Next Tuesday the wife and I and a friend or two (oh, and the kiddo) will be heading south to PAPA Festival. We attended two years ago as well, it’s where we met our good friend and awesome house mate Chris (from last year). We are excited about going simply because it is a good chance to be rejuvenated and encouraged, and it’s camping, which we love.
I’m helping organize a little, and we’ll be helping set-up when we get there. Guess now I’m just wondering if anyone else who reads this blog is going?
I’m hoping to maybe do some interviews with people, possibly for future podcast here or at Nick and Josh or something. We’ll see. Keep in eye out for me, I’ll be the guy with the baby (there should be a few of those I hear).
This will be our first PAPA fest. Not sure what to expect, but looking forward to it. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to meet.
Sounds good, there will be nearly 1000 people there, but hopefully will cross paths.
yo. have fun man. learn something to teach me when you get back.
also question: does this end up being mostly a white people gig of the 1000 or more folks? just wondering about the diversity and/or the increase from the last tim you were there to this time…
peace and safe travels.
Neeraj,
I’ll let you know if it’s any different this time. I’m hoping so, but wouldn’t be surprised if its not.
I was surprised to find that both the first PAPA fest and the CCDA conference (last year, St. Louis) where both seemingly very homogeneous. I was hoping to see differently from groups and organizations who’ve been at it, in a specific community, for a long period of time.
We’ll see.
Ahhh….I know you guys will have an amazing time. I SO wanted to go, did all the reading up on it and even drooled over some of the workshops they’ll be doing. But with a brand new baby and all, it’s just not gonna happen. Maybe we’ll make it next time around. I’d love to meet you and Mindy and the little one some day. 🙂
Have a safe journey.
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie,
You’ll be missed. Hopefully will cross paths some day.
B”H
Hi Ariah,
Well, it’s Monday morning and the PAPA Fest starts on Thursday. We’ll be heading out around 8 AM Thursday since I have to work until 6 AM. It’s only about a 3 1/2 hour drive from here though, so we should be all set by early afternoon.
Interesting question that Neeraj brings up about the ethnic/cultural breakdown of the event. Last time, in 2006, the numbers of non-whites were rather dismal. There also wasn’t a great number of folks over 30. I think I heard that the count of adults last time was around 375 with an additional 125 kids. (Adults being those over 18 I take it.) This is not an official count, but I don’t think there was more than 40 – 50 adults over 30. As for non-whites, my guess would be around 15 – 25 give or take 1 or 2. Besides considering just those in attendance, I don’t think there was more than 1 or 2 who were presenters last time. This is in the morning learning sessions, I don’t know about the afternoon skills sessions.
I hope this years festival shows some greater percentages along with the increased numbers, but I’m not very hopeful. Many years back, ha ha I’m dating myself now, I asked this same sort of question about the Charismatic and independent house-church movement. There were a few prominent speakers and teachers in those days who were black and or Latino, but the vast number of adherents were white. I was troubled then as I am now by this, but all I can do is speak my piece and seek to live out a different reality.
Peace in the mighty name of Jesus,
Shlomo
PS: I’ll be presenting this year on Friday @ 9 AM in the first session. “Living NOW in GOD’s Kingdom.”