Three summers ago I got on a bus with 16 of my favorite high schoolers and attempted to prepare myself for the week ahead of me. We had started YoungLife at Warwick HS about 3 months earlier, and I was still in shock that 16 kids had decided to go to camp that early on! It was one of the craziest, most stressful, messiest, ridiculously amazing, and unbelievably humbling weeks of my life. I got to see God use everything from skit characters to delicious food, from zip lines to mountain bikes, and from a speaker who challenged their perception of God to a musician whose songs and lyrics touched their hearts. PW Gopal was doing music that month and so we got a chance to hear from him every time we had club. Through sharing his amazing story and lots of his truth-filled songs, he related to everyone there and told them of Gods unending, perfect love for us, and how a relationship with Him is so worth sacrificing everything else. I sat there three summers ago listening to his song Still Voices (which is still one of my favorites!) and found myself a puddle of tears after only one verse, as my high school girls comforted me and thinking ” i’m.. sniff.. supposed to be the one.. sniff sniff.. thats there for yoooooooou this week!!” Needless to say, PW left quite the impression on us all. That week I was so humbled to watch five beautiful 16 year old high school girls meet the One who created them, and to walk with them for the next three years, and to this day they still talk about PW and the ways that he impacted their lives that week that changed the rest of their lives.
PW has always been willing to serve and give of himself in whatever way he could, specifically when it comes to this ministry. At camp when he wasn’t playing music at club, he was playing guitar with some of the campers getting to know them, he was working on landscaping or rebuilding t he bridge that had been washed away by all the rain, or literally whatever task needed to be done. He came up to CNU last Thursday to do a fundraiser concert on campus, and all the proceeds went to kids in the area going to camp this summer. He put on a great show, shared his story, and had us all laughing the entire time. Here are just a few pictures from the concert, be sure to check out his music on itunes and his website here: www.pwgopal.com And he pulled Alison to sing harmony with him for one of his songs!