Day 451: Hiatus

So this morning I woke up to a harsh reality. All this involvement with the college hasn't come without sacrifice. Sure, I'm being part of some amazing things here at college with the creative team and I'm studying and learning so much, but being present with what's happening here has left me slowly losing grasp of the world I left to be here. I'm not proud to confess this, but it's the truth and I don't want to avoid the truth. So this is what I'm going to do: as an executive order as to preserve communication between two worlds, I will be temporarily retiring this blog (maybe permanently, pending on conditions) to focus communication to the people that matter most to me. If this isn't farewell, then I'll see you when I see you. If this is, then I want to extend a big thank you for taking time of your days to read on my adventures in Australia. This blog's ultimate purpose was to look back at how much I've grown in two year through the Hillsong International Leadership College; it's been a long way, but I've had the support of many great family and friends. So again, thank you; I said it every time, and I'll say it again:



God bless

Steven

Day 450: The Final Stretch (Colour)

The way the church sees it is that even though the conferences are over, they consider the Sunday services right after to be directly affiliated with Colour. This is mainly because of the women that come for the conference but visit on Sunday as well; the church wants them to have as good of an experience in the church as they would at the conference. It's a great concept, really; it's what connects the church to everything else they do. Hillsong aims to involve God in literally everything they do, and it definitely inspires people. This morning, I got to direct for the 8 a.m. service once again; now I'm starting to get the hang of this. I'm rostered to direct again next Sunday, so I want to be ready for it. The rest of the day was solely dedicated to getting some rest, because even on these next two days off I'll still be doing some work then. The evening was amazing; Christine Caine, a Hillsong veteran and current leader of the A21 campaign to battle human trafficking across the world, gave an incredible message on God being within the impossible. My dad would always tell me that with God, nothing was impossible; this message brought me back to those times growing up when I felt that it would be impossible for me to accomplish certain things. Even being in this country, studying at this college would have seemed impossible to me a few years ago; but here I am, standing on God's faithfulness and grace. Colour 2011 is officially over; I need to hang out with guys this whole week or I'm going to lose my mind talking to girls anymore.

God bless,
Steven

Day 449: The Lighter Sides of Colour

Last week on the last day, the city campus had the majority of the work to do, especially with the pack down of the place when it was all over. The hills students helped out until a certain time, and then they would head out to their homes early. This time around, we got the easy side of it. Today was very similar to yesterday, with some slight changes to what I did. In the afternoon, I helped Laz with his camera; the guy never really got a break, so I gave him one and worked his camera in the meantime. It was a lot of fun, and I'm happy I got to make a larger contribution to the conference. When Revelation was over and I was released until pack down, I just reflected on what was accomplished the past two weeks. I've been surrounded by well over 15,000 women in total, serving them and helping to give them the best conference they have ever experienced. I've had the privilege of seeing just a glimpse of what the creative departments of the church do for events like this, and actually being part of it myself was the highest honor. On a plus side, I never had to spend a dollar, because of the addition of lunch vouchers as opposed to last year only having dinner vouchers (that's my God continually providing for me, awesome). This conference really was something to remember; I enjoyed every part of it, and I hope that from here I can take what I've learned and seen and make this semester even greater.

God bless,
Steven

Day 448: Small Contributions, Okay

This was my schedule for today:
1. Wake up around 6 to get ready
2. Get to the church before 7, since that's when the buses were leaving
3. Arrive at the Hills campus around 7:40-8
4. Immediately mark down that I'm there and head to camera 6 where I would be assisting
5. After rehearsals, head back to the control room for a quick meeting
6. Small break before the waves of women entered the main auditorium
7. First session; did my duty, had fun doing it! Got to work with Adam, who was the camera operator I assisted at Colour 1
8. After the session, it was lunch time; from here I was basically free until 4:45
9. Go out and about, filming things for college creative
10. Return to the control room to help with Revelation, which was the pre-show the church puts on before the evening session
11. After Revelation, I'm free to film again
12. Evening session's over, and it's time to go
13. Make sure I get on the bus to head back to the city
14. Get to the Meritons, and sleep.

This conference day wasn't as hectic as the first, which was really a relief. Sure, I'm still doing all kinds of stuff all day, but I wasn't as tired by the end of the day. Pretty good, pretty good.

