Canada Youth 2012 was an incredible time of growth, development and self-discovery for us!
All three of us are from Ontario, but now we have friends in Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick! While saddened by the distance between our new friends, modern technology has greatly lessened it and we look forward to remaining in contact with these new comrades. None of these relationships would have become realities were it not for CY2012.
Adele Halliday, the plenary speaker for the youth conference track, shared stories from her own life and enabled us to make very personal connections to her experiences. One of the biggest things we took away was that God is always completely and utterly present in our daily lives no matter how chaotic or terrifying our surroundings may be. We were also enlivened by the hope that God has a calling ready for each and every single one of us, whatever our skill set or passions. We may not have heard or seen what our callings are, but it will show at the right time.
Worship was glorious. It was totally amazing, and full of life and enthusiasm. While the conference was designed for youth and young adults, there remained some of that good old Presbyterian traditionalism, which consisted of hymns from our Book of Praise and solemn prayers. It also included spirited praise songs led by Hugh Donnelly on the guitar and prayers in many languages—French, Korean, German, Cree, and Chichewa among others. We loved that the Malawian visitors also contributed to our worshipping by leading songs from their home and everyone enthusiastically joined in with the actions!
We believe that it is of utmost importance that the Presbyterian Church in Canada continues to fund and organize this week-long event, because the teenagers of today’s youth groups are the adults, ministers, choristers, musicians, music directors, and elders of tomorrow’s church. If faith is not encouraged to grow and to bloom in young people, then it will forever remain shrunken and dormant.
This event was important to us. It gave us lifelong friendships with other people, but also reinforced our relationship with our Lord and Saviour. Many of us grew so much closer to him in only one week of intense praise than perhaps in our entire church-going lives. We look forward to the next Canada Youth event where we want to try taking a new path: the mission track!
More reflections from Canada Youth 2012
