Hot Hearts in Beaumont, TX was an incredible youth conference. 5500 teens from Texas filled Ford Park Arena. The event featured speaker Clayton King, funny man Kacy Benson, Christian Stanfill, rapper Tedashii, Family Force 5 and yours truly, Living Illusions.
Kristen kicked of the event with her aerial stunt. She wrangled herself free from a straitjacket while upside down at about 30 feet in the air. Next she pulled herself up and released her feet from the footloops holding her in place. Now hanging by her hands, she let go and did a High Fall to an awaiting stunt airbag. Christian Stanfill led worship for both days. It was moving and got everyone praising God together.
Clayton King really brought home the message. Throughout Friday & Saturday over 1000 came forward and gave their life to Christ. Kacy made people laugh till their sides hurt. Together Kristen and I did several illusions. Kristen also did her Rope Tie piece where she ended up with a gentleman’s jacket on underneath the ropes and knots he had just tied himself. I brought my straitjacket out for a comedy bit. Sorry about the $50 guys.
Family Force 5 rocked the house Friday night. They are good friends of ours and it was great seeing them and catching up. Solomon really knows how to work the crowd. They had them in a frenzy.
Saturday morning we got serious and talked about people’s lives. A teen named Tyrin came up and I hope he never forgets what transpired on that stage. Remember, When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
The afternoon session started and it was time for Kristen’s Full View Water Torture Cell. This was her 893rd attempt. She did great, the crowd was eerily quiet, then erupted with a standing ovation as she escaped that watery grave. The crowd was loud and it was humbling to see the outpouring of appreciation from the crowd. After the water cell I gave the message ‘You’re The Love of My Life’. The true story of Kristen’s incident in the water cell 4 years ago, the extra time I had with my father before he passed away and how God wants to use us, in spite of our failures. Wrapping the message up with my coke can illustration seemed the perfect way to drive the message home to everyone.
Tedashii closed the conference Saturday afternoon with an impressive performance. The bass was thumping, his lyrics were right on target and the crowd was really into it. He reminds me of rapper LG Wise. I talked with him after the show. He’s legit and I hope our paths cross again this year.
Thanks to Adam, Reed, John, both Micah’s, Lee, Andrew, Cindy with Ford Park and everyone else I forgot for helping make the weekend a huge success! You guys made our job easy and we greatly appreciate each of you. To the teens and youth leaders…you guys are awesome. The outpouring of love & support in just the past 2 hours on Facebook has been overwhelming. We love you guys. Texas ROCKS!!!
Kevin coke can
God, Family, Stryper
Peace out,
Kevin & Kristen
We loaded up the trailer last night and got the motorcycles strapped in. We’re now driving 17 hours to Houston, TX. We have two shows on Sunday at The Woodlands, East Campus. The show will kick off with our latest opening effect of Kristen appearing in the air upside down. This newest piece was unveiled in West Palm Beach, FL in January and has been rocking ever since. Of course Kristen will also do her signature piece, her Full View Water Torture Cell. After that I will share the true story of Kristen’s incident, the last chance I had with my father before he passed away and the impact it has had all over the country. See ya in H-Town.
Kristen and I had some down time and took advantage of nice weather and twisty roads. We hit the curvy roads of southern Indiana and really tore it up. The best part of the day was a fellow Buell sport bike rider checking out Kristen’s tires. He was quite envious of Kristen’s non existent ‘chicken strips’ For those that don’t know…a chicken strip is the unused portion of motorcycle tires. This area is unused, because the rider only travels in straight lines and doesn’t know how to take corners. It’s always great to see Kristen showing up the male riders LOL