God bless,
Steven

Day 447: Colour, 2.0 and Condensed

Upon arrival at the Hills campus, I felt prepared to take on whatever I needed to do. I was confident, I was well rested, and I was hungry for action. Ever get those days when you come in to your work place and you end up having nothing to do because it's all taken care of? That was today for me. I found out that I'm only rostered for the morning sessions and a small intermission before the evening sessions; other than that, I'm a free man. I pretty much spent the day filming stuff and trying to find something productive to do; I even joined two completely different teams just because. I will say though, that despite not having done any work with TV, I still consider this a good day; it's only going to get better from here.

God bless,
Steven

Day 446: Oh, No Bump In?

Normally with conference work, the day before the conference begins the college bumps in all the materials we'll be needing for the next few days. This time, however, it was given to the Hills campus to do the bump in, so us city folk didn't have to go. Sweet relief. I just spent the day resting, because I knew it's going to be a tough one. Yup, that's pretty much my day.

God bless,
Steven

Day 445: Celebrating the City's Colours

So today was a win for me. Chapel overall was awesome; I got to help present a video I put together for Colour, and so far everyone that's come up to me about it has told me all positive things. I was talking about the way I make videos with a friend, and as I was explaining it, it dawned on me how genuine it is. As you would notice most of the time, whenever I make retrospective videos, I never put myself in them. The reason I do this is to represent the fact that it's not about me; it never has been about me, so why start now you know? I've always desired to serve for God's calling/purpose; my mom pulled a 1 samuel 1-2 when I was young and dedicated me to the good Lord's service, so from there on it just stuck to me. I love serving, no matter what size the job, importance, or credit; as long as the heart behind the service is good, I don't mind doing it. I wanted this video to represent how important this college family is; I wanted to capture the heart of our friends as they were serving in their respective areas. I consider it a mission accomplished =)

God bless,
Steven

Day 444: The Hero's Holding Out

I totally pulled off a record sleep in this morning. Thanks to my many years at SFC, my internal clock would naturally wake me up around 6 or 7; that was just completely normal for me. So for me to wake up at 11:20 a.m. was a shock and awe moment. I've never woken up that late, so I'm still a bit in disbelief that I allowed myself to do that. Anyways, after a bowl of cereal I finished editing a video for the Colour conference; I want to point out that this specific video was being made for the students, as in there wasn't any particular project attached to it. I simply wanted to make a video that honored the hard work that we did to help pull off this amazing conference. It just so happened that around 10 minutes after I finished the editing that I get a message from two of my oversights with a message from Mary, our creative director. She was wondering if there was any possibility for us to have a presentation for celebrating Colour; if that's not God timing, I don't know what is. So I told her that I had a video made, and after a couple requests here and there, I made two versions: my original, epic video and it's shorter, more time convenient counterpart. For chapel, a 2 minute difference between these versions makes all the difference; I just wish we could use the full one, because it really captures the fullness of how great the team was while the other one gives only a piece of it. Either way, after it's played in college, I will share it with everyone else on Facebook so if anyone missed it they can still see it. We had a family dinner with the chapel core team this evening, and it was great; our fearless leader, Toast, made curry for us, and it was the bomb.com. We talked over this coming weekend, since the first year students were going to be heading their own chapel for the first time; there's lots of preparation needed for this, so we need to have it figured out before then. My day finished by being introduced for the first time to a little show called Heroes; I've always wanted to see this show, but because of my busy church life back in the day, I never could. This show, in summary, is awesome. I can't wait to see the rest of it.

God bless,
Steven

Day 443: Next Level Directing/Gaming

So here's the thing: life is going pretty well for me right about now. I've been putting in more effort into getting solid devotional times, and the fruit of that choice has never been sweeter. This is why I chose to call this blog a journey, because I knew that even at the very end of it I was still going to be learning and experiencing new things. Well technically I'll be learning new stuff for the rest of my life. I usually have a 6:30 call time, but I ended up sleeping past my alarm and getting there around 6:50; I had to also to run against the rain, but looking back at it, that was fun! I was given the opportunity to direct for the first time in church (my legacy continues...). I won't lie, I was pretty nervous about it, but thanks to my amazing leaders helping me, I managed to get through it. After the service, I finished an assessment, started video editing for the footage I got from the Colour conference, and just rested; I needed this, and right now I feel great. In the evening, I got to hang out with my flatmates and some other great friends over a few games on the Nintendo Wii; my forearms are still feeling the aftermath of the games. Great day, great God; you know how it goes.

