Friday - Final day

HI from Purdue, this is Nathan and John on the late night blog ya’ll !! Today was the last day of our week long Mission/NYE trip. This morning we went to the final class thank God.  After the final class was over we all came back to the dorms and chilled as we reflected on this week’s events and speakers. J.R. Martinez was by far the most enjoyed guest speaker, but was not the only person who reached out to people’s hearts and left an impression. After a meal of ice cream and cake (ha ha) we all headed out to Slater Hill for the closing ceremony of NYE.  We tried to go for a run in the famous fountain run but when we got there the water was turned off. We took this opportunity to strike some fancy ninja posses. Everybody is now currently packing or is supposed to be. We are going to try to get out of here at 7:00 a.m.( yah right). So until we see ya’ll morrow have a good night’s sleep , because were back from college and ready to PARTY!    P.S. don’t tell Melissa about the jokes I don’t think she would like them.

Thursday All Strings Jam Session - NYE

All Strings Jam Session rocks the house at the UCC’s National Youth Event 

Written by Tim Kershner
July 13, 2012

Youth at the UCC's National Youth Event at Purdue University participate in Thursday evening's jam session.

Vincent Hanna was about to play guitar in front of the largest crowd in his 15 years and he did not appear nervous at all.
"I just hope I play it right and the crowd likes it," he said.
Hanna, from First Congregational UCC in Manhattan, Kan., was among more than two dozen musicians participating in the All Strings Jam Session during this evening’s worship at the UCC’s National Youth Event (NYE). The musicians -- mostly youth but a few chaperones joined the jam -- played guitars (acoustic and electric), bass, keyboards, violin and even a ukulele.
The All Strings group performed "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga and "Waiting for the World to Change" by John Mayer. During their performance, the crowd of almost 2,500 in the Elliot Music Hall at Purdue University was on its feet, with many singing along.
Aaron Gaines, lead vocalist of Tribe of Judah, which has been leading worship music during the event, helped organize the musicians and form them into a band.
"Y'all ready to rock out?" asked Gaines at the beginning of Thursday afternoon's rehearsal. "You’re going to be our rock stars tonight."
"Yeah!" was the unanimous reply.
Gaines said he chose these two songs for many reasons. "I wanted to play tunes we listen to and that speak to our community," he said.
The Gaga piece, said Gaines, fits with the event's theme for the day, "Imagine a world where differences are embraced." Mayer's song reminds us that "we're still here, ready and willing to be active, for our hit at the bat," he said.

NYE youth participate in the jam session during Thursday's plenary session.

Worship music, Gaines added, does not have to be just Christian or Gospel. Many secular songs also have a place in worship.
Hanna agreed. "It's good for worship to add as many [musical] genres as possible, especially for the youth."
Kevin Cantrell brought his guitar from Trinity UCC in Wooster, Ohio, to play in the band. He also was selected to play a solo in "Waiting for the World to Change." Cantrell says Lady Gaga's message through her music is similar to the messages at this week's youth event. While he's never played in a group this large, he knew it was going to be fun. "I'm going to learn a lot," he said.
Rajinee Buquing plays in an ensemble in her home church of Grace UCC, Houston, Texas, and has played at the Houston House of Blues. Regardless of the size of the audience, Buquing says she feels more of a connection to God through music.
But this, she knew, was going to be big.

Kevin @ NYE

Watch Kevin's performance at NYE!           http://youtu.be/7dkEOLXXhGI

Thursday - NYE

Today has been a very exciting day.  It started off having our picture taken with all the Ohio Conference NYE participants.  Morning worship featured J.R Martinez from the hit show “Dancing with the Stars”.  He shared his emotional and motivating journey of recovery from an accident while serving in Iraq.  Following that, we all split up to attend our morning workshops.  We then met up and ate lunch as a group and then again split up for afternoon workshops.  Everyone had a couple of hours of down time before meeting up once again for dinner.  Once we finished having dinner, everyone here at the NYE gathered for evening worship which featured our own Kevin Cantrell in the guitar group with a solo!  We then went to an outdoor concert.  Our youth then returned to dorms for some late night pizza and then all went to bed.  We have some great stories to tell when we get back!      Luke Wiest & Dakota Thomas

