The Gathering News!
It is tough to summarize the amazing experience that was the LCMS National Youth Gathering. In addition to the NYG itself, the Kansas District provided multiple opportunities in a “pre-conference” package. The amazing support from our congregation enabled eight youth and two adults to embark on the journey to NYG 2013. It all started with a long overnight bus ride…
Our first “real” stop was Concordia Austin for breakfast and a campus tour. We were all impressed with the campus and the breakfast. This stop started an ongoing conversation about planning for the future that continued throughout our adventure. From Concordia, we went onward to San Antonio. Despite the fact that most of us had only three or four hours of sleep, we pushed on to visit Sea World!
Sea World was excellent. It was, however, pretty hot, 107* to be exact! Despite the heat, our group enjoyed all the shows and rides offered within the park. This day was our first day as a group. Our eight youth spanned in age from 14 to 17 and represented four different school districts. Long bus rides and Sea World adventures are perfect for bonding a group.
The Kansas District arranged for a special service opportunity on Sunday. We joined four bus loads of Kansas Youth at Camp C.A.M.P. in rural Texas. This day dawned grey and overcast so, while we did construction clean up, we were showered with Texas rain… and were then covered in mud! It felt great to make such a visible difference in a place so obviously in need of support.
After a few hours of hard work in the rain, all of the Kansas busses headed out to the original Schlitterbahn Water Park for some relaxation. God was pleased with our service and cleared the skies for the afternoon at the water park. We enjoyed spending time with 600 other Kansans for this day and the next when we relaxed at the Cibola Ranch with games, music and dinner.
Monday began the official activities of the NYG. We kicked off the start of the Gathering with a Mass Event in the Alamodome. There were approximately 25 thousand people in attendance at the NYG and the Alamodome was full every evening for the mass events.
The energy and atmosphere within a group of 25 thousand LCMS youth and their sponsors was amazing and contagious. Each evening, speakers shared the word of God from the stage. Through testimony, preaching, singing, comedy, acting, dance and art, the Gospel of Christ was spread. The theme of 2013 NYG was Live Love[d] from 1John4:9 – “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.” Our youth especially enjoyed “The Gathering News” segment each evening. The “newscaster” reviewed each day’s events with video and commentary from the convention center. The President of the LCMS was present to trade jokes and to play his banjo for the crowd. Each mass event featured an individual who shared their personal story with the crowd. These were very moving and had a strong impact on our group. The mass events were the end cap of each day.
Our usual day started as we left our hotel at 8:30am. We spent some time in the convention center “activity zone” each morning to get energized: basketball, soccer, gaga ball and goofiness started our mornings. Then, we chose “interest centers” as a group and set out to see as much as possible. The speakers and topics offered were excellent. Each day, we posed a question for the youth to write a response as we rode the shuttle downtown. My favorite excerpt from our “diary” is this one: “After attending the National Youth Gathering, I realized that church is serious and attending church regularly is crucial. I can start now by being enthusiastic about church and have a desire to go.” While each youth wrote similar thoughts about their distractions from God and their hope to refocus, this statement really sums up the bottom line. What a blessing that this message was sent and received by our youth!
In addition to attending the daily interest centers, we also had the opportunity to explore the River Walk each day. Generally, we enjoyed dinner there before the mass event in the Alamodome. We were able to visit the historical Alamo as well as do a little shopping along the river. We were always surrounded by Lutheran youth who exchanged greetings with whoops and high fives down the line. Our usual day ended when we finally returned to our hotel around 11pm.
July 4th was an exceptionally full and busy day. It started at 5:30am when we boarded the shuttle for downtown. We all ten ran in the first ever Gathering 5K to raise funds for the Lutheran Malaria Initiative. It was awesome!
From there, we shuttled back to the hotel for fast showers and then returned just in time for the morning worship service in the Alamodome. It was a Lutheran worship service with communion – yes, 25 thousand took communion! From there, we attended several interest centers and enjoyed dinner on the River Walk before heading back to the Alamodome for the evening mass event. The night ended with an impressive fireworks display over Hemisphere Park.
The NYG ended on July 5th at noon and we hopped back on the bus to head for home later that afternoon. We were optimistic that we would all be able to sleep deeply due to the exhaustion and fatigue from such an amazing and full week at the NYG. No such luck! Overall, this trip was excellent. The attendees would like to express a heartfelt thank you to all of you for the support, prayers and interest in building up the faith of our youth. Denise and Mark would like to thank the parents for placing their trust and confidence in us to lead these youth – each of them is special and loved. There are a million things to share about this trip and the experiences that we each had. If you would like to hear more, please don’t hesitate to start a conversation with any of those who attended.
Well, if you have read all the way to here, thanks! It was a great trip and the presentation given by the youth to the congregation was also excellent. It was a great time. Hope you are having some type of great time in your life. Live Loved!!
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