Tag Archives: Easterfest

A bitter sweet Easterfest – part three

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I just had to share this incredible story a leader in Townsville (1500kms from Easterfest) Peter Thomas Hall shared with me about their experience at the festival – that ended a little different to anything we expected! (see previous posts)

Testimony of the
“One Heart, One Mind” Easterfest 2011 Tour

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“As Iron Sharpens Iron, so one man sharpens another” Pro 27:17
May you be encouraged by this.
By Peter Thomas-Hall
So where to begin, I wonder, I guess at the start. I have been going to Easterfest for quite a while, it always promises to be 4 of the funnest days of the year. There is the meeting of new friends, seeing friends again at this yearly meeting place, lots of good bands, pranks, way too little sleep, moshing and other testosterone fuelled activities that seem so prevalent at the hardcore bands. Easterfest is different from most other festivals in that it is full of Christians – so anger and aggression aren’t generally seen (which is good in a thrash pit!). The friends and the people you meet was in my opinion the greatest attraction.
​Last year (2010) was the first year that I took a group down from Townsville, and braved the 17 hr journey in our church’s 12-seater. It was as I expected a lot of fun and full of memories, and while we were there we met many others from Townsville who independently braved to journey. We concluded when we got back that we had to do it again, and try to organise to go with some of our new-found Townsvillian friends. Indeed, around October 2010 we started to pray for buses to go down to the festival in. Not much happened till February when I finally got a news item up and had an interest of about 8 people. Prophetess Faylene Sparks on a visit called me out the front and had a word for me, part of which was that ‘good things are going to come out of Easterfest, and that people would be saved from it’. I was quite shocked at the thought that this would be more than a fun time. When I was asked for the group name I had originally thought ‘The Knights of Adoni’ but 30 seconds before they asked, God put into my head ‘One Heart, One Mind’. This rang true on camp.
​As time moved on, more people joined the group and it grew from 8, to 28, to 35, to 40, to 46 with the final number being 83, from 12 different churches! I had been on the keen hunt for a free bus for several months, and all that we had was our church 12 seater. Our group grew but the means for transport didn’t, which weighed heavily on me. One day whilst sitting on the toilet, God put a verse in my mind, “be anxious for nothing, but everything through prayer and supplication”. Then I thought………….what the heck is supplication?! That evening I handed out forms for the tour at a few different churches, and even though I didn’t need to go to North Reach Baptist, I found myself there listening to a word from Pastor Christian, from Philippians 4, about prayer and supplication. In summary, it goes “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice! (That is hard to do), be anxious for nothing but everything through pray and supplication (or petition), and thanksgiving (I needed to be thankful), and God will grant you a peace that surpasses all understanding to guard your heart and your mind”. After the word I went up for prayer and cried for the first time in several years. God wanted me there that evening to be encouraged in what I was doing. I also kept receiving heartfelt, God-inspired encouragement wherever I went. God indeed wants us to be encouraged.
​One week before we were leaving to go, we still only had a 12-seater bus, but I had a peace in my heart nonetheless. Progressively over the course of the next week, transport was worked out, but we still needed more, and 5 minutes before we left we still needed seats for 6 people. 5 people it turned out had gotten lifts with friends or a flight down there and suddenly we only needed a space for 1 more! Someone who heard about the group asked if they could convoy down with us, and they happened to have ONE spare seat! We were off! Well… maybe not as soon as we planned due to the bus being 24V and the trailer being 12V. So after a few hours of soldering 12V lights in series and reinstalling them, we were off again.
Half the group as we left Townsville​​​ Me soldering lights together in the dark

The trip down was interesting. We lost the convoy, sent cars ahead, caught up with them twice, got diverted to a different route due to unexpected flooding, and half-way there we had a major trailer tyre blowout. The tyre was ripped to shreds and the rim completely stuffed. We had no wheel brace to undo the nuts to put on the spare. Luckily however, the add-in to the convoy had a wheel brace the right size, praise God! We ended up getting to Toowoomba 6 hours later than we hoped, but by the grace of God we were there!
The very shredded tyre

