Light After Dark
What do sprained ankles, scoffing dry Weet-bix, cold showers, mosh-pits and lost voices all have in common? If you guessed a youth camp, you are right! Also in common with these are dumb dogs, night-vision goggles, strangler fig roots, and young people learning and leaning into Jesus.
When Central Easter Camp was cancelled, Tama and the AYM team got together to plan an alternative for our rangatahi. Plans went from two separate retreats at each end of our diocese to two separate retreats of 100 at El Rancho, to one retreat of 200 at El Rancho.
I headed along to support our youth and, despite the lack of quality sleep, really enjoyed myself, especially connecting one-on-one with the kids. The retreat had a village feel to it and with all the youth groups split across four Elemental Tribes (Air, Water, Earth and Fire) there was a real sense of whanaungatanga being built within our Youth Movement. Something that is a harder to do at a much larger camp. Over the weekend the tribes competed in a number of challenges, including Top Town where everyone got soaked, with Fire taking out the overall competition.
The theme for the weekend was ‘Light after Dark’ which Rev. Ana Fletcher summed up well with a quote from the movie ‘Blades of Glory’:
Chazz: Night is a very dark time for me.
Jimmy: It's dark for everyone, idiot!
Chazz: Not for people who live in Alaska. Or people with night-vision goggles.
“Jesus gives us night-vision goggles to help us navigate those dark times in our lives,” Ana told us.
We heard from a number of other speakers, including Dean David Rowe who recounted a story about a dog he once owned, whose daily ritual consisted of being let out of the house into a dog-run in the garden, through a gate. When the fence and gate were eventually removed, the dog would still sit at the gate post to be let into the (now imaginary) dog-run. Jesus’ death and resurrection has removed the gate and fence between us and God, yet many of us are still waiting at the gate.
Rev. Andy Spence concluded the retreat with nine tips on how we can grow and maintain our relationship with God. We need to train ourselves like the strangler fig roots are trained into bridges that can live for hundreds of years.
Andy’s tip #8 encouraged our young people to attend church on a Sunday and connect with those that are older (and wiser). Do you have youth in your church? They may be too shy to come and chat so seek them out. Find out if they went to the Easter Retreat and ask them what stood out for them.
When I asked our young people what their takeaway from the weekend was, one of them said they really like the wisdom from a fridge magnet that Ana shared: “It'll be ok in the end; if it's not ok, it's not the end.”
With so much going on for our rangatahi over the last few years, having moments like this, where they can connect with one another and with God is really important. Please pray for the other events in the AYM calendar, that they can go ahead and that they will meet our kids where they are at.
By Hazel Nugent
