Michigan Believe

This past weekend was the first ever Believe event in the state of Michigan. We received a ton of great feedback on people that were excited to see us in the state, and we had the highest attendance ever for a first year new site location (All of the above made Andy Hansen giddy). The event was held in Holland, MI at Hope College in the DeVos Fieldhouse. Christ in Youth also holds two of their high school Move events there in the summer as well. Arena seating has such a cool feel (seats going up), and is drastically different from the convention center feel (seats on the floor).

Anyways, here are some highlights from the weekend:

- Steve Carter, from Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, did a great job. The evaluations we received appreciated not only the speaking time to the students but also the adult training on Saturday morning.

- The venue got crazy cold on Saturday morning. The temperature dropped outside, which we thought was the only reason it was so cold inside. After lunch we found out that it was our hazer which made the Fieldhouse cold (the exhaust fans had to be on when our hazer was on, and with the exhaust fans on the heating flame could not stay lit). Hope Staff said they would have this problem fixed by the time we are there next year.

- Great Lakes Christian College sponsored the event and combined with Northview Christian Church in Coldwater, MI, they provided one of the strongest volunteer forces yet. We had over 30 people that stayed and helped with tear down.

- Evan the Keytar player got in a paint fight with Doug the bass player and got black paint on his green jumpsuit.

- Seth, our lighting engineer, got to enjoy his favorite restaurant, Red Robin, numerous times.

- Major props and thanks goes to Ron, Mark, Monte, Seth, Tony, and Matt for spending hours last Wednesday to cover all the windows in the Fieldhouse with black plastic. No one who attended the event had any idea how much time they spent and what a difference it made.