Kids
& Youth...
Our
Faith Journey So Far
by Debe
Nelson
We are going on our fourth retreat next
weekend. We have been to Olympia, Seattle, and
Anacortes. We have visited three churches and their
surrounding area. Last weekend, several of the members
of our group also participated in Confirmation Camp at
Pilgrim Firs. The youth had the opportunity to hang out
with youth from other churches who are also involved in
focused faith journeys. We met a young man from Germany
who is living with one of the teenagers in Olympia as an
exchange student. Robert brought a fresh perspective we
all appreciated.
We also shared the camp with another
group. The leader of that group starts each day by
inviting everyone to pick a word from a bag. We each
stuck a hand in the velvet bag, picking one of the
little cards and pulled it out of the bag. That word
becomes our word for the day. We didn’t plan the retreat
around those words ahead of time, but, that is what took
shape. We decided to call ourselves and each other by
those words instead of our names. The words were soon
woven into everything we did in that retreat and it was
incredibly powerful. Imagine seeing yourselves and those
around you as openness, or healing, or creativity, or
ecstasy, or light, or beauty, or power, or expectancy,
or patience.
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YOUTH FAITH JOURNEY
May
15 - Celebration
of our journey in worship
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Our discussion of the concepts of heaven,
hell and prayer were lively and yet, deep. The young
people talked about where they see heaven, what that
might look like and feel like. They talked about
feeling like hell and the idea that evil, abuse,
separateness, aloneness feel like hell. We prayed by
looking for something in the newspaper to pray about and
then sharing it with the group. We talked about saying
centered and focused on the moment as transforming and a
way to pray unceasingly.
On Saturday night, we watched the movie
Powder. It’s the story of a young man, Jeremy, raised
by his grandparents. His mother was struck by
lightening when she was 9 months pregnant with him. She
was killed and he was changed for the rest of his life.
His skin and eyes had no pigment and he couldn’t grow
hair on his body. He was so sensitive to light that he
had to wear sunglasses and be completely covered if he
was outside.
As you can imagine, he was seen by some as
a freak. Including his father. When his father first
saw him after he was born, he rejected Jeremy and left.
Jeremy never saw him again. The story of his life
after his grandparents both die is powerful. Again, we
saw those words through out the movie, throughout the
story of death, rejection, humiliation, and also, caring
and acceptance. It is a story of healing and openness.
Of ecstasy and beauty. Of creativity and light. Of
play and patience. Of expectancy. Of love and caring.
It really emulated our faith journeys as each one of
us has experienced those same words over the last
several months. We have all grown clearer about what we
believe and who we are and how we see ourselves
belonging to Suquamish Church.
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UPCOMING CHRISTIAN
EDUCATION THEMES:
May:
Pentecost
Scripture Focus: Acts 2:4-12
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On our next retreat, we will decide how
we want to share our journey so far with you, our
community of faith. We will decide how we want to
celebrate what we have discovered about ourselves and
our beliefs. Then, on May 15th -- Pentecost -- the youth
and their leaders will lead worship as a way of sharing
and celebrating our journey so far. Please continue to
keep us in your prayers.
The youth and leaders involved in the
Faith Journey are:
Kelly Raber; Deborah Crews; Claudia
Stuntebeck; Leah Floyd; Wil Floyd, Nick Fogle, Michaela
Balkus; Emma Floyd; Cami Maston; Blythe Peterson; Corey
Waterman; Seth Mangold; Quinn Endresen; and Debe Nelson.
