Pam Brouse of Narvon worked once again in 2008 for the video production company at the Creation Festival, getting at most five or six hours of sleep a night, but still loving it.
She’s the second “of four generations of ‘Brouse girls’ to come to Creation,” starting with her mother-in-law Kitty at Muddy Run Park 29 years ago.
Her daughter Amy came to Creation as an infant in 1983, when the festival was about to outgrow Lancaster County, and now Amy also was working at Creation 2008.
Andrew Lewis of Millersville is 18, and he could be a lot of other places rather than working in the heat as part of the security team at the huge event.
But indeed there he was, giving directions to people and also jokingly asking other Creation-goers to stop and loiter near the stage so he, as a security guy, could ask them to please move along.
Not far away, Audrey Wandel of New Holland was in front of the stage, watching the sing-language interpretation of the band Pillar’s performance.
There were a lot of tired people in Lancaster County on Sunday and into today … but it’s a good bet they’re also still feeling the glow of their new trip to Creation.
The campers and trucks and church vans have packed up and left the nation’s largest Christian music festival for another year, and despite the heat and exhaustion over three and a half days last week, very few discouraging words are being heard in the wake of Creation 2008.
Highlights of the just-concluded festival? Lots of different ones for different people.
Some are going to talk about what was possibly the 30th Creation’s signature performance, a cross-generational effort that featured CCM veteran Amy Grant joining relative newcomers Hawk Nelson onstage Friday night for the band’s new song, “One Little Miracle.”
I heard others citing performances by everyone from Skillet to Kutless, or newcomer and soul and R&B singer Mike Farris.
The day I spent there, I liked Sanctus Real at the main stage and Stellar Kart over at the fringe stage.
But if you ask me, the true overall highlight was the return of the spirit that was expressed by Texas singer/songwriter David Crowder, who talked to us press guys after his band’s excellent show in the swelter of Thursday afternoon.
“We’re just happy to be the guys who try to say stuff to this community … it just seems pretty simple, but it’s really cool at the same time.
“It’s amazing how you can write a little song, and then you might bump into someone and they go, ‘Oh man, I was going through this or that at the time, and (a song of his) really rescued me.’
“Words and melody can pull us out of some pretty dark places sometimes, and that’s pretty miraculous, I think.” And a miracle he credits to God, not himself.