Title: 'Servant Life' Projects Highlight ELCA Youth Gathering ELCA NEWS SERVICE
July 18, 2006
'Servant Life' Projects Highlight ELCA Youth Gathering 06-107-JB
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (ELCA) -- Participants in the 2006 Youth Gathering of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) logged tens of thousands of hours in service to this city and other parts of Texas. A key piece of the Youth Gathering was the "Servant Life: As A Way of Life!" component of the gathering, in which participants performed a variety of community service projects throughout this city and at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center here.
About 40,000 high-school-age and adult Lutherans from the United States and around the world participated here in the ELCA Youth Gathering. The gathering took place in two back-to-back events. Some 15,000 young people, chaperones and volunteers participated July 5-9; the second week more than 24,000 people participated through July 16.
The theme of the gathering was "Cruzando: Journey with Jesus." Cruzando is a Spanish word for "crossing."
Servant life projects throughout the city were divided into three general categories: "care" which generally involved literacy programs with children; "construction" in which participants performed chores such as building, cleaning or painting parks or structures; and "culture" in which Youth Gathering participants, accompanied by local volunteers, toured parts of the city, learned about the culture and met people living in various neighborhoods.
During the two-week period, 8,669 ELCA Youth Gathering participants went to 67 locations throughout this city as part of the Servant Life component, said Peggy Contos Hahn, Houston, director of the Servant Life component of the gathering. Hahn is assistant to the bishop, ELCA Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod.
At the convention center, some 16,000 people were involved in three "Way of Life" servant projects. Under "care," the youth created school-supply and health-care kits to distribute here and in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border; the "construction" piece involved the making of "happy hats" for distribution to children in San Antonio-area hospitals; and the "culture" component involved writing advocacy letters to elected officials.
Servant life leaders knew that service would be an important component of the gathering, Hahn said. "We have a generation of young people who know that serving is essential to discipleship," she said.
In the three years leading up to the gathering, Hahn and other team members prepared for the event by building relationships with the 67 agencies hosting the servant projects.
"We wanted them to understand how important this was, and that when our kids come to their sites, they learn about the ministry of the site and they understand the value system of the place," Hahn said.
During the gathering, Hahn said representatives from several San Antonio service agencies already served by youth volunteers, called and asked if extra volunteers could be available. Agency representatives called back because the youth volunteers accomplished a lot during scheduled service periods, she said.
When the youth return home, "more than anything, I'm hoping they pick up skills here that they can incorporate in their own congregations," Hahn said.
"We want to teach our young people that service is not just something you do one time and feel good about yourself for having done it. Rather, it's a way of living that is being people of the cross," Hahn said.
Christine Frye and Megan Busch, members at St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Audubon, Pa., were part of a servant team that trimmed bushes and did other maintenance work here at Eisenhower Park.
"We always do a community service project," Bush said. "We always like to do service projects when we go to retreats."
"(Gathering speakers) talked about giving back to your neighbor," Frye said. "The whole week you're on this spiritual high. You have to go home, and you have to do something with it."
Alyssa Thacker, St. Luke Lutheran Church, Temperance, Mich., was part of a group that did a culture tour. Her group learned about the Native American and Spanish culture and how they settled in the same area together around San Antonio, she said.
Thacker said when she returns home she will share with friends how much she enjoyed the Youth Gathering.
"I cannot believe there are so many Lutherans," Thacker said. "There are more Lutherans than I could have ever imagined, and this is just the youth. It's amazing. It's really fun to be able see all these people, and (see) that they think the same things that I do about God."
Thousands of hats to go to hospitalized children
Through Glories Hats Project, the Lutheran youths made some 3,000 hats with "happy thoughts" for young hospitalized children, said Susan Khorsand, a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Falls Church, Va. The hats were sent to four children's hospitals here, she said.
"They have a tremendous impact in reducing the anxiety level of hospitalized children," Khrosand said. "They say 'a teenager made this for me.' The hats in the hospital represent all of these teens wanting to help."
The hats are made in stages through an assembly-line approach. Teens making the hats learn about how such a process works, and they learn how a simple act of kindness can make an impact in the community, Khorsand said.
Every hospitalized child in San Antonio will receive a happy hat made at the Youth Gathering, she said.
School kits benefit children in San Antonio and U.S.-Mexico border area
In addition to the hats project, teens made at least 5,000 school kits, consisting of art and writing supplies, for needy students in the San Antonio area and for students living along the U.S.-Mexico border, Hahn said.
"It felt good doing something for kids that don't have the same privileges as we do," said Alex Webb, Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Clay, N.Y. "We get to go to school every day, and we don't think anything about it, but there are kids out there that have to sit at home because their parents can't afford it. It makes us feel good when we're making a difference."
"It turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be," said Derrick Brill, also a member at Immanuel. "We had a good time together as a group. It felt really good doing what we were doing -- making book bags for kids that were less privileged than us."
"It's amazing. It makes me feel that every person can make a difference. No matter how small it is or how big it is, you can make a difference," Brill added.
Nine young people from Christ Lutheran Church, Eureka, Kan., helped make school kits. The Rev. Roger D. Dennis, pastor, Christ Lutheran Church, said the youths told him how important it was to them to make the kits. The service project was one piece in a week of learning, he said.
"Throughout the entire event, they talk about how (the gathering) has opened up their eyes," he said in an interview. "All of sudden they're saying, 'We're beginning to connect what you've been telling us, pastor, but now it seems more real this way.'"
When the Christ Lutheran Church group gets home, Dennis believes the gathering experiences will carry over.
"The one thing that even the kids have talked about is 'we just don't want this to be seed on shallow ground and not do anything with it,'" he said. "The kids already do a Saturday evening worship service for other youth in the community to reach out to the unchurched. We're a small town that's in decline, so I suspect what's going to happen is the kids are going to be the ones to put it in terms that even being in a small relatively isolated area, we can still do something significant."
---
Information about the ELCA Youth Gathering is at http://www.ELCA.org/gathering/ on the ELCA Web site.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog