A recent Cocalico High School graduate, Hope Hess could be forgiven if she slept in a little bit this week, with school and tests and all that done for the summer.
Creation Festival-goers are shown enjoying one of the headlining acts, the band Pillar, on Thursday,
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The area in front of the main Creation stage begins to fill up with spectators.
Recent Cocalico High School grad Hope Hess (front,
center, in sunglasses) and her friends at Creation.
Instead, the 18-year-old got up early Wednesday morning, leaving at 3:30 a.m. with a dozen or so friends from her Ephrata church.
Their destination? The hills of Pennsylvania, two hours west of Lancaster County, for what Hess called "a really uplifting experience" through Saturday night.
An experience that another traveler, Amy Jerchau of East Petersburg, said is "like a miniature version of heaven."
What drew them, and an estimated several several thousand others from Lancaster County, was the huge Creation Festival, the annual Christian music-and-culture celebration held each June.
"There's no experience like this ... you might feel grody, but it's very worth it," Jerchau said.
Creation, which began at Muddy Run Park back in 1979, began Wednesday and runs through Saturday at the Agape campground, which is in a picturesque, retreat-like setting amid the Allegeheny Mountains.
The word "Agape," or "a-GAH-pay," means "love," and that — along with renewal in their Christian walk — is what many Creation-goers say is a trademark of their week here.
And that, despite the heat and humidity, not to mention gas prices and the economy, is what they felt again this year, Creation-goers agreed Thursday.
Said the 18-year-old Hess, who's going to Messiah College this fall, "Just being around so many Christians at one time is just really uplifting, and the music also is just so awesome."
Along with Hess, the dozen or so other friends from Ephrata's Washington Avenue Bible Church had a prime place staked out some 50 yards from the huge Creation main stage.
Added her friend Laura Shupp of Denver, also 18 and a new grad, "Most people describe Creation as the 'Christian Woodstock' ... it's a very nice atmosphere for Christians, and those who just want to know God better.
"And to go for a full week, you really get the full effect ... if you only come up for a day or two, you really don't get to experience it all."
Check out CrossRock, Dave O'Connor's blog on Christian music.
The experience includes a week of music from bands like the Newsboys, Switchfoot, Chris Tomlin and Kutless at the main stage.
And through the woods at the campground is the fringe stage, where the fun-loving surf-rockers Stellar Kart gave a rousing, spiritually encouraging, show to a few thousand folks late Thursday afternoon.
Just before them, the hardcore, Metallica-ish Christian band Pillar gave a similiarly rousing show to a huge crowd of (mostly) young people.
Creation annually draws some 75,000 to 100,000 people, by various estimates.
Organizers were planning for the same huge crowd for the 2008 festival, but there were fears that gas prices, and the slumping economy, might cut into the number this year.
But things looked pretty hopping here Thursday, as the event — equal parts music, preaching and Christian fellowship — ran smoothly.
It runs smoothly thanks to the thousands of volunteers who do everything from giving directions and hauling out trash to spraying water on the young people in front of the stage so no one gets overheated.
The best T-shirt may have been this spotted on several youths: "I LOST MY MOM IN THE MOSH PIT."
Or, more seriously, "VIRGINITY ROCKS," a pro-chastity sentiment echoed on several other shirts.
A youth-group chaperone, Doug Brubaker of East Hempfield Township has lost track of how many times he's gone to Creation.
"It's just a real opportunity to reconnect and re-evaluate where one's at spiritually," he said.
An elected township supervisor, he was there with junior-high youths from Neffsville Mennonite Church, hoping Creation "really encourages them to try and strengthen their relationship with God."
It can do that for everyone, he added, "in a new and different way than what you would normally experience in your run-of-the-mill. average day."
Others from elsewhere in Pennsylvania agreed, like Thomas Smith of Harrisburg ("I had my doubts about Christ ... but now I don't question it any more") to Laura Becker, ad director and writer for a monthly publication in Wellsville.
"Whether you like music or don't like music, whether you like crowds or don't like crowds, Creation definitely is a wonderful event," she said, "and just a way that people can become closer to each other and closer to God."
Staff writer David O'Connor can be reached at doconnor@LNPnews.com or 481-6033.
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