Wednesday - NYE

We started off our morning with group breakfast, then headed over to the morning worship service. We watched a video about mountain top removal.  Someone from our National Office answered questions about the effects this causes on the community .  You can get more information at ilovemoutains.org.  He encouraged us to do an energy audit and form a green team, but Melissa told us Trinity already did that.  When worship was over we all went to our first workshop.  Some learned about stereotypes, some learned about immigration, some learned about connecting our body and spirit and some did self-discovery.  We all discussed our workshops over lunch in the café.  More workshops continued after lunch.  We learned about serving mission and many more.  We gathered to have our yearly thank you card contest.  Nicole Chuma was our winner.  (Note from Melissa—ALL the thank you notes were so amazing, we aren’t mailing them until we get home so we can copy and share them with the congregation).  We also signed our books  for the Literacy Labyrinth and added them to the labyrinth after dinner.  Evening worship followed dinner.  We heard a personal story from a woman affected by HIV.  It made us realize that anyone can get HIV and struggles like that can build character and be life changing.  Directors from the Harlem Teen Choir worked with some NYE youth and performed a great number at the evening worship.  They inspired us to get up and moving!   Tonight, at 7:00,  Kevin Cantrell will be on stage with the guitar group.  You can watch it live at  www.ucc.org/youth/nye

We are having a lot of fun, enjoying ourselves and thank everyone for making this possible.

- Abby Reed, Nicole Chuma, Vicki Anderson

Interview @ NYE

Although the editor didn't seem to get a few names quite right.........Trinity United Church of Christ in Wooster was mentioned in the interview for the 2012 National Youth Event!

'Extravagant welcome' signals start of United Church of Christ’s National Youth Event

Written by Tim Kershner
July 11, 2012

Youth from across the UCC arrive at Purdue University for the 2012 National Youth Event.

For the past week or so, 16-year-old Nicole Kirk from Trinity United Church of Christ in Wooster, Ohio, has been getting a lot of sleep. "I wanted to be fully energized," she said.

Kirk, along with more than 2,000 other youth, are at Purdue University this week for the UCC’s National Youth Event (NYE). "I knew there would be lots of stuff to do," Kirk said on Tuesday, looking forward to three full days of workshops, service projects, worship and fellowship ahead of him.

The "extravagant welcome" waiting for the arriving youth and their chaperones at Purdue included face painting, outdoor games, and snacks to unwind after a long trip to western Indiana. Jacob Morey, who from drove three hours with his church group from First Congregational UCC in South Haven, Mich., said that having his caricature done was the first order of business. This is his first youth event and, while the schedule looks busy, he hopes to strengthen his belief in God.

NYE, for youth ages 13-18, is held every four years and draws young UCC members from around the country, and often includes other youth from around the world. This year, a group from France is present, hosted by three Maryland churches. A group from Germany also is attending, hosted by Trinity UCC in Chicago.

For Yolanda Medina, 18, from Millburn Congregational UCC in Guernsey, Ill., meeting new people is one of the best things about NYE. One of the people she may meet this week is 15-year-old Elias Lingnau from Bonn, Germany. He and a group of youth from the Evangelical Church of the Union are looking forward to a "great new experience of faith," he said.

Catherine Curtis, Director of Christian Education at First Congregational UCC, Glen Ellyn, Ill., brought several youth from her church along with youth from four other Illinois Conference churches. The conference held a "mini youth event" for in May to get ready for the event. "This event is brand new to most of us," she said. Curtis hopes the conference can build on the youths' experience and strengthen its youth programming.

Daily Devotion (ucc.org) Picture

I get the ucc.org daily devotion and look at the first picture on the email - part of our group - Abby, Nicole, Leeann and Mark!  How cool!

Phil

Feature: An embracing opening experience

From welcoming prayers and twitter technology to holy hip-hop, NYE 2012 opening worship is all about hope and possibilities

Tuesday - NYE

We started today off in downtown Indianapolis. Next, we enjoyed our lunch at the Art Garden while listening to soothing music. Then, we had a long drive to Purdue University. Once we arrived we got everything unpacked and situated. After that, we enjoyed an all you can eat buffet at the Hillenbrand Hall. Once we finished we were off to the service with lots of exciting music!  Nick Chuma

FYI--You can view worship services and morning plenary through live stream videos at www.ucc.org/youth/nye.  Thanks to some of our girls leading us to the front (can you hear Kevan growl?), we could be seen quite well in last night’s worship service.  I’m not sure if there is a way to view past live streams, but it would be well worth it to search around the website to see our kids that excited at worship!  Toward the end of the week, Kevin Cantrell will be involved in the worship.  I will try and get information out to let everyone know when to watch!

