– Misael Fajardo-Perez

I am privileged to be part of the commissioning service for the ELCA Youth Gathering volunteers for the second time in a row. Nearly 800 volunteers are gathering in Houston a few days before they engage with over 30,000 youth and their leaders coming from various corners of our country and from our global church partners.

I will serve as one of the chaplains for the nearly 800 volunteers during the Gathering. Chaplains will share worship responsibilities for the commissioning service for volunteers and will be accompanied by ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Easton and Bishop Michael Rinehart of the Gulf Coast Synod. Musician Rachel Kurtz will lead us in music, and at the end of the service, volunteers will be sent to the Gathering with words of blessings and affirmation.

One of the most powerful moments in this service is will begin at the baptismal font. It is at the font where we remember our common identity, which holds us together as a community of faith. The most meaningful moment to which I am looking forward is when various items from each corner of the space will be brought forth to the center of the room to be connected together to create a base for the baptismal bowl. This imagery is so meaningful for me because it acknowledges the various journeys that come together as they have for generations to receive the one Spirit poured out at Pentecost, upon the Gentiles, and now upon us.

It is the one Spirit that connects us to each other, becoming equal recipients, crafted by this same God of Love.

Thanks be to God for the continued work of transformation by the Spirit, who continues to call all people from all corners of our world to the divine purpose of sharing love. God be with all of our volunteers.

Rev. Misael Fajardo-Perez is a Mission Developer with the Wenatchee Valley Lutheran Latino Ministry.

– Chris Heavner 

I love coming to the Gatherings and staying in a hotel!  My family didn’t stay in hotels that much (even now, I snatch all the tiny shampoo bottles for my kids).  This luxury would probably not be so thrilling if my stay only reminded me that I lack a permanent place to sleep.  For too many families, “home” is a couch in the home of a friend or relative.  For too many of God’s children, it is a dream to have a thermostat which controls the temperature and a bathroom with running water. 

“This Changes Everything” about the way we understand our stay in the hotels in Houston. Those of us staying in the hotels will “change everything” about the lives of three Houston families. 

Three Habitat for Humanity Houses will be constructed in the Interaction Center. Youth will swing the hammers that will frame the walls for bedrooms, kitchens, and living rooms.  I love coming to the Gathering knowing that a part of me and my heart will stay in the hosting city when I am gone.  

This is the fourth Gathering at which such a project has been one of the Interaction Center offerings.  The leadership is provided by Lutheran Campus Ministry and Lutheran Disaster Response. Twelve college students for whom Lutheran Campus Ministry has become an avenue for civic and community engagement will be serving as crew leaders. In addition to the work completed in Houston, we will tell you how you can organize similar projects in the places you call home. 

I love coming to the Youth Gatherings and meeting folks from across our country and our Church.  And I love working with you to change so many things in the city which serves as our host. 

Chris Heavner is campus pastor at Clemson University in South Carolina. This will be his eighth Gathering. He also serves as the faculty advisor for Clemson’s Habitat for Humanity, with whom he as built thirty-three homes.

– Debra Porowski 

One of the greatest lessons I learned at a Gathering happened in Detroit, in a small quiet hallway in the Cobo Center. On Friday night while we were walking back from Ford Field back to our buses, I fell and twisted my ankle. By the time I got to the hotel,  my ankle was swollen and bruising. We had our Practice Justice Day the following day.  I knew there was no way I could walk onto a site with them that would require me to be on my feet and working. Maybe we would be assigned something easy that I could do sitting down? Then it hit me. If we got to do something in where I could physically take part, it wasn’t what I knew my kids were looking forward to doing.   

We got our assignment the next morning and sure enough, the kids were going out to the streets of Detroit to fix up and paint houses. There would be power tools, loose boards, and lots of manual labor; nothing I could do on one foot. I hugged each kid goodbye and sent them with my adult leaders out to participate in an experience that would stay with them forever. After a visit to the first aid station and all fixed up with an ace bandage and lots of ice, I found a bench in a quiet hallway in the Cobo Center. As I was sitting there, another adult leader from another church (probably from another state) came up to me and asked me what I was doing. I explained that my youth were off having this amazing day and I was sitting there. The adult leader asked if she could pray with me. It was the most beautiful thing anyone could have done for me in that moment.

I sat and cried while she prayed for my youth—for their safety and for blessings on the work they were doing. She also prayed for me, for healing, for strength for my ankle, and for my broken heart.  

I learned a huge lesson that day. As adults we accompany the youth to the Gathering and we are ultimately there to support them in their faith journey.  My youth experienced God in the houses they fixed and painted, and I experienced God in the hallway.  

