We piled into three vans, one for the high schoolers, one for the middle schoolers, and one for the food and luggage. My friend Hayley and I were going to share a room with our youth intern Macie, and we were so excited. We were heading to downtown Kansas City, Missouri for the 2018 EFCA Challenge youth conference, which happens every two years. The moment we stepped into the Marriot, I knew that this was going to be the best week of my life.

That night, we walked into the arena. Blue lights filtered through a heavy cloud of smoke. A large group of people, mostly high schoolers, were jumping to the beat in front of the stage. We found our reserved seats and I studied the room, anxiety already starting to diminish in the atmosphere of joy and fun. The conference directors walked out on the stage and the noise settled to a low whisper. The theme song played along with a two-minute video and I couldn’t contain the giggle that had risen from my throat, I had already started loving it.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we did our community service hours. The first day, we packed into the crowded bus and started heading towards the courthouse of Kansas City. We got out and separated, by the church we went to, into two groups; then those groups split into several more groups. We walked through the streets of that area of KCMO and prayed for buildings like daycares, churches, and companies while the other church’s youth group stayed and set up a prayer station. After about an hour or so of walking, we switched and my youth group manned the prayer station. These two guys who we asked if there was anything they needed prayer for prayed for us, they were so sweet and I’m so glad that I had that experience.

Wednesday night, we went up in front of the stage during the worship service and I cried for the first time that week. It was a new song by the band Urban Rescue that did it for me, the line “Please don’t leave me where I am” tore me to pieces. I started imagining a world where I was completely alone, no one to confide in, not even God and I lost it. After the song was over, I turned to Hayley and hugged her; she was shocked, I’m not much of a hugger or someone who cries in public, so this hit me hard.

The second and last time I cried that week was during Friday night worship service, our last service and the last meeting of Challenge. Everyone was crying, even the band leader was in tears as he sang. Hayley was bawling her eyes out during the song “Freedom” I think, I walked over to her and was trying not to cry myself because there was something inhuman in that room that night, something beautiful and full of love.

I put my arm around her shoulders and sat down next to her, “Don’t cry Hayley, if you cry, I’ll cry.”

She ignored me and blubbered something that has stuck in my brain ever since, “The spirit of God is in this room Lulu, he’s in this room.”

With that, I cried harder than I had on Wednesday and we cried together. Everyone was in groups, sobbing with one another. I knew it then and I know it now, God was there, there is no way that he wasn’t, nothing could make that many people cry at the same time, except him. Ever since that week, full of inside jokes, shared tears, and shared laughs, Hayley and I have never been closer. We’re like sisters, I know that she’ll be there for me no matter what and that I can trust her with anything. I love her, and a big reason is because of that week.

Around midnight that night, as we were getting our stuff from the hotel I found a lanyard, it was promoting a college that sponsored the conference, and it was perfectly intact. I grabbed it and stuffed it in my new hoodie’s pocket. Laughing and talking, we all walked to the cars that were waiting for us outside. The best week of my life had sadly come to an end.