Thanks to Tommy Sarbach, we (me, along with Kevan, Leeann, and several random people) can use our computers to get this information to you!!! Getting on Purdue’s wifi was a little more complicated than anticipated and Tommy’s IT skills were greatly appreciated!

The included pictures are a group photo in front of our dorm, waiting in line to eat (good thing our technology is welcome here!),new friends we made while waiting in line,  a picture of worship that didn’t do it justice (2500 excited teens worshipping is something to see!), a picture of our kids standing to sing (no one told us to “please rise”, they were moved to stand!) and after a hurried walk to get there, a picture of Leeann and myself with the evenings speaker (the kids were so jealous!).

Monday - NYE

Dear readers of this terribly written blog,
We started off the morning getting some nice nice breakfast at the hotel... it's pretty good for the west side. The girls then went off to The Wheeler Mission for Women and Children to clean and scrub while the great guys went to paint some things. They told us we were really good workers and we got ice cream. This was only the guys though, because the girls in our group aren't that outstanding at working. The girls didn't get ice cream like we did... they just did it out of the goodness of their hearts! Later in the evening, we went to lazer tag where the red team(my team) owned! :D <yes, that's a smiley face.. just turn your head. After that, we got some awesome steak and shake. After dinner, we went to a boring book store to get children books and as much as I would like to babble on, I need to go play some sweet 500 Rummy with my homeboys.
Chow! (wait, that isn't how you spell that?!)
From your awesome youth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kevin and Tommy

Good Evening Everyone...I wanted to send a special Thank you  to everyone who donated money to support the mission project (Literacy Labyrinth) for our conference. As I was on the floor, searching for one of my children's favorite books I stopped.... to listen to all our "children" gasping and sharing stories of their favorites with each other and who read it to them!  At least, I thought it was all the children, but after reading the above blog maybe it was mostly the girls (Melissa being the most excited)!  It was a wonderful sound and I really enjoyed hearing everyone pick out their favorite childhood stories.  I am very happy with the selection of  books you and our children chose to share. I believe these stories will become their favorites as well.  Listed below are your children' s favorites.... can you find yours or better yet, the ones you read to them?

Goodnight Moon
Charlotte's Web
A Bad Case of Stripes
Goodnight Gorilla
The Mother Daughter Book Club
Matt Christopher Soccer Hero
Little Blue Truck
Brave
Where the Red Fern Grows
The Adventures of Captain Underpants
Junie B. Jones- A Little Monkey Business
Matt Christopher- Soccer Duel
Are You My Mother
Calvin and Hobbes- Something Under the Bed is Drooling
The Story of Ferdinand the Bull
Just Shopping with Mom
Merriam-Websters Rhyming Dictionary
Frog and Toad All Year
Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The Grouchy Ladybug
The Sneetches and other Stories
The Very Dizzy Dinosaur
The Mitten
Love You Forever

As I type this note to you, Melissa has already read Love You Forever to the girls!  I used to read/sing this story to Ryan and he would sing it with me, but for some odd reason he doesn't remember doing that at all!  What a great group of kids!

Thanks....
Leeann : )

Day 1 - NYE

Today was the first day of the Senior High Youth Mission Trip. We arrived at the church at 8:45, to load up the vans.  We stayed for the church service and after the service the whole congregation commissioned us.  After the church service we said our goodbyes, and split. At about noon, we stopped and picked up Abby at a gas station. Then an hour later we stopped to eat our packed lunches. After we were done eating we continued the travel to Indiana. At 4:30 we finally arrived in Indianapolis at the Best Western Hotel. We checked in and settled into our rooms. At 5 we left for dinner at City Barbeque, after dinner we walked around town for a while and then went for dessert at Dairy Queen. We then drove back to the hotel. We played Fishbowl in the main lobby, and the boys won (of course).  We did devotions about what we wanted to bring back from this trip. We arranged the room as we found it and headed upstairs to get ready for bed.   - Anna & Amanda Pyers