was a very spiritually refreshing weekend. Physically, I was pretty tired when I got back. An entire weekend of fast food at inconsistent times really threw off my eating cycles. My sleeping cycles were fairly out of wack as well since sleeping on a hard floor for an entire weekend isn't the greatest.
P.S. We also got to go to the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) in Chilliwack, and that was a nice treat. So good! Such a good deal for so much food! Mmmm waffles, delicious waffles.
