1) The author went on a mission trip to Brazil in high school where she witnessed a man's life being saved after attending one of their evangelistic meetings. This experience inspired her to plan her own evangelistic event for her senior project. 2) She chose Teraza Lee, a youth leader from her church, to be her project facilitator due to her experience working with teens and planning large events. 3) Planning the event involved finding a facilitator, choosing a date and location, recruiting participants, advertising, and overcoming challenges like phone anxiety and commitment issues from participants.

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Courtney McKean
Mrs. Lester
Adv. Comp.
4 March 2012
I went to Brazil three years ago on my very first mission trip. I was there for eleven days
and want to share with you something miraculous that happened that last day. My team of ten
students and four leaders went to an open plaza in the city of Sao Paulo for a day and held four
evangelistic meetings. We went to share the story of Jesus Christ to the Brazilians. After one of
our meetings, a man about forty years old comes up to us and thanks us. He said that he lives
around here and he had just lost his job, his house, and his wife had left him. He had been going
to the plaza every day since then in hope to either find a job or find food. He said he wasn’t
going to come to the plaza that day because he was planning on giving his life. However, for
whatever reason he kept on feeling like he needed to go to the plaza. Because he did, this man is
alive today with a new job. It was a sight I had never seen before, and I was completely moved
by it. This happened in my freshman year of high school. My older sister was a senior at
Sequoyah high school at the time and in the midst of doing her senior project. The moment I
returned from Brazil I knew I wanted to do my senior project on this. From this experience, I
chose to take the next step in my walk with God and held an evangelistic event to show teenagers
who God is. Now I’m going to tell you about the process I followed in creating my event. First,
I had to find a project facilitator who would be perfect for the job.
My project facilitator is a lady from my church named Teraza Lee. In deciding who I
thought would be the best facilitator for my project I looked for many different things. I needed

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someone who had a good amount of experience working with teenagers and planning big events.
I was also looking for someone I could depend on throughout the entire project. I met Teraza a
few years back when I entered into high school. She was and is still on the youth staff at my
church, and when I was looking for a facilitator with those qualities she was one of the first
people that came to my mind. Teraza has had many years of experience working with teenagers
and planning/being a part of big events similar to the one I was planning. I knew that I could
rely on her and that she would be willing to meet with me for fifteen hours throughout the year
and help me in any way possible. I knew I would not be alone with a project facilitator like her.
There have been many steps in creating my project that I have gone through this year.
The steps in the process of my project included finding a facilitator, picking a date for the event,
brainstorming through ideas for the night, asking people to be a part of it, and advertising the
event. One of the things I had to do was write a research paper exploring the assignment I chose.
My research paper was about some of the issues I might have faced in planning my event. The
paper was a good tool I used to get a feel of what I had ahead of me and preparing me for my
project. In researching everything for my event, I realized that I did want to take this challenge
and experience the journey. After I found my facilitator and completed my research paper I had
to begin planning my event. I chose a date, March 9th, which was a Friday night and chose a
place to have it at, Canton First United Methodist Church. I had to call the youth pastor there
and place my event on the church calendar. Then I had to contact people to participate in my
skit, sing, speak, share their testimony, and bring food. This took many months. In November, I
started holding trainings for the team that was going to do the skit. We met every other Saturday
for a couple of hours each up to the night of the event. I scheduled a time the week before to
perform the skit in front of my church to get some practice and feedback from some people.

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Then a month before the event I made and passed around flyers to my church, my school, Canton
First, and a few other churches around the area. This project has been a lot of fun to plan, but
like any project it had its ups and downs along the way. I experienced many problems in
planning my event. One problem I ran into was my fear of talking on the phone to people I do
not know well. Throughout this entire process I have had to overcome that fear and
communicate with many different people I did not know. My phone skills have grown
abundantly since the beginning of this journey. Another problem I ran into was getting people to
commit. In order to solve this problem I had to annoyingly call everyone continuous times to
make sure they were coming. Everyone eventually committed and did what they were supposed
to.
From beginning to the end, this project has been a great growing experience for me. I
have learned that I am not a procrastinator when it comes to doing things I really enjoy. I get
what I need to done and in a timely manner. I have also learned that I am not the type of person
who can create a big event like this on my own, and I need help from someone else. However, I
have also learned to take risks and fully trust in God to let His Will happen. This project has
been very stressful, but in the end everything came out to work. Going into this project I thought
I wanted to pursue a career in ministry in a church or travel around the world sharing the Gospel
to people. Now I do not believe I want to pursue ministry in a church; however, even if I do not
pursue a career in ministry in a church I will never stop sharing the Gospel and evangelizing in
different areas. As I approach college I plan to continue going on mission trips and preaching
the Gospel but also pursue a career in a completely different field. I plan to attend The
University of West Georgia in the fall and major in something else I really enjoy and that is close
to my heart: art education.

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Thank you all so much for your time. I have enjoyed sharing this journey with you and
will now take any questions you may have for me.