God bless,
Steven

Day 442: Massage Voucher, Anyone?

So just like that, Colour conference 1 is over. It's been a long, rough three days, but our team did such an awesome job at making conference an experience to remember. Today I really got to see the potential of a gathering of a people that are passionate about seeing the world change; it's like nothing you've ever seen. There's so much energy, and there's so much presence of the Holy Spirit; it was great to hear from Craig Groeschel, Jeanne Mayo, and Lisa Bevere, as well as Christine Caine and of course Bobbie Houston. This church is seriously one of the most influential churches in the world, and these kind of events make that more than clear. It was such an honor to be part of this, and to think we're only halfway there! With a whole other conference coming up this week, it's going to take a lot of rest. Starting now.

God bless,
Steven

Day 441: Full Contribution

So today's events were much more productive than yesterday's, thanks to finally fulfilling my rostered allocation. Because I didn't get to train yesterday, I just sat in the service and experienced the awesomeness of Colour; but before I got on the bus one of my leaders told me to go straight to my camera when I got there this morning. So I did. And it was super cool. I'm assisting a tracking camera, which basically means it's a camera that moves on a small track to bring some more perspectives during the service. This camera needs 3 people: one operator and two assistants that are in charger of either moving the fully rigged camera or constantly adjusting the cables so the operators don't trip. I pretty much had to learn on the spot on how to work the rig, but thanks be to God that I managed to pull it off, and quite well to boot. Whenever I wasn't on assist, I was walking around getting some more footage of city campus volunteers in action; always a pleasure, but since I was actually doing volunteer work I didn't get to do as much. Everything went so well today though; I even found time to just sit down with my Bible and get some spiritual food for the day. My prayer was definitely more consistent this time around, and it's sure motivating me to want to strive for that excellence every day. All in all, God was doing some work today; lots of women accepted Christ during the sessions, the key speakers gave incredible messages, and we all got to see the potential of what could be if the whole world was united under God's banner. Even just standing on the floor level watching thousands of women worshipping can inspire you; it sure inspired me.

God bless,
Steven

P.S. Can't believe it's almost over; just one more day and POOF. It's gone, like that. Crazy..

Day 440: Position Doesn't Matter

Today was great. Got a lot of filming done, and despite a rough first day on TV, God remained faithful to me. I'm just really tired and I need to get some sleep since we have an early call time tomorrow; sorry, but I gave you the smallest possible summary of the day. I don't really want to get into details at the moment...

However, I will tell you about what I learned from today. So I'm rostered to be a camera assistant for the conference. There were a lot of miscommunications throughout the day, and by the end of it I was left feeling out of place and a bit useless for not having done anything, but then I remember something I prayed: "God, no matter what I do or where I serve, I pray that I give it my best for Your glory and not my own gain." If anything, this is what got me through it all; I hope I gave Him the best of my ability today.

God bless,
Steven

Day 439: A Coloured Video

Bump in happened today. It wasn't as intense as last year's, thank God. In fact, I did very little compared to being on the logistics team last year; when you're on TV, most of the equipment is already set up when you get there so you don't have to much heavy lifting. I pretty much spent the day with my old roommate Lazaro, walking around the SEC helping whenever we could. Laz and I are the only college students in the TV team representing the city campus; I consider this a high honor. Whenever I wasn't helping with TV, I was filming for college; considering I was pretty much the only person filming, it should be fun to see an edited project filled with the stuff I got today. I'm so looking forward to this conference; it's gonna be awesome!!