After setting up tents and eating dinner, we had an evening meeting in our big 7m x 7m marquee given to us by Easterfest. We invited many random people from the surrounds to join us. We sang songs, and as we did the Easterfest co-ordinators came up and filmed us doing so. I then invited a good friend, Laura White, up to speak and give her testimony. She gave a very powerful testimony of how she was going to commit suicide and had an encounter with God. God progressively led her to the mission field in India and she saw many miracles. On her last trip she got typhoid, then gastroenteritis, then tonsillitis, and ended up being in hospital for nearly a year in India. Even though she was in a horrible state, doctors, nurses and other patients kept asking her why she was so happy when she should be miserable. Through this she could give her testimony and many people came to know God through it. The testimony was very powerful and one lady from a different group came to me saying that God wanted her to share her testimony. This was very powerful also, about how God had healed her. Over 100 people were there from many different churches, but there was an incredible sense of unity, “We are the church” was said many times during the camp.

The cold foggy campsite one morning
The Friday was full of fun and bands and socialising. My favourite part was the 8 o’clock morning praise and worship session, it truly was powerful. Around 10:30 that night a friend rushed down to me exclaiming “Pete, there are people getting healed up there in the campsite”, and truly there was! A lady who was in crutches with a severely dislocated knee was talking to a bunch of randoms, and they decided to pray for her. In front of their eyes and a video camera the knee cap moved around from the side of her knee to where it should be! The injury happened 3 weeks prior and could not be put back in place. After this people in wheel chairs were healed! I ran up to my campsite to tell our group. “People are getting healed and there are amazing miracles happening down there” I exclaimed to everyone present. I was keen to get people down there when someone had a bright idea of us praying for Ryan. He had just suffered a broken finger from a wall of death at the O’Sleeper concert (a wall of death is when the crowd separates into two parts and when they say “GO” they charge each other. Very stupid and dangerous, and I wish I could have been in it). Ryan had already been to the First Aid and they said “Yeah, it’s broken, you can’t do anything about it, try not to be stupid in future”.
So it was decided that we should pray for Ryan’s broken finger. There were 20 or so of us there and we all started to pray. After a couple minutes of prayer we asked how it was. It had a little bit more movement and a little less sore. “Let’s keep praying” was the general consensus, so we did. After 3 minutes of prayer, there was more movement, less pain. After 5 minutes, there was almost complete movement and very little pain! “Let’s finish this!” people said. After the next little prayer, Ryan had complete movement and no pain. It is a cool story to say that you broke your finger at an O’Sleeper concert, but way cooler to say that God then healed it!
Immediately after this miracle a 15-year-old girl, Caitlin, stood up and asked if we could pray for her next. She had been in a car accident 2 years ago and had 4 smashed vertebrate. She was not going to come to Easterfest due to the intense pain that she was still in, but at the last minute she joined the group. The farthest she had been able to bend for the past 2 years was to her knees. She sat down and we all started to pray for her. After a few minutes I felt her back suddenly straighten up and her shoulders move back, and shaking and crying she got to her feet. She then touched her toes for the first time in over 2 years! SHE TOUCHED HER TOES! God did an amazing miracle in her life and we all praised God for it.
Next to stand was my fiery friend, Roxanne. She had a lumbar puncture when she was 12 and it left her with back pain since; she described it like a constant fist in her back. I asked Caitlin to pray for Roxy, and my goodness her faith was increased! This small 15-year-old who is still very young in her walk with God, prayed with such fervour, passion, conviction and power that it was truly amazing. God instantly healed Roxanne! Even though Roxy had been prayed for many times in the church by different people with healing ministries, that night was Roxanne’s night to be healed. Roxy then prayed for the next person who needed to be healed, and even though I have seen Roxy pray many times before, I have never seen her like this! God gave her a new measure of faith and she was on FIRE!
That evening, 8+ people were healed from physical and mental problems. We had random groups come in and join with us in the prayer. We had 8 girls that were 15-16 years old, and you will probably know that it is extremely hard to get adolescents to do anything for any period of time. They and the others were praying from 11pm till 2:15am, over 3 hours! You cannot get youth to do that, only God can. They could not stop thanking God for all He had done and what He was doing in them.
