ATL Conference

We took 35 students from Western to the conference in Atlanta. The theme this year was Illusions. It was probably the best theme I have ever seen us do for a conference. The idea behind it was "things aren't always what they seem." Almost like an Illusionist or a magician who performs a magic trick. The audience is amazed at an illusion that appears to be real, but if you know the "magic" behind the illusion, it never seems as amazing as it appears. We actually had an illusionist come to our conference and do a set. One of his "tricks" included making a table levitate. Now, he did not reveal the workings of the illusion, sadly, but he did tell us that one time he did this trick in Nepal and found out a man who lived in the city, did the same trick and said it was because he was given special powers through spirits. He met the man and asked him to do the trick and realized it was the exact same one as him, he even ordered the table from the same illusionist. But this guy in Nepal was using it to peddle himself. The table levitating seemed real...but it was just an illusion. There are many things in life we believe to be real that are just illusions. Sometimes there are things we believe to be illusions that are very real. This conference was about shattering those illusions. Some of the illusions shattered, were illusions of heaven, illusions of life, illusions of God, illusions about yourself, and illusions of the American dream. All of the talks will be available by the end of the month online and I will let you know when that happens, some of the talks were amazing. Overall it was a great conference for Western. A few students made some big decisions to really commit to following Christ. God also revealed some damaging behavioral patterns in some of our students, which I hope will translate into changing some decisions they make in their lives. Thank you for praying for us and our students during this time. I will let everyone know when the talks from the conference are available online.