God bless,
Steven

Day 438: Darkest Before Dawn

Today marked the eve of the first Colour conference; in less than 12 hours I will be on a bus heading to the Sydney Entertainment Center to help "bump in" all the equipment and set up the venue for the next 3 days. A year ago, I wasn't sure what to expect from this conference; this time, I'm super excited to see what happens. Even the fact that I get to be part of the TV team makes this conference that much more exciting; I really want to film as much of this as possible. I just don't even know if I'll be able to, but we'll see. This morning was... interesting at best. After our rehearsal we had the student/staff meeting where we got crash course training on what to expect for Colour, but the way it started was unusual and almost disturbing. So the way services usually run is after the pre-roll the worship team starts with a praise song; but this time it started with a random song being played over the monitors; turns out our campus pastors weren't in the building, but no one but the top leaders knew. So we all ended up having a random dance party instead of praise and worship; different.... but entertaining. Chapel itself was amazing today; we had a Touching Heaven chapel, where we had an extended time of worship and prayer. The rest of the day didn't involve much, but that's okay; this way I can get some extra sleep to get ready for tomorrow and the rest of the week!

God bless,
Steven

Day 437: Breakfasts and Fast Breaks

When you have an incredibly busy weekend, you look forward to having a day off to start your week right. My morning started with a nice breakfast with Aaron, catching up on life over savory pancakes; best way to start the week off I think. The rest of the day was dedicated to working on assessments; so that ended up not working out so week due to laziness, but I will say that I got a lot accomplished anyway. I found out today that I will be a camera assist for Colour; I'm not sure what that means for me, but either way I'm excited. This week is gonna be sooooo good.

God bless,
Steven

Day 436: The Cross, Not the Crutch

Tonight, Crishan spoke on the difference between taking up your cross and following Christ daily and using the cross as a crutch. He talked on how a crutch can only do so much for you despite it's limits, while the cross goes far beyond our expectations and desires. It sure made me think and examine myself; my spiritual life is one of the biggest challenges I face here in college. Because I'm serving in so many areas of the church and college, I can easily forget the why and focus on the what; basically this is me confessing that it's happened several times this semester. But this is also me realizing that my relationship with God is a growth process; I know that if I want to succeed this year, I need to spend time with Him and make sure that His voice is heard in my life. Today was one of those days where it was simply a win; everything was fantastic, and knowing that I'm forgiven and loved makes it all worth it.

God bless,
Steven

P.S. Colour starts this week; pray for me now haha

Day 435: What a Smash!

This day was an absolute success! Chapel was great; we got to incorporate another video into chapel, and it went very well; I give much props to Tommy who was working nonstop on editing this week (he did more than I did, and that's saying a lot). I also got some new team members today too; I'm very excited that I can finally put together a full roster now! Since I'm usually done after chapel, I headed home to hang out with my peeps; the ultimate start to the weekend was having our friend Nathan over. He usually doesn't come by that often, so it was a real treat to have him join us for the evening. Colour's coming very soon; I need to start preparing!

God bless,
Steven

Day 434: Always Last Minute

One thing that's funny about college is how many things are usually run last minute. Because I am now part of the Hillsong Men media team, I don't really have to be there as early; however, I got a phone call from my friend Kyle ten minutes before my alarm asking if I could play piano for praise and worship. So I quickly got ready and headed over; it's funny how I've been playing piano more than I've been playing bass since I switched my major. Working with guys like Jared, (B)ryan, Aksel, Colin, and Kyle is always an honor, because these guys have the heart of the church; when it comes to being a muso, I look up to them. Misterhood this morning was great; my fellow filmmaker Tommy finished our pre-roll video (pre-roll is the video that plays before the beginning of a service to build up excitement), and it was a huge success; I'm very proud to see that he's getting right into the culture so quickly. Around the end of Sisterhood, I was approached by Mary asking if I could help with a video project later on; more on that in a bit. Classes today were awesome; lots of great input from our teachers, as well as insight on some big assessments coming up. Now on to Team Night; tonight was the last Team Night for our creative pastor, Gabe Kelly, as he and his family is heading out to the New York church to build that up. He'll be surely missed; Gabe is such an influential leader, but we know he'll be a great addition to the New York team. Right after Team Night, I got my film team member Jonothan and headed to the garage to help with filming. We filmed a small little section of what will eventually be the opener for Colour conference; didn't quite realize how big this is until they mentioned that. To think that with a little God mixed into your passions, He opens all kinds of opportunities; I got the privilege to be part of Colour conference in a whole new way. Wow... just wow...

