Our people were very vague about this venue- in fact, we had spent the whole day in the forest and they didn't seem in much of a hurry to get us there. Just inside the gates of the Medina is a large square, where some most of the public concerts will be held. There are thousands of people just milling around and there are street performers all over the plaza. People just flock around the performers, then move on to the next one - kinda like Riverfest on Islamic steroids.
We found out that the "friends" had plans for a walk around the entire plaza- and we were supposed to find a spot and set up our instruments and play a little music while the rest of the people did the walk. We found a spot between the 2 gates (the Lion Gate and the Sun gate) and quickly set our rug out and got our instruments ready- within seconds we had hundreds of people completely surrounding us waiting to see what we were going to do. At first they were maybe 8-10 feet away from us, but they kept getting closer and closer until we could hardly move. At one point a festival official came and started yelling at the people to move back and give us some room, but within a few minutes they crowded in again. We sang and played as loud as we could, all worship songs and all about praise, and the people kept coming and crowding in to hear. Some clapped along, some tried to sing along, some even imitated Todd and Kevin by playing air guitar- after each song they would clap and try to talk to us in Arabic and even broken English. Some of the younger ones recorded us with their cellphones and took pictures.
After about an hour and a half, some of or friends pushed their way thru to the front and told us we needed to try to finish up and get our stuff out of there. We packed up and tried to make our way out of the plaza, but the crowd stayed right with us and followed us to the edge of the plaza (several hundred feet) We were able to visit with a few people, they wanted to know our names or take pictures, but mainly just wanted us to notice them and talk with them. One of the guys from the church was filming for us and became a great bodyguard to help us fight our way thru the crowd. If it wasn't for him we might still be in the plaza.
Once we got back to our cars, the rest of the friends met up with us- they were amazed that we were able to do what we did- little did we know, the reason they were so reluctant to take us there was it had never been done before, no outsiders, especially non-muslims, had ever tried to setup and sing about Jesus. Even the main friend, who planned the whole trip, thought we would be thrown out or at least asked to leave the area.( which is why he had the bodyguard around us.) We didn't even have a permit or permission to setup, but God allowed an incredible, ground-breaking event to happen and we were very blessed to have been a part of it.
I have some incredible video footage and photos, but even they do not tell the complete story of how overwhelming that event was. I am posting a couple of photos in the next entry.
It was probably one of the most significant spiritual experiences in my life- definitely one I will never forget
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