Next morning, I went to the 8am service early and told the pastor in brief what had happened the night before. He asked if I would get up and tell everyone, so I agreed. I prayed to God that He work though me when I tell of the events, and He did. I was motioned to get up, and still praying to God, I delivered what happened. The place was packed, people spilling out of the test – at a guess around 500 people were there. As I spoke the response was deafening, and with each new miracle told, the chorus of praise grew. After this, I asked Ben Kurylowicz (my brother in war) if I was legible, “Very much so” was the reassuring reply. After the meeting, lots of people came and our group prayed for more people.
My good friend Ben then rang every tyre store in the city, and all were shut for the Easter holidays. But eventually someone answered a phone. A student, studying, who works there answered and he agreed to change our shredded tyre. Ben took the trailer in and the fellow was horrified to see the condition of the other wheel that hadn’t popped. “I can’t believe that hasn’t blown” he said, “That tyre would not get another 50km”. So by the grace of God we had not gotten two blown tyres on the 1700km journey, and by God’s grace we could get two new tyres put on the trailer.
Throughout the day it was fantastic to share the testimony of what God had done. That evening around 6:30pm, I looked into the sky and started to see some BIG drops of rain fall. “Hmmm, hope this doesn’t continue”. It did. I ducked for cover in a Christian motorcycle tent, hoping the rain would ease up. It didn’t. I shared my testimony with everyone in there and many people were encouraged, and I was shouted dinner and drinks during the rain. The water level rose… and rose, and many youth were running around and sliding down the hill. Though the water was ankle deep we saw people backstroking down the river. There were many items floating downstream, mostly thongs. The roof of the main tent, right above where the artists were congregated, developed a little pool of water… which rapidly became a lake. People started to notice and they all ran out seconds before the roof came down. No one was injured. We had over 50mm of water in half an hour. On my evacuation from the park, I saw Joy Argow, the Easterfest co-ordinator, directing people. “I don’t know how” I said, “but God IS going to bring to good out of this”. Up at the campsite people were in tatters. There was water though all the tents and mud everywhere. Peoples asthma was playing up, which made them freak out, which made the asthma worse. Lots of people were freaking out and going into shock from the cold. “This place is full of Christians who love God” I yelled, “So God WILL bring the good out of this”.
We had many calls from friends of friends offering our wet and cold campers a warm place to sleep. We shipped out the priority people first, and then most others followed. There were a dozen of us left who didn’t want to go to bed, so we sang praises to God for 3 hours into the night. For many people, this was the defining point of the festival. The rain on the radar only pelted a small area of Toowoomba, a concentrated dot pretty much right over the Queens park area. The next day was nice and sunny (thank God!); but most of the main events were cancelled, so we left a day earlier than planned. On the way back home I prayed and asked my beautiful wife Sarah to pray that we all have one last God moment on the way back home. We did.
Wet but happy “One Heart, One Mind” Easterfest group
I received a text from a newly-made friend saying that Easterfest was on the news and they saw me and my group praising God (from the Thursday night) on it! I learned that Easterfest has never before had real media coverage. Even though it is the biggest Christian festival in the southern hemisphere, and over 40, 000 people rocked up, it has never been on TV! But this year, due to the flash flooding, the cameras came in and instead of just the 40, 000 people being impacted by Easterfest, 20 million AUSTRALIANS saw what was happening. God indeed brings the good out of everything for those who love him.
On the way back home, we had one more healing and God increased the faith of us all, even though it happened at 4am. The other vehicles had their God moment as well. Aiden Frewen-Lord’s vehicle had a 5-hour impromptu church service, singing and reading the Bible. When it got dark and before the moon came out, they noticed how amazing the stars were in that part of the land. They pulled over and gazed to the heavens praising God for the wonder of his creation. Lorne’s crew travelled south to experience a death-defying swing built by my brother James, and very much enjoyed the farm life and my parents’ excellent hospitality as well. Most of them want to go live with my parents now!
The crew that did the farm swing
God taught me a lot through all the events and planning of the Easterfest tour. Most of which can be summed up into Philippians Chapter 4. It is so important to rejoice in the hard times, for that is when we truly grow, and pray with thankfulness to God. God for the third time in my life, gave me a peace that surpassed all understanding, which DID guard my heart and mind for this endeavour. That peace and Gods provision and grace made all that has been said possible. His grace is indeed sufficient for me.
May God bless you.
Peter Thomas-Hall.

A bitter sweet Easterfest – part two

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Photo by Craig Paulsen (www.craigpaulsenphoto.com)

You can catch up with Part one of the crazy saga that unfolded at Easterfest in my earlier post – A bitter sweet Easterfest.