God bless,
Steven

Day 433: Blessed Assurance

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine
Oh what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born in His spirit, washed in His blood

This is my story
This is my song
Praising my Savior
All the day long

Perfect submission, perfect delight
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love

This is my story
This is my song
Praising my Savior
All the day long

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blessed
Watching and waiting, looking above
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love

Beautiful words, hey? This is one of the songs the band I'm part of will be performing. The challenge is to take a song and rearrange the music in the style of a completely different styled artist. In this case, it's a hymn done in the style of an artist named Jonsi, who is the lead singer of an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros. I can't really describe what this sounds like, but I can tell you that it's sounding excellent. The creative meeting was great too; we pretty much have the month of April scheduled, so it's going to be awesome. Wednesdays are one of the fuller days, but when it's this good I don't mind it at all.

God bless,
Steven

Day 432: Getting It Straight

God is so good. Today was good. Life is good. And all the time... God is good.

God bless,
Steven

Day 431: Ahead of Schedule

Today was another lockdown day; funny that I almost missed these kind of days. Basically I had to work on my assessments so I could then work on videos. I managed to finish and upload the only assessment due today before the afternoon, so I was able to simply relax and edit videos. I uploaded a few more videos from the Skillet concert (way overdue), and surprisingly they got a lot of views within the first half hour. In the evening, I picked up a couple important files for tomorrow's chapel; luckily the training I got on Friday should make the process easier this time around. I also have some big news, but I'll share that in a bit.

God bless,
Steven

Day 430: Short Life, Long Life

Today's mission oriented day was full of awesomeness. My Sunday mornings always start around 5:55 to get ready for my 6:30 call time; I was originally supposed to be observing the director for eventually doing that for church services, but due to a roster mix-up I ended up doing CCU (it's basically making sure that the colors on the screen look good). I hadn't done CCU in a very long time, so I felt pretty rusty; but I managed to pull it off thanks to the great leaders in the room. I wanted to take a nap when I got back, but I ended up working on my assessment; I'm not done yet, but I'll get it done tomorrow. In Jesus' name. Tonight's service was awesome; pastor Brian gave a message on two main facts of life and how we can use that to live better. His two points? Life's short, and life's long. The Bible says like a vapor we're here for a short time, then vanish; sure makes you think differently about life in general. Considering I didn't get much sleep last night, I'll be going to sleep now =)

God bless,
Steven

Day 429: Outnumbered 6 to 1

Today's main event was a video shoot for this coming Friday's chapel; basically what's happening is a few girls will be performing a special item that will also support the Colour conference happening the very next week; my oversight Lauren's idea was to incorporate a video to play in the background while the band was performing; so we spent a good 4 hours getting the video together. There were 19 girls in total for the video, so it was a bit awkward being in a van surrounded by females; I guess I should get used to it since Colour will have a few thousand woman in the same building at the same time. What's great about being on the college creative team is that I don't have to do things by myself; I have my own team to assist me! We took in a couple guys from the new intake that have done video work in the past, and whenever I have an upcoming video shoot, they come with me and help film it all. It definitely brings the pressure down on my part. The even better part is that the editing is shared amongst the team too; I'm mainly focusing on making sure that College News keeps coming, and the other guys work on the college creative projects. One of the higher power students sent me a link to a website where I could get some of the biggest video/graphic design programs for conveniently cheaper prices than normal; my ultimate goal is to try to get Final Cut Express so I can start learning how to use Final Cut Pro (which I may or may not be getting for free courtesy of the college once they receive new licenses). The Express version is much cheaper than the full program, and it gives you a summarized version of the potential of the program; so far what I've seen has impressed me a lot, but I'm going to need to dedicate a lot of time to figure it out. Another week starts, and a lot of work is coming with it.

