There are only a few events in my life that had rendered me speechless. These things have to be pretty darn good to make me speechless because well…I’m a talking machine. These are (well, those that I can remember at least): Jars of Clay concert, Christ Wars Megacamp and last night’s event, Hillsong United in Manila.

This is one of the hardest parts in having to experience something so tremendously wonderful. It’s hard to document it after, especially when you can’t find the words to describe the entire event. But of course, because it’s such a wonderful experience…I can’t just let it remain in memory without writing it down lest I want to forget it (which I really don’t think I will :p). Anyway.

Bea and I got to Taft around six-thirty, and we met Migs to get his camera. Then we met Tuesday, Ces, Rina and Jomar at Starbucks, left Bung’s ticket to Marvin and then went Ninoy Aquino Stadium, which was right across Harison Plaza. There were soooo many people already, but since we have good seats, we just have to figure out where we have to enter. While roaming around, we found the shirt booth and bought T-shirts for Php400 (expensive, I know, but they say it’s made by the Hillsong team themselves). Then we found our way in.

When we were there, we got to our seats and we were screaming already because we are so near the stage. Our seats were from A21-A26, which is the front seat of the audience, with three sponsor rows in front. Celebrity spotted: Piolo Pascual right at the front row.

Anyway, so the show starts, and we all start screaming again because we can see people on stage. The music starts, and we saw people rushing to the front, and we rushed to the front too. Join the fun! :)

We got to stand right in front of Jad Gillies (it is just right to say here that my friends and I have been crushing on Jad since we watched him in the Look to You video, where he had his solo in All for Love. For those who don’t know about it, All For Love was mostly sung by Holly and the camera is focused on all but Jad. However, at the last part, Jad gets focused — which is the only time he gets to be seen in the video — and sings…and in my best friend’s words, it was like he asked that specific moment to sing that part for his God. Altogether: awwww. ♥ His wife is such a lucky woman!) who looked broader in person than in video. The three of us — Tue, Bea and I — were kidding that Jad is a major distraction because it’s hard to pray when you’re distracted by a good looking guy who loves God in front of you. Haha. Anyway, we remedied it by closing our eyes and focusing on other things than him instead of looking at him during singing part.

We were asked not to take pictures during the worship event and so my friends and I decided not to, believing that we can get pictures taken after the worship. Plus we wanted to enjoy the worship experience, so no pictures for us…during the start, that is (And this explains the lack of photos in my post).

You know how good Hillsong United is in their DVDs? Well, they’re so much better LIVE. Everyone was screaming, clapping, jumping up and down praising God for the entire night, even if our vocal chords are straining, we still sang! Because we know practically all their songs, we were able to follow along the worship and not feel left out on anything. :) My favorite song for the night would have to be From The Inside Out…tear-jerking, Lord-I’m-Yours song of the night. :D

The pastor for the night wasn’t Phil Dooley, but the Powerhouse pastor, Chrisham Jeyaratnam. He spoke about having dreams, which are what God placed in our hearts and that when we have these dreams, we shouldn’t be afraid to do it. Just do it. He also said that it doesn’t matter where we are right now, because God will surely use you wherever you are. Amen!

After that, there was a series of slow songs, followed by faster songs (you wouldn’t believe the energy by Salvation is Here! Man!), and then they had three encore songs: All Day (where JD made everyone in the place sing “All day, all day now, all day” in a whisper, and then all of us would slowly crouch down and they lied on the floor), and then Everyday and finally, King of Majesty. By this time, I finally got my camera out, and took some videos and pictures (which you will see here in a while, when I transferred them already). The energy level was so high, that even if my tummy is aching from not having eaten any dinner, my feet are aching from jumping and standing and I’m already getting dizzy from not having enough water, I was still jumping up and down, singing!

And then the worship was over and they got off the stage. We took a couple of more pictures and watched them get their instruments (Aww, Jad! ♥ Haha). We were not allowed to approach them and have pictures taken, so we satisfied ourselves by just looking at them. Hahaha. And Jad! Okay, I shall stop swooning now (and if by some weird chance, Jad happens to read this…MAKE YOUR PRESENCE KNOWN! Haha. :D Seriously).

I got home at around 1:00am, still full of energy. I was tired, but everything was starting to sink in, that I couldn’t help but just smile so big. Right now I’m in the office, and my body is crying out for sleep, but when I think of what happened last night, I get so happy again that I just SMILE. Haha. :) In Tuesday’s words, I just want to declare: WE WORSHIPPED WITH HILLSONG UNITED! :)

And FYI, the only band members I know who came were Joel, JD, Michelle and Jad ♥. The others weren’t there, and that only meant one thing:

WE SHALL GO TO AUSTRALIA AND JOIN THEM ALL IN WORSHIP.

Like what I’ve been telling my friends: itaga sa bato. This is written in stone (by God’s grace). Like what Pastor Chrisham said, don’t stop dreaming, because God placed those dreams in your heart. We dream of going to Australia and actually getting inside Hillsong Church. Hey, maybe we can attend an Encounterfest too! DREAM BIG! By God’s grace and providence, we are going to Australia in the near future. Are you with us? :)

Anyway, that ends my oh-so-memorable night. I shall write other thoughts related to what other things happened last night in my In His Steps way of writing, because the lessons I learned last night deserve another post.

Pictures to follow soon. :) GOD, YOU ARE AWESOME. ♥ Amen!