“What are we going to do to make sure we don’t get a repeat of Saturday nights flash flooding at Easterfest next year.  I really want to come again but I don’t want to waste my money if it’s cancelled again!” was the phone call complaint of the year for me.  Hmmm… “God, can you please help with that one?”

I know during my broken attempts to sleep that Saturday night after eventually crawling into my dry warm bed, I too was having my own question time with God whilst fighting back tears of disappointment…  Wondering why in the world he’d allow an event we had worked on all year to be prematurely ended by such a downpour!   An event that was supposedly meant to bring life and economic relief back into the city after Toowoomba’s devastating floods in January.

Questions upon questions flooded my mind… had we done something wrong to warrant it?  Was Satan throwing his weight around?  Was some kind of battle happening over the grounds of Easterfest that us mere mortals couldn’t even begin to fathom?  Was this a “Job” moment?  What would be our fate?  Questions no one could answer on this side of eternity.  Many of us have probably asked similar questions of late as we’ve been brought to sheer disbelief watching disaster upon disaster unfold around the world – some in our very own neighbourhoods.

Maybe George Bernard Shaw’s quote, “Life wasn’t meant to be easy, my child, but take courage: it can be delightful!” is true.  God hasn’t promised life would be easy.  In actual fact, have you read Christ’s life story?  He sure didn’t get it easy.  His death was sort before he even walked!!!

His promise to us though, is - “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Heb 13:5)  So we can be assured, as Christians, amidst the trials life throws us, he’s in the thick of it with us.

To quote an anonymous person’s observation of Easterfest “God pulled the carpet out from underneath us and then caught us in the palm of his hand”.  So whatever the case… the reasons… the criticisms… God may have used some extreme measures to bring our attention to something…  or Satan could have been allowed to mess with us (like in the case of Job)… whatever unfounded reason we could possible conjure up… God has and will provided for all our needs.

He allowed the disturbance to be dramatic enough to give nationwide coverage on every news channel (sample here).  The tent that collapse was safely evacuated and no one was seriously injured.  Much of the Sunday’s park schedule was able to be reconvened to the city (thus pouring even more economic resources back into the businesses of Toowoomba then otherwise would have been possible!) and the vibe was absolutely electric.  For the thousands that stuck around, the night before became the catalyst for a ‘delightful’ day after – that many have reflected on as their best Easterfest ever!

So although things didn’t pan out as WE planned, I have a peace that through this ‘disturbance’ to our human plans greater victories were won then could possibly have been otherwise!

…in saying that… I do hope we can have a ‘no rain’ Easterfest in 2012!

A bitter sweet Easterfest

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Mainstage - Josh Woning

Finally getting a moment to reflect on Easterfest 2011.  Enjoy!

Festival was going amazing. Ticket sales were record breaking. The campground had sold out days before the festival even started. The vibe was absolutely amazing. Anticipation was at an all time high.

Thursday I spent the day in youth camping welcoming people to festival – particularly groups who had come from all over Queensland – Cairns, Townsville, Maryborough, Emerald, Longreach, Biloela, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Taree, Newcastle…etc..etc…  Everyone was excited.

Friday and Saturday I spent the day moving between the Media tent, Vision Arena stage and the green room to grab artists for their media conferences. Funnest moment was working with the Switchfoot guys. They really do seem to be sweet guys. One of the liked my hat ;-p

Late Saturday afternoon, little did I know was the calm before the storm. It was a perfect sunny afternoon to escaped from everything for a moment and lay on the lush grass hill in front of the media tent. Texted a few friends I knew were at the festival and had then come and say hi. Lovely moment.

Later, I got called down to front desk to meet up with a guy from Channel 9 news. He was keen to get a story on Easterfest. So I hook up for him to meet up with our CEO, Isaac Moody on mainstage. So we were standing side stage as Newworldson began to play. Moments into their set the rain began to fall… From no where the storm came. The sky was pitch black  over the stage but to the left I could still see stars. It was almost eerie.  The drops of rain quickly became like cups of water falling from the sky absolutely drenching everybody and everything in its way. The hardcore fans in the 15,000+ audience kept moshing. Many started heading for cover.

I headed off to see where I could help and to see what was going on. Ran over to my media tent to see that it had just lost power but thankfully no water was coming in and computers were all high and dry!

