Western Regional Youth Event

Day 1
Western Regional Youth Event in Long Beach, California!

Our group of 18 ventured out on a plane some of us for the first time, some of us veteran flyers! Once we got to Long Beach and gathered our things it was off to California State Long Beach where we checked in to our dorms, ate dinner and gathered for our opening worship and programming!

Our speaker for the evening was Rev. Sheri Prestemon who is the Associate Genera Minister and co-Executive of Global Ministries! She introduced our them of Love is Greater than Hate and preached about 3 different examples she had where ministries of global ministries had shown this at a Pride Parade in Cleveland, with and art school in the Gaza Strip that has been destroyed by war and how the church was there to love, support and activate for Black Lives Matter and against the murder of George Floyd. We concluded worship with amazing music and community ion with rainbow bread! After a conference check in it was off to bed!

Day 2
Western Regional Youth Event was Amazing!!

Our morning speaker was Rebekah Bruesehoff, who is a teenage advocate for trans and LGBTQIA+ individuals and rights. She shared her story and how love is greater than fear in her life and in her advocacy work. The rest of the morning was spent with round 1 of workshops! The youth attended workshops about making youth group more neurodivergent accepting, community organizing, mission trip possibilities, Queer Bible Heroes, Our Whole Lives, yoga and meditation, and What is going on in our Brains!

The afternoon was spent in workshops round two and the youth attended workshops like candle making, new and exciting board games, lei making, baking adventures, and hip hop dance. We then had a Q&A with Rebekah and evening worship where we heard from Rev. Rae Chen Huang who is the senior organizer for housing in southern CA where she shared about the struggles that face our people that are unhoused and how we can advocate and work against these injustices. And two of our youth, Chassity and Rihanna joined other youth on stage to help lead and teach a song and Its actions!!

Day 3
Our day for Love of Service so of course we ventured out for service projects!

We started out the day with opening worship where we had a blessing and send off for our upcoming service. We then all went to various service project sites from cleaning the beach, a composting site, community gardens, habitat for humanity, the food bank, a nature center, Ariane wildlife rehab center, March of Dimes, interviewing senior citizens, tech support for senior citizens and much more! We spent the morning and some of the afternoon at our sites. We then returned to the campus for some much needed free time.

Later in the afternoon we had an opportunity to have a Q&A session with the UCC president and General Secretary Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson. For closing worship that evening our own Conference minister Rev. Dr. Tony Clark offered us prayer and then we heard from the president of PSR, Rev. Dr. David Vàquez-Levy. He spoke on immigration and related it to the story of God and Elijah. He challenged us to do ‘second helping’ ministry where after we do the ‘first helping’ where we serve the immediate need we look beyond to find the cause of why the service was needed in the first place and what can we do about it.

After worship we enjoyed story time with Pickle who is the Drag Laureate of Hollywood! It was an exhausting and wonderful day!!

Personally there was so much already from the first day of the trip I saw the beauty California and it's beaches and buildings or how the community of California and their church group was so nice and welcoming and it was good to be like an older brother to my roommate and I'd love to have more opportunities to speak!

Bam C., age 15

through the smudged window of the last seat where the sea and mountains meet

barren spires, a skeletal reach into the azure expanse

swathed by milky whips of a finger far above

a sixty-seven percent chance
a supreme being of nurturing love

in this moment we are minuscule, forgotten in the infinite heavens.

Eliza S., age 16

I woke up early in the morning around 7am. my mom drove me to the airport. ive never been on a plane before so i was scared. it took awhile for us to get on the plane but i think it was worth it. while the plane took off i was so scared because it felt like i was on a roller coaster, but looking at the view brought me at a state of peace. we went to LA X (katy perry song😝) and we were there for what felt like hours. we met the other ucc people and i think it went pretty well. we went to the pyramid building in long beach and it was beautiful. everything about the place is amazing. the palm trees and the cool breeze.

Rihanna D., age 14

I was excited today because of all the things we learned and figured out about like where we were staying, eating and God.

Charles M., age 11

Today’s purpose was finding out who you are, working together, and having fun .what was important to me was getting to my workshop on time, feeding myself and staying hydrated. I got my stress out and and worries at my workshop, I also got out that I can actually trust one of my friends thanks to Rebekah’s talk. I’m taking home happiness. I saw God when I was sad and stressed, God also helped my friend!

Chasity H., age 11

Today was full of interaction with other people from different churches. I let a lot of new people which was fun. I will bring home lots of cute selfies and new experiences. Our faith over fear message seemed relevant today!

McKenna E., age 15

What I learned today is how to listen to my breathing and how it can help you with anxiety and dealing with issues. I saw God when God showed me who to call when I need comfort.

Keirra K., age 15

Today has been a good day! I am grateful for everything and everyone. The time where I saw God is when people were singing, their voices are pretty. I enjoyed the day!

Taraya K., age 17

Today has been interesting. I believe its purpose is to educate us further and teach us things. I let a lot only new people and heard their stories. It was a very enlightening experience. At the end of my workshop with Our Whole Lives (we learned about consent, relationships, peer pressure, etc.) they handed out condoms which we filled with water and used as balloons, it was fun! I saw God just amongst the people. God was there when we were talking about our lives and what we have gone through to make it this far.

Zoevi P., age 15 Keirra K., age 15

I think the importance about Tuesday is learning to give back to a community and growing with it if no one gave back then it wouldn't be a good community and that people should show kindness even if it is not given like we went to our service project to help people out and give to them that is also where I saw god all around us and giving is what he would want.

Jasmine B., age 16

What was important or relevant about today was doing our service projects and having some good guest speakers come for services. The service projects were relevant and helpful to the locals, I loved helping them out even if they didn’t make the huge of a difference. I was at the beach cleaning up trash and I really think we made an impact on how locals see people from out of state and how big of a help we were. I saw god in the ocean and the huge ships we saw out at see, it truly amazes me to think about how all of that is possible.

Hazen R., age 15

Today we went and did composting for our service project we learned a lot about how to compost in our own homes, and it was really cool getting to see another part of California, and where our trash goes the days purpose was to get out in California and explore different things that we could do to keep the community clean and I took out of the day that it's good to get out and recycle your trash. We also got to stop at 7-Eleven for the first time which was really cool and I saw God in the drive because it was really Peaceful.

Ally F., age 15

The thing that was important about today was helping the community and the elderly, which was also the purpose of today. What I got out of today was a sense of wanting to help the community and the elderly. I’m taking home how to build stuff and a desire to help. I saw God when we were all working together.

Nathaniel B., age 14

-Rihanna D., age 14