onething Egypt - day 0

Tomorrow marks the beginning of my trek to Cairo, Egypt for the onething conference there. I'm super excited - I've never travelled internationally before! I'll be heading there with Luke Wood, Justin Rizzo, and other members of the onething team. Dwayne and Jen Roberts and Wes Martin will be speaking at the 4-day event, and we'll be leading worship many times (even a few times in Arabic, believe it or not). After the conference, we'll be ministering at a church in Cairo for a few days and doing a little bit of sightseeing before returning home.

We've received word that the conference will be drawing some 4,000 Egyptian young adults, possibly many more. It's truly a groundbreaking conference and they're estimating that it's probably going to be the largest gathering of Christian youth and young adults in Egypt since the monks back in the early first century.

I count it as an unbelievable privilege to go and serve the Egyptian church during this time. Our team has been praying for the conference and the Lord has really highlighted the issue of servanthood particularly to my own heart. It's so easy in our typical American consumer mindset to go somewhere, "do our thing", and take off. But I want to go and be among them as one who serves so that they see Jesus in me, just as Jesus came to serve and not to be served. Jesus loves the church in Egypt, so much so that scripture prophesies many things about the Lord's redeeming work in Egypt prior to and following Jesus' second coming. So to partner with them in servanthood is to partner with Jesus.

I'm hoping to document the conference as much as possible with photos and regular updates here on my blog if we have any sort of internet access in the middle of the desert. I'm sure there will be wireless when we get to Cairo, though, so keep your feed readers and browsers tuned in!

I would so appreciate your prayers during the trip.

Here are some prayer requests:

• God's protection as we travel - by plane, shuttle, car, and bus
• Help physically to cope with jet lag
• Protection against Satan's attacks and schemes
• The power of God to be released on the worship and speaking
• Preparation for the hearts of the Egyptian young adults that will be attending

Thank you for praying!