The tent's gaping hole

Next I went into Pavilion tent and saw Josh Arnold the area manager yelling with a tired, raspy voice to everyone to evacuate the tent. You could see a huge bulge in the tents roof that shouldn’t have been there. Like it was pregnant or something!

I quickly joined in and began to ask people to step back out into the pouring rain and evacuate. We knew we didn’t have long before the tents roof gave way. Reluctantly people left.  Asking mums (some of whom I knew!) to leave the dry-ish tent to move back out into the pouring rain was certainly was one of the most distressing things I’ve had to do in a long time.

As the tent cleared we had to steer people evacuating mainstage to other exit gates or venues.  Water began rushing through the site in somewhat freakish quantities.  The profloor we’d painstakingly laid started floating and in less dramatic circumstances I would have probably chuckled at how funny people looked trying to walk on it!

The inside of the tent next morning...

I got asked to run to the ‘West wing’ to make sure there was a gate open and if not to make one.  About then I was wishing I actually had a spanner on my belt!  Thankfully there was a gate open so I didn’t have to kick down a fence!

At Easterfest every venue has a ‘venue manager’ and their own evacuation procedure.  As I got back to the Big Top venue they were clearing it due to the copious amounts of water flooding through.  So I joined in directing people to the nearest exit.  By that point my radio had gotten to wet and was completely dead.  One wise move I made when the rain started was to exchange my good shoes with some gumboots that I had stashed under my desk – just in case!  So although they were full of water by this point there was some comfort in knowing I had protective attire on!

Eventually more of our team came round and opened a gate higher up the hill on Hume St and we allowed people to exit the park there.  It was a surreal moment running into to so many people I knew and hadn’t yet seen at the festival in such an adverse situation.  Apparently not even recognising some friends – according to one mum who thanked me later!

I’m so thankful everyone, although traumatically for some, made their way safely out of the park and the rain and flood waters soon subsided.  Thousands of campers found accommodation at churches, friends and random strangers houses.  A few braved the campsite and stayed on site.

Switchfoot playing in the pouring rain to faithful fans - Trent Rouillon

Switchfoot did continue playing through the rain to stagger the evacuation.  Hardcore fans who watched the set said it was one of the best concerts they’d seen in their lives!

So for the first time in the 13 year history of Easterfest the program on the park had to be cancelled.  Quite a tough night comprehending what had gone down.  Basically the storm seemed to be fairly isolated to the park (within a couple of kms anyway) and dumped between 50-70mm within 45mins.  The night was spent working with SES and police to help people find each other… find evacuation centres and just shivering!  I’m not sure I’ve ever been so cold in my life.  I thought for sure I would wake up with pneumonia!

So grateful for the strong presence and use of twitter and facebook!  This aided the delivery of messaged twentyfold.  We’re still hearing of stories of how people connected with each other or with phones to make calls out of ‘tweets’!  Unfortunate though was Optus’ mobile reception!  We might have to get our own tower on site next year!

Sleep was really distant that night.  Every worse case scenario streaming through my head.  Wondering what tomorrow would bring and hoping that morning light would just reveal it all to be a dream.  Alas no… the tent was still all broke and a hive of busy volunteers were already stripping the tent of its insides preparing for its dismantle.  Media were every where and stories where making headline news everywhere!  I guess it was one way to get nationwide attention!

I and my American assistant, Kevin, did rounds of the campsite Sunday morning to see how everyone survived.  I was amazed at how many smiley happy campers we encountered.  Many of them had made their way back from ‘dryer’ accommodation to see how their belongings had fared.  But still they seemed in good spirits considering how wet and muddy everything was.  And they were excited that we had managed to relocate some headline artists to play in the city’s centre on the CBD stage.  (Which during the January flood was four metres under water!!!)

The crowd Sunday afternoon at the CBD stage. Impossible to get a accurate photo with people sitting 360 degrees around the water, squashing in to try and hear the bands.

The highlight of my day was managing to sneak away from the park in my muddy, rubber boots to check out the CBD stage.  Literally thousands of people lined the pond to get a glimpse of the incredible ‘vocal play’ group, Naturally 7.  It just brought tears to my eyes seeing right then how something I thought had gone so horribly wrong had turned out so amazing.  The city of Toowoomba was alive.  The message of Easter was forced from the park into the streets.