In 2018, I am happy to be serving as a Synod Gathering Coordinator to help other adults to find the balance between the responsibilities and the rewards of the Gathering.

If you approach your role with faith and a little flexibility, you too will find the Gathering as a highlight on your own faith journey—in very unexpected places.

– Ally McDonough

The Youth Gathering was a wonderful, faith-filled experience that left me with more memories and friends than I will ever get in a lifetime. In the summer of 2015, I went to the Gathering in Detroit. Before the trip, I heard many rumors of churches not going to Detroit because of the stigma surrounding the city. Honestly, I was a little apprehensive as well. As soon as my group got to Detroit, however, all of my preconceived notions were gone. Detroit was beautiful inside and out. Through many hardships, the city is still living and thriving one day at a time.

My favorite part of the Gathering and reason I am writing this article is because of one little girl who impacted me more than any speaker did at the Gathering. Her name is Hope. Pictured with me (I am in the pink bandana), Hope was the shining light on an otherwise wet and dreary day.

She was a local kid who lived in the neighborhood where we were working. Every day for three days, Hope came out and helped create the beautiful mosaics on the back of the dug outs. Hope came over to my group’s dugout and asked if she could help. A system was soon put in place where I would put the mortar on the back of the tile and Hope would choose the final resting place of the tile on the dugout. For over four hours, it was a beautiful symphony of working together to beautify a city so surrounded by negativity and media-bashing. Hope was living out the true meaning of her name in creating beauty in her city and community.

My day with Hope taught me that even with all the negativity, a helping hand and a serving spirit will unite us all.

– Lisa Jeffreys

Why the Gathering, and why service learning? Because Jesus!

That’s the easy answer, right?

But the answer really is because of Jesus.  Nothing about organizing service learning experiences for the Youth Gathering is easy.  Yet the church places great value on cultivating meaningful service learning experiences at the Gathering.

Jesus calls us into relationship with others: other perspectives, other backgrounds, other everything.  The churchy word for that is accompaniment.  Accompaniment means we value the relationship built in service learning enough to do the really hard work of listening, respecting, inviting, and engaging fully in the experience.  Jesus models this kind of ministry when he invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner, when he shares a drink with the woman at the well, and when he walks alongside two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  It’s about connecting our stories: my story, your story, God’s story.

Detroit is still buzzing about the Skittles explosion that was created at the 2015 ELCA Youth Gathering.  A few week’s after the event I received this email from one of our neighborhood partners, a resident of the Detroit Osborn neighborhood: 

“We prayed for helping hands but never imagined the most loving hearts that would come along with them! Our team, ‘Pathway from Playfield to Paradise‘ worked on relentlessly to uncover the sidewalk buried for decades (so the children no longer have to walk in the street) and created beautiful planters from the tires that have been dumped (causing horrible mosquito infestation). May God continue to bless you always ELCA. You bring hope for a better future!”

I am excited to see how the Spirit will move through participants and service learning partners in 2018 because, you know, Jesus.

Lisa Jeffreys was the Service Learning Coordinator for the 2015 ELCA Youth Gathering 

– Iain Chester

My first experience of the ELCA Youth Gathering was less than two years ago in Detroit. I learned quickly that a Gathering is unique and that there is nothing quite like worshiping in an NFL stadium filled with 30,000 people. As children’s rights activist Marian Wright Edelman walked out on to the stage during worship, she summed it up perfectly saying, “You are incredible.”

My role at the ELCA Youth Gathering was to help with ELCA World Hunger’s Walk for Water. This interactive experience invites participants to learn more about access to clean water by following the story of someone who does not have easy access to clean water. Participants can feel what it is like to collect water by carrying a five-gallon jug of water (about 41.5 pounds when full).

Looking out at the crowd, Marian Wright Edelman challenged us saying, “With your energy we are going to transform America and make it understand that God did not make two classes of children.”

Since the Gathering, many congregations, youth groups, and high schools across the ELCA have hosted their own localized versions of ELCA World Hunger’s Walk for Water. I believe that this experience, taken home by so many who came to the Gathering, has been a small part of the transformation Wright Edelman spoke about.

Congregations and youth groups have also been part of transformation through giving. Many who attended the 2015 ELCA Youth Gathering brought gifts to support ELCA World Hunger’s Walk for Water. To date, over $1 million has been raised to support ELCA World Hunger water-related projects. This transformation all began at the Gathering and will continue to provide clean drinking water like spring boxes and boreholes, support for irrigation systems, education about sanitation in rural villages, and so much more.

God did not make two classes of children, some with access to clean water and others without.

As we look toward Houston and the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering, I am excited to see the ways in which God will transform us, our world, and our understanding of one another.