The Saga of Creation 99

Creation 99, that was one fast weekend but I was pretty busy too. I haven't heard any official numbers yet but it sure seemed like a larger crowd, it might have been bigger earlier as last year it seemed to grow as the weekend progressed. This year, it was big from the get go. We arrived Wednesday to set up and it went well. We set up camp for KTWY 93.3 WAY-FM (waymusic.com and no relation to Nashville WAY-FMs). It was a little windy but manageable. The vendor coordinators were really prepared and a few of the bugs had been squashed from last year. We got to camp next to a gentleman named Jerome Olds and he was a blessing! He would be reading something from Oswald Chambers and he would say "Keith, you gotta check this out, this is right on for us Christians" and I would read it and get blessed. That's what I love about Creation (and back in JNW days) the camping and meeting other brother and sisters. It's like meeting long lost relatives <G>. We got to talk a little and getting to know him was fun. His boys have a band called Ground Noise (groundnoise.com) and they're up and coming. We sure enjoyed camping next to him. He was really "roughing" it, a monster RV. We were in tents, most of the staff (station) anyway, the gals got the RV (what's up with that?)

Mostly of what I saw was in the evenings. I missed quite a lot of the day concerts as being cook, we were pretty busy but that was planned. One group that really blew me a way were the Katinas. They led worship a number of times and they were very good.God has blessed these guys and uses them to "escort" us into worship. During times of worship with the Katinas, I could sing along, worship the Lord and feel like it was just Him and me when in fact there were thousands of people around. They did well! The first evening (Thursday), when I got down to the main stage area, I think it was Greg Laurie was speaking. Supertones were up and of course, they rocked the place. Their brass sounds so solid. Then DC Talk came on and they...it's hard to describe as they're DC Talk, what can you say? I lost my voice during the concert, to much singing and yelling along <g>. They needed to put these guys toward the end of the weekend as the whole rest of the weekend, I had hardly any voice. The weather was right on temp wise but the wind got to be a problem.

Friday was kind of kick back for me, again, I didn't see a whole lot till the evening but one person I did get to see during the day was a guy named Lincoln Brewster. Our camp was close to the "vertical worship" tent and as I was cleaning up after one of the meals I hear this band just rocking and their songs were praise and worship.I had to go and find out who this was as I hadn't heard them before but we'll have to look into him some more, they were good. Friday night...Jars of Clay, they are sooo laid back on stage but captivate you with their music and not so much their antics. One thing that I know I go on and on about is hearing the crowd singing along, it's so cool! I am sure the artists get a kick out of it too. After Jars was Michael W. Smith and now, don't get to upset but I was thinking about going back to camp (sounds familiar, thought the same thing last year at Steven Curtis Chapman) but glad I stayed, he was a lot of fun and his selections were a lot more rocky then I had figured. Of course he played "Friends" and his comment before the song is always the same "when I wrote this song 17 years ago, little did I know that I was going to sing it the rest of my life". Again, the crowd knew all his songs and once in a while he would stop to hear them sing. Friday night late at the Acoustic Cafe was one of my favorites, Sherri Youngward. It was good to hear her again. I had heard her the first time last year at Creation and really liked her acoustic sound/voice.

On to Saturday...that was my day. I told the crew I was cooking for I had to see The Waiting and Larry Norman and they obliged me. I heard Dawson McAllister speak, he has such a heart and message for the youth, he spoke alot about Cassie Bernell and her standing up for the Lord facing the end of a gun. After him was two guys that I had never heard of but were a riot, James Ward & Duffy Robbins. These guys did a rocking blues thing that was great, it was funny but sounded musically very good. They did a thing called "Creation Rock" and I think it would sell <g>.

The Waiting was a kick, Brad, I think it was Brad, I get the names mixed up, anyway, Brad had the crowd really going, a lot of interaction between them and the crowd. The crowd was doing the ole "oi-oi" to the time of the music, they stopped playing and he says, "I hate that noise" and of course the crowd stopped, yeah right, for about 5 minutes and then started up again <G>. They really are crowd people. Some groups have their plan, and follow it to a tee but The Waiting I am sure had their plan but they interacted with the crowd so well. At high noon was Larry Norman. I have listened to him for years and was so cool to see him perform in person. Lets get the problem out of the way...the time allotted him was way to short. It was like a whole 40 minutes. I don't know if there was scheduling problem or they were just trying to cram to much into the afternoon but it was totally to short. Okay, with that out of the way, Larry sang alot of our favorites, UFO, Look Into Jesus, 666, All Been Ready, and some more that I don't know the titles to. There was a song about the end times with the line "if you're wise keep your eyes on Palestine" and as he sang that line two F-18 military jet fighters flew overhead, he stopped singing and says, "you know, it could start just like that" (talking about the military jet fighters taking off). The Gorge is near a place called Moses Lake and they have a field that is used for touch and goes. Side track a second... I think it was Friday, not sure but one day there was this HUGE C-141 jumbo cargo military jet that swooped down into the gorge or at least looked like it did, banked his wings and pulled out. Later on, someone who was closer to the edge of the gorge said he did in fact drop into the gorge and pull out. Anyway, this plane is so huge and seeing it so close flying like a glider was so cool. If you're not familiar with the Gorge, right behind the stage is the Columbia River but it is like hundreds of feet below in the gorge (like a Grand Canyon). Anyway, back to Larry. He sang and talked a little between songs. He talked about Y2K and how we should get ready for it and be ready to help our neighbors. He looked pretty good and didn't seem to dwell on any health problems. The wind was blowing that long blonde trademark of his across his face alot. The crowd at one point was clapping along in time and Larry stopped and said "I'm not that kind of an artist", later on it started up again and he didn't say anything. There was a consensus in the crowd that he should have been on the main stage area and more time given. I don't know how much time he had at Creation East.

Saturday night we were busy taking camp down and trying to keep up with the wind. Saturday afternoon the wind was howling with tents and canopies taking a beating. Rumor mill had it someone had gotten injured when one of the poles holding up one of the large circus type tents (where all the vendor booths were) fell and hit someone but we did hear they were okay. We had seen the Newsboys not to long ago so I didn't go to see them and wanted to get a jump on getting ready for Sunday morning leaving as we had to be out by 8AM since we were camped on the Gorge grounds.

Overall, what we saw was great! There were a couple small bugs but just like last year, with each year they will get better at coordinating between the Gorge folks and Creation folks. Our staff was all in and camped when on Friday they all of a sudden said no one could get into the camp area without a certain color wristband, well, that's fine but we had been coming and going for a day a half and all of a sudden we had folks that couldn't get back to camp. It was worked out and we all got our wristbands but it must have been something that got dropped through the cracks. The cold water showers were NOT any where as cold as at Jesus Northwest <G>, not complaining that's for sure. The only thing was from the vendor area it was like a 15-20 minute hike to them.

We're looking forward to Creation 2000 Lord willing and the Y2K bug doesn't reshape America <g>.

If I may get on my soapbox for a second, we, myself included, need to look at these events and getting all fired up and excited at them even to the point of losing one's voice, taking this excitement and translating it to action. 20 thousand people in the Northwest should have a huge impact, we should be making more of an impact, from supporting Compassion kids to helping our neighbors see Jesus. I love these events and have gone to them for years but when I leave, I always wonder, what happened here? Was it all emotion, was it all hype or did God make some changes in my life, in the lives of others. I know He made changes in some lives as I saw many go forward. Just some thoughts to think about as we wind down a bit.

Thanks!

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