Easterfest Today captured the scenes live here on their Sunday report.  Check it out!

Love to hear how Easterfest went for you if you made it.  Or if you weren’t there did you catch the news somehow either on the news or via a social media site?

Festival Blogging… why I’m not here!

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Hey Friends…

Just wanted to check in and say Easterfest is seriously just round the corner.  Our office is a mad house and we’re hoping to get everything organised in time…. but whatever the case… whether we keep up or not it’s all happening.  We’ve got crew already living on site (on the park) nine days out from the beginning of festival and the mini-city has begun to emerge.  Even had my mate from Nashville TN, Kevin Banks, swing by here to help on his way home from a six month holiday in New Zealand.  (BTW – check out his blog he has taken the most amazing pictures!)

So I’m overseeing the construction blog for the festival so everyone can get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at what’s going on.  So if you’re not seeing too many posts on here for the while… come and say g’day at Easterfest site.

Check out today’s video blog…

Thanks for stopping by!  Keep in touch… love your prayers!

Behind the festival scenes…

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Jess during the manic ticket sale week trying to keep up with the manual orders when we crashed the system!

It’s 8:30pm on a Friday night… I’m still at the Easterfest office…  the dad jokes are getting worse – considering all the males in the office have ACTUALLY gone home early tonight!

There is a nervous sense of excitement looming as the days before ‘bump in’ close in on us.  The program is being designed… proofed… redesigned and reproofed… the marquees orders are being checked on… final sponsors are being locked in… this list goes on and on.  I stumbled upon an absolutely fascinating spreadsheet the other day… 800 lines of everything that needs to be dropped off… picked up… moved… set up.. stood up… and who’s doing it and whether or not the task has actually been followed up yet.  So next time you’re wondering obliviously around a festival (maybe even Easterfest)… that rubbish bin… that powered light that miraculously appears in the middle of what normally is a soccer field… yep you guessed it… it just didn’t “APPEAR”!  Someone planned for it to happen and who knows how many where involved to make it happen and how many visits to the council where made to get it “APPROVED”!

There are four kinds of people who go to festivals

[Inserting disclaimer here... these views are totally my own and are by no means any reflections of Easterfest and are VERY generic... ok?!!]

Claire our awesome graphic designer burning the midnight oil to get the program ready for final proofing

Firstly, there’s those that actually love going.  They’re happy to pay for tickets and obliviously wander around barely realising how it all got there.  They dance… eat… drink… and just enjoy everything put before them.  They occasionally wonder why the lines to the toilets are so long… but mostly they are just happy!

Secondly, there’s those who think they should get in free because their girl friends, aunty’s, best friend… is playing on the up-and-coming stage and they are taking photos for them.   These people just don’t have a clue.  Oh really?!  It costs money to put on a festival?

Thirdly, there’s the event organiser type persons – firstly you can barely sit through an entire concert and secondly you definitely can’t sit through without analysing everything!  If you’re a sound engineer you know what sound system’s cranking and you’re wondering why that don’t fix that annoying reverb!  Or if you’re into logistics and you’re checking out their ticketing process or wondering how many ‘freebies’ were in the audience and how much they had to pay the band!  You’ll even travel oversees and ‘volunteer’ to get into events so you CAN get behind the scene and see what’s really going on!

Heather is the chick who actually coordinates all crew... all 800 of them!

Fourthly, there’s the acts.  You also wander around oblivious to all the work that has gone on to ‘prepare the way’ for your absolutely amazing performance.  You wonder why your stage water is cold instead of room temperature like your rider requested.  You wonder why the rainy weather has put your sound check back… or why there isn’t free wireless in the green room for you to tweet your fans… or why lasagna is on the menu again… and of couse there is always one more favour you need… and some of you are even paid to do all this!  (I can pay out the muso’s cause I’ve worked with them and have even been this person!  We’re just painful at times –  albeit obliviously!)

So whoever you are and however “oblivious” you are (I’ve really overused that word this post!) just enjoy your festival or event experience!  Those of us who put them on wouldn’t actually be doing it if we didn’t actually like it.  No one does 18 hour days for weeks on end without some secret event obsession… hey Dave?  I’m just hoping I get the adrenalin rush everyone’s promising me during festival… because I NEED my sleep and I DON’T drink coffee!