God bless,
Steven

Day 428: Making HIStory

A while back my dad sent me an email with a small note to read Judges 6:12; Judges is one of my favorite books of the Bible, so I felt comfortable checking it out. There's only one part of this verse that has the potential to uplift the spirit: "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior." I've always questioned whether or not this type of word could apply to my life, especially the mighty warrior. I've certainly been raised to be a mighty warrior (thanks for that, mom and dad), but I'll admit I haven't lived like one consistently. I have at times a lazy, selfish mentality that takes over whenever I'm in a place I don't necessarily want to be; but sometimes God reels you in to show you something cool. Take today for example. There were a lot of expectations set on the TV team today for chapel; this was because we had a couple major things happening in chapel. One was a video to play in the background while an all girl band was performing a song by the Dixie Chicks (it's the one from Runaway Bride) which wasn't all that difficult to manage; the other, was a little something called College News. I was informed that in the history of college this has not happened before; there have been attempts, but they were unsuccessful. This week I was determined to make it happen; I've been pushing the idea since last semester! During the rehearsal, I dealt with a bit of technological letdown; the videos weren't playing the way I wanted them to. It was so stressful I ended up having to skip my only class of the day to make sure it was going to work. My ultimate saving grace came in the form of my good friend and fellow televisionary Hanna; she gave me a step by step crash course on how to convert and load videos onto the system, which is something I need to know for this year anyway (so double win for me). Before she came to help, I was so brought down by it all; this whole video thing was my proving ground, and it wasn't looking too good at the time. God decided to wake me up and used my friend Amy to encourage me for the day; she said that if we're not including God in all this and being task-oriented, then we don't have any use to play the videos. As soon as she finished talking, I felt so convicted; I realized right then and there how I was acting; I totally left Him out of the equation, and that was making it harder on myself. So as soon as everyone left to either class or to go home, I stayed behind, pulled out my Bible, and just talked with God. I looked back at Judges 6:12, and as I was reading I felt the words popping off the page and into my spirit. God's words were speaking right to me, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. From there on, my energy was renewed and literally everything was working almost perfectly. College News was an absolute success, praise God. It was the smoothest chapel service for TV I've had all year, praise God. And I felt such a peace in my heart from this whole experience, praise God. He was the center of the day, the main focus where everything else fell into place around Him. And it was the best day of 2011 so far.

God bless,
Steven

Day 427: Capacity

God, I would love to have more capacity in life. I'm super grateful for the capacity I have now; it did get me through this past year. But lately, I realize last year's capacity won't get me through this one; all I'm asking for is that I can get closer to You so that my capacity can expand. Don't get me wrong, today was awesome; I got to play keys for Misterhood for the first time since last year, I finished College News and got it approved, and I got to connect with lots of new people, but there were a few points where I felt like I couldn't handle it anymore. But in the end, I kew that above all else, You are good. You are for me, not against me. You are right beside me, so I don't have to worry. Thanks for that.

I'm just thinking about College News right now; it's never been done before (at least in the city campus as far as I know). God's using me to make history here; I couldn't dare take full credit for something like this, because if it wasn't for Him, I wouldn't be here. I'm excited to see this become a new medium that the college can use; there's been many people like me that started something that we're experiencing the fruit of. They had one simple idea, and now it's escalated to the big ministry it is today; Street Teams is one of those ministries that was started by a college student some years back. I just feel so privileged to be able to contribute to what's already an amazing school; I seriously can't wait to see what's in store for the rest of this year.

God bless,
Steven

Day 426: Last Minute Things

Today had a couple incidents where "last minute" pretty much defined it all. The classes today were awesome; I got so much from them, I feel empowered to see worship in a whole new way. In our music workshop, we did a great job with our rearrangement piece; I'm feeling pretty confident with the band and how we're doing. After class, I went straight to the library to work on a other project for College News; I got asked to make ads for a couple other things yesterday, and today was my only chance to actually make it possible. I started around 5:30 and finished around 7:50; the end product looks great, if I may say so myself. I also got asked while I was working on the ads if I could help play piano for worship during the Misterhood service; it's been a long time, so I'm looking forward to it!

God bless,
Steven

Day 425: Tight Schedule

Today just made me realize how busy of a person I am this year. There's so much going on, it's surprising how I haven't burned out. This morning I filmed an ad for Colour; it's going to be tricky to get this College News thing the way the leadership want it. For one, I'm limited to two minutes; one ad I worked on over the weekend was 1:34 by itself. I had to really cut it down while trying to keep it's message intact; not an easy feat. Tomorrow I have to find a way to make a few more advertisements while I still have time; it involves more stop motion, so give or take it could take me a while to make this one happen. I managed to make some time to talk with my family, but it didn't really work out; hopefully that will be fixed soon, because it was a bummer.. other than that, a great day.

God bless,
Steven