October 10, 2006

The last couple of weeks have been very busy for me here. Over the last week and a half I have been in the far eastern part of the province for a synod meeting and then to the farthest western area of the province for a youth conference. There's not a lot to talk about regarding the Synod. It was your run of the mill church meetings.

I felt like I learned a lot more at the youth conference. The youth of the Province are actually their own Society called BCYAYM - British Columbia and Yukon Anglican Youth Ministry - I think. During the weekend they held elections to their council and held their Annual General Meeting. One thing up here that is very different from what I've seen with youth work is that the conference was for youth ages 14 - 25. Kind of a big age span - and there wasn't a lot of opportunity to talk in smaller groups.

At one point in the weekend we split into focus groups. I went with the group speaking about Sorrento. Apparently Sorrento and BCYAYM used to have a very good relationship, but over the years they've drifted apart and have been looking to reconnect over the last year or so. I asked what sort of things people would be interested in attending at Sorrento. A couple of things that came back were young adult retreats - focused on people in their 20s. In the same vein, some youth expressed interest in youth gatherings that were focused on fellowship for teenagers. We'll see what can happen in the next year, but I am looking into what sort of things we can sponsor here at Sorrento.

Otherwise, I will now be sitting on the council throughout the rest of my time up here. I've talked with the adult rep to council about doing some exchanges with the Diocese of Olympia. We talked about the possibility of bringing some youth and maybe staff down for Winter HYC (and then I could come to!).

One cool thing that happened last week was that my director decided to send me down to our Diocesan Convention in Seattle. I'll be putting a display on for Sorrento Centre, but I'll also be chaperoning the youth presence and pages. I'm coming down on Wednesday the 25th and staying until the morning of Monday the 30th. Dinner or coffee anyone?

That's enough for now - I'll add more soon!

October 2, 2006

I'm feeling a bit homesick tonight. We just got home from the weekend trip. Last night we went to Viewmont Hot Springs and stayed the night. It was incredible. I have a lot of pictures that I want to post, but I'm going to have to do that tomorrow. I'm a bit tired tonight and I know that I don't have to work tomorrow, so I'll have time to post. Until then.