To close, why not have a listen to an interview done by ABC with two of the hardest workers on staff – Dave and Linda – here. (They’ve got some good tips here for upcoming artists too!)

Shameless plug – if you want to be blown away by this incredibly well organised event come check out Easterfest this year.  More details www.easterfest.com.  This festival is not just a festival contained in a park… it takes over an ENTIRE city!  Over 100 artist are playing actually in Toowoomba City this year on top of what is already happening in the park.

Lacking creative juices

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Mainstage Easterfest 2010... Newsboys rocking it out.

I’m Running out of creativity…

Easter is getting closer…

Work hours are getting longer…

Easterfest is just round the corner…

Hopefully I will find something more meaningful to say before all my readers run away!

PS… are you coming to Easterfest?  Free Premium ticket upgrades are available till Feb 28!  Or if you just wanna serve we need hundreds of volunteers to make it all happen.  Grab an application form here to join the team!

That’s all I got…

Road tripping in the outback

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On the road to Roma, QLD

I’m so grateful for my job. The past two weeks I have driven thousands of kilometers…. All the way to Cairns to now where I find myself writing from the quiet country town in Central Queensland, Longreach. For those of you who don’t know I am taking care of PR & Marketing for Easterfest, a massive Christian festival held every year in Toowoomba. I’m mainly meeting up with people who have facilitated bringing groups in the past. I am so amazed at how far people DRIVE! The crew from Cairns literally spend over 24 hours (2000kms) just driving! I guess that provides some of the highlights…. Last year they succeeded in hit TWO dogs?!?!

So it’s been amazing so far… And only now am I getting to blog! The mini twitter blogs will have to tell stories of the past…

Two days ago I still hadn’t worked out who I was meeting or where I was staying in Longreach. I decided to call the Baptist church and then was recommended to talk to a guy called Peter. I LOVE how God ordains my steps! This family welcomed me in and is amazing. I know we’ll be friends now. One day I want to come back and see their 18,000 acre farm 60kms away! It sounds amazing!

There is something so intriguing about driving through and being in the Australian outback.

You can drive for hours and count three mailboxes and not see a single homestead!

You can drive in solitude for hours barely have to pass anyone and stop when you feel like it (in the middle of the road!) to take a photo.

A 110km zone is interpreted by locals as 120kms minimum.

The landscape is always changing… Always amazing. Right now everything is so green and luscious from so much drought breaking rainfall!

You spot a random cow or sheep and know that it’s just one of thousands and that one day a grazier will come out of the woodwork to call that beast home. Everyone accounted for… Every one someones livelihood.

The sky… so blue highlighting the fluffy clouds each with it’s own identity or characture.

Each evening the sky then burst into glorious colour… like a bride revealing her beauty to an awaiting groom, creation is bringing glory to God in case no human notices…

As darkness invades, more stars then one can comprehend begin to reflect the glory of God. How can we be silent? How can we not worship?

Beauty is everywhere… Stop and enjoy and allow your heart to worship the creator today!

Yes… I’m working for Easterfest

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It really has been way too long since I’ve written a proper update… so here goes.  I’ve been back in Australia now for nearly two months.  It’s been great catching up with my family and helping my little sister prepare for her wedding which is next weekend!  She turns 21 tomorrow and then gets married next Saturday.  She’s officially declared this to be the ‘Month all about Cindy!’

So what am I up too?   Alabaster Box are taking a much needed sabbatical after nearly eleven years on the road.  Naarah is also expecting another little one in January!  Mitchy’s gonna love having a little brother or sister.  He got caught holding a dolly yesterday!    Naarah is also about to release a solo project.  I’m sure I’ll have more info on that real soon.

So just two weeks ago I joined the  Easterfest team as their marketing person till May.   Easterfest is one of the biggest Christian music festivals in the southern hemisphere that literally engages a city over the Easter long weekend.  The park in the centre of town is literally transformed into a tent city… tens of thousands of people flock to Toowoomba from all over Queensland, New South Wales and beyond.  Coffee shops, cafes, cinemas, shopping centres and even pubs in town are filled with Christian music as ‘Easterfest City’  spreads into the public arena.  It’s truly an organisational masterpiece if ever I have seen one – even compared to US festivals I’ve had the privilege of going to.  Someone made up a highlight video here if you want to check it out.

In early 2000, as I was sitting in our church’s ‘Good Friday’ service at Minden I remember being completely distracted by the rain that was bucketing down.  It had been raining on and off all week and although I didn’t yet even have anything to do with Easterfest I respected the work the team would have been doing to try and set up the festival in the rain.  I could just sense how stressful it would have been and I remember feeling burdened to pray that God would stop the rain so the festival could go on and not be rained out.  From memory, I believe by the time the festival started after lunch the rain had diminished and it was a perfectly fine weekend.  I take NO credit for the answered prayer I know I was just joining thousands of pleas for fine weather!

Another interesting story… in 2002, I organised a concert for Alabaster Box in Ipswich.  The concert ended up having a huge response from people and drew quite a good crowd – which was quite unexpected for this particular area… God’s hand however, was all over it.  I’m not sure I’ve sensed the presence of God so tangibly at a concert since.  It truly was amazing and humbling experience.  Anyway, (I’m kinda embarrassed to admit it now!) but I remember being nervous when Isaac Moody (now my boss) rocked up to the show and wanted to meet me and back then talked about me being involved with Easterfest (previously called AGMF)!   I guess I’d always respected his vision and event organisation!  I ended up just helping out part time around the festival and joining Alabaster Box full time.

So it’s great to be joining a team of people I’ve known for years and think are awesome and I love how God used those little moments to prepare me for this time… even though I’ve never done a PR degree and feel quite under-qualified for a ‘marketing job!’    I really look forward to traveling all over Queensland and New South Wales connecting with pastors, youth pastors and Chappy’s about the festival.  Especially because I love our country!   So I’d appreciate your prayer for the Easterfest ‘season’.   Plan in April to come!

My Easter memories in Australia

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Today I’ve found myself reflecting on Good Friday, the memories associated with it and why this day is so significant to me.

First things that come to mind…
Family
8am Good Friday church service
Cadbury Easter Eggs (not Hersheys )
Easterfest – The best Christian music festival I’ve been too.

Last night – as I was chatting to my family in Australia it was time for Good Friday lunch. (They are 15 hours ahead of me and can give me the lo-down on the next day before I get there! And Good Friday and Easter Monday are nationally recognised public holidays.) They had all just returned from their ‘Good Friday’ church service and were preparing to eat together as a family. We were skyping so they placed the laptop at the end of the table and chatted to me while I watched them eat their roast pork and veges. We’re not very Jewish!

In Australia, both Good Friday and Easter Monday are nationally recognised holidays. Even though Australia is a highly secular country, you would find a good number of Aussies would find themselves stepping into a church for an annual visit because it feels like the right thing to do or out of ‘obligation’ or to pay some sort of penance.

Australians identifying themselves as Christians has gone from 96.1% in 1901 to 63.9% in 2006. A high percentage of people are from Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran backgrounds and only go to church for religious holidays, weddings or funerals.

As a Christian, Easter is a time when I first, remember Jesus’ death on the cross to save me from my sins and I can only stand in awe of his great love for me. Why would someone die for me!?! Then I rejoice in Jesus’ victory over death as he rose again three days later. What a glorious thought that death now for followers of Jesus, is only the doorway into a glorious eternity with our Saviour!

What does this time of the year mean to you?

High Resolution Press Images:

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The bean…Chicago, IL

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We just had an awesome time in Chicago! Alabaster Box was asked to come up and play at an outreach event at the Gurnee Mills Outlet mall just north of Chicago. It’s one of the biggest in the US apparently.

They promoters were amazing. They showed us round Chicago quickly the afternoon we arrived and took us along Michigan Ave to Millenium Park where we got to see ‘The Bean’. Check out my pics.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pmQur2Zos]They guys also recorded a shoutout to everyone in Aussie getting ready to go to Easterfest (AGMF). Check it out… Makes me a bit homesick to be honest… haven’t heard that anthem for EVER!

On the Sunday the band had a crazy time in the church service at Village Church of Gurnee in the morning. It was a really powerful time even though they only sung three songs! Completely sold out of CD’s and had to take mail orders. It was a crazy morning on the merch table.
In the evening they also had a powerful time. Many ‘mall’ customers got to hear the gospel. Bet they never expected that while outlet shopping!