About three weeks ago, on the 28th of July, Hillsong United began their tour in South America. Their first destination was Brazil, coming here the second time, according to what my friends said. Their first destination was Sao Paulo, a huge city which is kinda close to my city here in Brazil, about six hours by car.
I, as... Hmm... can I say "fans"? Well it is some Christian band, and we can't make idol out of anything except Christ. Hahaha... Well.. let's just say supporter. I have been listening Hillsong Church's music for a long time, since Darlene was still a young woman, she still jumped high, and United was still an embryo. So I kinda know a lot about this church and their growth, and of course, their quality of music.
Well I could talk about Hillsong this whole post, but it wasn't the purpose of my writing this time. I am doing a small, a little out dated report about the concert.
I got the ticket for this concert about like, a month before. Brazilian are, when they are crazy about something, they are really crazy about it. OBSESSED. About three or four months before the show, there were already an official website, bunch of fan communities in orkut, Brazil's myspace, where people talk and discuss fan matters, like, does Joel Houston really looks like He-Man and have eyes like fish, is Marty Sampson coming with the United team for this tour, and really many others insignificant (for me) fan matters. It just doesn't feel right for me, I mean, this United thing is not exactly a band, and they are touring around the world is not exactly looking for fans and popularity - although it helps them a lot - but they are traveling around the world to see God call His people back to Him. It's totally not about them, it's about Jesus Christ. I hope these crazy fans' eyes will be opened one day.
So anyway, day 27th, at night, we all went off for our journey to Sao Paulo. There were me, Marcio, Denise, Chico, Camila, and Camila's mother, that made six of us. We went with a van from Londrina, embarking about midnight.
In front of our van, before embarking.The travel was bumpy in many places, was also cold and tiring, and we went resting in one or two places. Approaching Sao Paulo, about two o'clock in the morning, a police officer stopped us. We were all scared, thinking of the worst to happen, but funny thing was, the police only needed a ride. We agreed to take him to Sao Paulo. "Ajuda com sua segurança tambem," he said. "Helps with your safety too."
It was not because we gave the police officer a lift, of course, but our safety was secured. God was with us. Arrived safely and early in Anhembi Arena, about 7 o'clock in one really foggy and cold morning. To my disbelief, there were already people there, queuing for the line. We stopped and talk, and some even more shocking news, some told us that they've been there since 11 o'clock last night. That is so.. crazy. And it's not that they're crazy about Jesus, I'm sure. They're crazy about the band.
So, seeing there were yet no massive queue formed at the arena, we decided to clean up and freshen up at the mall. We went to Central Norte, a huge mall close to the Anhembi Arena. I had the video, if only the incident with my second host brother that involves the lost of my 1.5 GB of photos and videos didn't happen, I could've shown you the video. But well... What's lost it lost, right?
Well, everybody got freshened up, we went around the mall a little bit, did some shopping (I bought this cool red t-shirt for 25 R$), and finally at lunch time we ate at the foodcourt. It was super expensive. I wasted about 20 R$ for a plate of meal and a glass of sweet tea. Yeah, imagine Jakarta's mall, only with stronger money value.
After lunch, we went back to the arena at about two o'clock. The band was having a check-sound, and it animated me and Camila to be quickly stand on the line. But to my surprise again, there were already this huge line of people, forming about 300 meters. We walked so far from the gate to finally meet the end of the line.
At the line, many things happened. United we stood, united we thirsted, united we hungered, and got tired, from about 2 until 6 PM. The gate was to be opened at 4, but for some reasons, it wasn't opened until 6 PM. And standing there, we talked to many people, found people that are yet even crazier about the band rather than Jesus. They talked about Joel, Marty, and JD as if they were gods, and most of this disappoint me. If United said that the greatest crowd, the most animated ones they found in Brazil, I would say that probably this is because the people are animated about the band, not about Jesus. I didn't find any of these people standing in line maintaining their attitude, some even yell out in anger and frustration when the gate were not being opened, rubbish were being thrown to the ground and traffic are disturbed. No offense to Brazilian United fans, but their attitude is totally different than the polite attitude shown by Indonesian in the United concert last year.
I got to know a Bolivian family. The mother was a Bolivian, and the father (who wasn't there) was a Brazilian. They went to Singapore to study, and their children speaks amazing English. I made friend with Oneide, their oldest daughter, a very nice girl with a godly attitude. This family had this passion about building their own church, and is praying that God will provide everything they needed. It's always amazing to see people that are totally walking in faith.
I also talked to the security guy, through the wall bars. Commented about the members of the United band, he said Jad Gillies is the most annoying one. Putting on serious face all the time, not willing to sign autograph for him, the security guy was so disappointed. On the other hand, he said Joel Houston shown the most sympathy. They talked a lot, shared about church ministry and the band. But yeah, people are different. Maybe Jad is the serious one, and Joel is the happy one, and JD is the mad one, but all of them serve the same God and bear the same purpose.
Well... I'll just skip to the gate opening. As we began to walk into the arena, it started to rain. People bought rain caps, which were only 5 R$ for 2, now they sell it for 1 only. It's amazing how need and money contradicts at this point. We however, bought the cap long before the rain.
The arena was full, large, and open air. It was raining, really cold, and there were fog in the air. But when the band started to play, everything went fun, everyone got heated up and forgot all that.
United started again with the classic Introduction + The Time Has Come. This is cool but in the same time I guess it's disappointing, because it's been like two years must be now, and they should have find a new creative way to start a show. But it was still hip though. People were crazily animated.
We jumped from song to song, then Jad started the worship session with Take All Of Me. All of a sudden, singing this song and taking to heart, I felt a huge mass of presence of God. All of a sudden I felt so alone. Lose all the music, the fans screaming, and even the song, and it's all just me and God.
I think that is indeed the core of worship. It's not about the music, the band, a good song, or even singing itself. Worship is a life that glorifies God, no matter what happen in it. You could worship in the midst of happiness, you could worship in the rain of blessing, but you must more importantly worship through the storm of desperation.
Yeah, to say it short, the rest of the night was awesome, just like every United concert. The worship was marvelous. I felt that day like I found again the reason for living. Like I found again the braveness to stand up for Jesus, to be a difference in my community and daily life. To be a Christian is to be a brave generation, said Phil Dooley. I sure hope many Brazilian will receive the message too, as a brother from Indonesia I really want to see God's movement going on strong through the whole world.
Some shots from the night. It was raining heavily, yet amazing to see all these people gather together for Jesus.Then we took off. I visited the United stand at the back of the auditorium, bought a T-Shirt, Phil Dooley's teaching CD, and got some information about the Hillsong College. About this last item, honestly, it really interest me a lot to get inside this Hillsong World... to learn from them, to serve with them, and then to bring the knowledge I would get there back to Indonesia. But it's still a thought. I really need to pray more about my future.
So then we go on the van. Another 6 hours journey through the night to get back to our cities. Honestly, I feel blessed, but in the same way I felt sad. I really know that if I go to this concert with my youth friends in Indonesia, in many ways we will reflect on our Christian lives, get something different for our youth group, and be more creative. No offense, but it seems like all that the people in my group paid attention to that day was why Marty Sampson wasn't coming.
But still, this concert was a 10. I really want to be a part of something big like this one day. Faithful, to say? Yeah, sort of. God, thank you for this heart-changing experience. I love You.
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