Sabbath morning I woke up with the help of my trusty cell phone alarm,* got ready, and drove to Southern. I arrived a little early and was able to find a really great parking place. On the way in I happened to meet up with my long-time friend Diana, who was heading inside to help with the event backstage. Her family recently moved away from my hometown, and it was awesome to see her again.

[*The point of that being that ordinarily I never use an alarm clock; however, I was tired from the drive there, and knew that was the only way I'd get up early enough to have breakfast, get ready, and leave two hours early (due to the time zone change between where my mom lives and where Southern is) was to use an alarm. This was the first time I'd used my cell phone as an alarm, and I found a nice, gentle ringtone which worked out perfectly. I hate waking up to a jarring alarm.]

The meetings by David Asscherick were very good. (I think they will eventually be available for download on SEYC’s website.) However, his messages were basically a repeat of his presentations last year at 3ABN’s Spring Camp Meeting. I think just one of his messages was new to me. But review is good, and I was blessed. I also went to a great presentation on how to reach the atheistic mind, by Justin Kim. Although atheism is relatively rare in the U.S. population at large, it is rife in academic and scientific circles, and the popular media strongly favors naturalistic materialism, which is an atheistic worldview. So I was happy to see Justin tackling this topic. (David also dealt with this topic in one of his meetings, and it seems to be in the crosshairs of Enzyme Productions, which both David and Justin are involved in.) And I attended a couple seminars by Dr. Philip Samaan which were very beautiful devotional-style meetings.

Over the weekend I saw lots of friends, including Johnny Suarez, Regi Samuel (also from my hometown), the rest of the Santos-Bernall family including my great friends Adrian and Andrea, Derrick, Andy Im, Jenni Brain (who, apparently, is living up to her last name at Southern), Eve Parker, and many other acquaintances, as well as coworkers from 3ABN.

For Sabbath lunch I was invited to the Santos’ home. As might be expected, it was a full house, and it was great to talk with the other guests and enjoy the good food.

In the afternoon I had a good chat with Andy. We both agreed that GYC ought to have a regular publication, as well as an online community and online articles, in addition to the website they have now (not to imply that either of us have any say-so in the matter). I think both of us are too busy to initiate such a project, at least at this stage, but it sounded like we would both be very interested in actively supporting it. Andy is a very gifted writer with a clear perception of truth. And there are many other talented and biblically sound writers within GYC’s circle to pull from, including many well-known evangelists and other who’s-who personalities.

Saturday night my friend Eve invited me over for supper at her aunt and uncle’s home, and later we played a game of O’Thunder, which I had never played before. It took me a while to figure out the rules, and it looked like I would be totally sunk. But eventually I got the hang of it, and actually won (as I told Eve, as long as I win, I enjoy playing). We had time to play only one round, as it is rather lengthy.

I spent the night at Adrian’s pad. Sunday I had to return home, so I left early and arrived home in the late afternoon or early evening. So nice to sleep again in my own bed!

With the help of my friends the Santos family, I found a hotel not far from campus, which I shared with Samuel Santos. We arrived late Friday night, maybe 30 minutes or so into the main meeting. The featured speaker was Mark Finley of It Is Written, and all of his messages were excellent. I also enjoyed seminars by Dr. Ron Clouzet, who is a faculty member of SAU and previous guest speaker at the General Youth Conference (GYC) meetings. The messages were clear and powerful, and I felt blessed spiritually to be there.

The SEYC meetings are modeled after GYC, and many of the SEYC officers are previous GYC attendees. SEYC is regional, so the number of regular attendees was significantly less than GYC’s. There were not as many seminars to choose from, although the available ones looked impressive. The event was shorter, running from Friday night through Saturday evening, with an outreach planned on Sunday. Unlike GYC, the event was free, except we had to arrange for our own lodging and meals. My friends Diana and Sara Santos and Jenny Brain took care of my meals, including an awesome Sabbath lunch with vegan lasagna and two kinds of cheesecake. Yummm!

It was great to see so many people: My good friend Adrian is an SEYC officer, and he introduced me to some of his friends. The 3ABN road crew was there, along with others from my home area, including most of our local church young adult group. I was surprised to see my cousin Greg with his wife Linda, and Crystal and Wendell. We spent a few moments catching up, and I gave them a “backstage” mini-tour of 3ABN’s production truck.

On Sunday I stopped at my mom’s house on the return trip to see if I could fix her computer. It had been practically totaled due to runaway virus and other infections, and seemed to have other problems as well. (Note to self: Never, ever, ever recommend an eMachine to anyone! For that matter, I kept asking myself why I hadn’t bought her a Mac. None of this ever would have happened.) I had a major unexpected setback: My mom had asked her phone company to discontinue service. No phone meant no internet, which meant major hassles getting the computer up and running. It took me all day, but I finally got the computer to a semi-usable state (everything installed but the anti-virus software, which perversely refused to install). Unfortunately I was not able to do more, since I still had a 6-hour drive ahead of me. As it was, I got home a little past midnight. Nice to be in my own bed!

Oddly, my camera refused to work virtually all weekend, so I was unable to take any pictures of my friends or SEYC. However, I couldn’t resist snapping this photo of a horse and buggy passing by my mom’s house: