Monday, February 02, 2009

MissionsFest Vancouver - 2009

We just got back from a fantastic 3 days at MissionsFest in Vancouver. MissionsFest is one of the largest Christian gatherings in North America. In addition to speakers like Tony Campolo and Mark Buchanan, missions agencies from around the world were represented at Canada Place. I have no idea how many agencies were represented but reports were that the crowd was in excess of 30,000 people over 3 days. It was a busy and energizing atmosphere.  I could not have done it alone and I was so happy to have several volunteers work with me at the booth.  Donna and Gail had a steady stream of people coming by to see them.  Who could resist those smiles?  (The coke cans on the table came from a booth up the way who were very generous and kept me in particular well fueled with sugar and caffiene during the entire conference.)

This was our first year at MissionsFest as an exhibitor.  Our main goal in participating this year was to meet as many people as possible and tell them about our vision for PrayBC.  Our hardworking team of volunteers gave away just under 300 mugs and about 1000 bookmarks to people who visited our booth.
Here's a picture of Barb and our friend and fellow blogger Sonya from Kamloops.  Sonya and her husband are ministry partners as well and it's always fun to see them.  We saw many other ministry partners and friends over the time we were there and at times it felt like a family reunion.  It's amazing to meet people who pray, give and believe that we need to invest in the lives of leaders in this way.


 
We were so happy to have Rob Parker from the National House of Prayer in Ottawa come by to say hello as well.  Rob and the entire team at NHOP are doing a great work and are a real inspiration to us.  I was able to present Rob with a PrayBC mug.  It's great to know that we will have people praying for the BC Provincial Election all the way in Ontario.
MissionsFest really wanted to focus on encouraging youth and young adults to participate this year and they certainly achieved their goal.  These young ladies will be old enough to vote in the election on May 12 and also joined our prayer network in order to pray but to also be informed of the issues in a non-partisan manner.                                                                 If you'd like to see more pictures from MissionsFest, you can join the Leading Influence group on FaceBook where they will be posted later today. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post.

J MacDonald

Anonymous said...

Great update on MissionsFest!
I know God is going to open some amazing doors for us!