Ah, youth conferences. It's a time of a tremendous amount of fun, a time of learning, adventures, meeting new people, and seeing old. This was the annual British Columbia and Yukon Anglican Youth Movement (BCYAYM) Fall Conference, held October 10-13, 2008. It has happened for I think around eighty years; youth across British Columbia and Yukon join together on Thanksgiving weekend. This year it was held at St. Paul's Cathedral in Kamloops, but the conference moves around year to year - next year we are down around Vancouver. This weekend we had Primate Fred Hiltz (the "head" of the Anglican Church of Canada) and Bishop Gordon (my bishop) join us as guest speakers and musicians. Both ++Fred and +Gordon are wonderful. (I am standing next to +Gordon, on the right side of the picture) I enjoy talking with them, they support youth ministry, have fabulous things to say, and are really just wonderful people. ++Fred danced with us all at our dance, and played a wide game with us. It was fabulous!
The people at BCYAYM Fall Conference are great. This year we had thirteen youth from Savona attend; and I got to see four of my staff from Sorrento Centre, one person from the Generation 2008 gathering, and lots of people I hadn't seen for a long time. Visiting with the people I don't get to see often makes me very happy, it's so nice to keep in touch with everyone over the years. And there were a few opportunities to talk about youth ministry with people!
Rev. Dan Hines (Ministry Developer in Savona) was our theme speaker for the weekend. Our talks were based around the movie, "Lars and the Real Girl" and each section had scripture brought in. We all enjoyed the topics of discussion.
So, we sang, spent time in worship together, played wide games and icebreakers, met new people, had some free time, had a dance, went to the Wildlife Park, took a night hike - in the rain - and lots more! We all had a blast!
It was also time for us to nominate five more people to be on the BCYAYM Council. After being asked many times, after having been requested to allow my name to stand, and possibly even threatened (okay, maybe not:o) I finally allowed my name to be put forward. And without a surprise to me, I was elected for one of the positions. Our first meeting is in November, and I really am excited for this work, they are a great organization and do great ministry.
On our last evening together (Sunday night) we had a healing service. This is a service where emotions come out as we pray and if we choose, go and talk to one of the clergy. It's a time of healing, of acknowledging the hurt and pain in our lives. From confusion about where life is taking us, what we are called to do, family situations, relationships, school, friends, and the list goes on. It's time spent in silence with soft music in the background. It's a time to be with one another, to support and show love to one another. It's a time of a great number of tears. It's an incredibly hard service, but extremely amazing and powerful. It's a service where you can't keep your feelings hidden, a service where everyone realizes each one of us has pain somewhere.
The whole weekend is fabulous. I look forward to the work I will now be doing with the council, and also for next years event. If you want to see some pictures I've put them up on the Savona Youth Group picture site: www.savonayouthgroup.piczo.com. Take a look, they show what we actually did! (The site is in the middle of being updated, but go under "recent pictures!")
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