Five young adults from the Michigan Area will combine their passion for Christ and zeal for leadership as they travel to the Global Young People’s Convocation Legislative Assembly in Berlin, Germany from July 21-26.
Young People’s Ministries, an initiative of The United Methodist Church, holds the conference and the purpose is for young people to share life experiences, struggles, gifts and realities, in light of helping transform the world.
West Michigan Conference Ministry Consultant Jana Lynn Almeida will be a going on the trip, four years after she went to the convocation in South Africa and she will be joining the following young adults: Katie Doyal of University UMC, Nicki Holland of Clare UMC, Heather Miller of Sand Lake UMC, and Ryan Minier, who is the president of the Wesley Foundation Board at Western Michigan University.
They will represent a small portion of the hundreds of young adults attempting to bridge social, economical, religious, ethnic and political differences that often separate and divide the world and the United Methodist Church.
Young People’s Ministries chose Berlin in part because of The Wall, prison sites and nearby concentration camps, the Memorial Church, and the living testimonies of those who lived in a divided city.
Almeida said that the group that traveled to South Africa in 2006 learned what Christianity looked like in a different part of the world, while getting educated about apartheid. She believes Berlin will be just as powerful and the group will be going to Oberammergau to learn about and experience the Passion Play.
The play is a story of the life and death of Jesus that has been performed every 10 years since 1634 as a tradition by the inhabitants of the village of Oberammergau, Bavaria, Germany after they survived the bubonic plague.
The trip is about more than sightseeing and thought-provoking entertainment though.
“(Last time) I think what I witnessed was there were people that put together 44 different resolutions for General Conference, from all over, and they did it through translators, working with people they had never met before,” Almeida said. “They were trying to be fair to the discipline of the church in all different cultures and their understanding of it, and we wrestled with some stuff a lot.”
The 23-year old Minier, who is completing a master’s degree in Spanish at WMU, said he’s excited to see what the global church looks like up close, while making an impact on the future of the UMC.
“I think for young people there are leadership opportunities in many areas of the Church — young people just need to seek them out and show that they're capable of filling them,” he said. “More often than not I've found that the more established leaders of the Church are willing to give us a chance once they see what we're capable of.”
Holland, 18, said she is attending the convocation because she wants to have her voice heard and meet other motivated young adults.
“I hope that I meet a lot of new people from all over the world that share the same beliefs and passions that I do,” she said.
A trip like this is not easy on the pocketbooks, as it costs each participant over $1,000 in registration, meals and lodging, plus the cost of airlines tickets.
A special offering at the West Michigan Annual Conference raised more than $3,000 for the group's cause.
People interested in donating to the cause can send a check to: West Michigan Conference Treasurer, P. O. Box 6247, Grand Rapids MI 49516, write "Berlin Youth Trip" in the memo line.
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