ELCA Youth Gathering: week 7

I planned lunches for our group and 2 dinners.
Green Dot Stables: Black bean & tempeh sliders
I also had mushroom broth soup, truffle & herb french fries,
mac & cheese (for the table), and a PB&J slider.

This week was one of the most exhausting week's of my life. But it also was extremely fun! Hopefully some of the pictures will do a bit of justice to what we experienced each day.

A bit of background first. The ELCA Youth Gathering is a triennial event where ~30,000 ELCA youth, their sponsors and volunteers descend on a city that has experienced some sort of plight. While in the city, the youth do service projects. This year we went to Detroit. The people of Detroit were so welcoming. There are many news articles you can read about how excited they were to have us there. Previous Gatherings I've attended were in New Orleans (youth group sponsor) and San Antonio (youth participant).

We stayed at a swank casino hotel & got
these delicious turn down chocolates each night!

At this Gathering, ELCA World Hunger had a 27,000 sq ft space to turn into a 1/10th mile-long track in just a matter of days. Participants would carry a 5-gallon jerry can filled with water to simulate the experience of walking to access clean water and then carrying it back with you. On average a woman in Sub-Saharan Africa walks 3.7 miles (37 times around the track) each day carrying this amount of water (~40 lbs)--or sometimes more. Along the way, there were obstacles that made sense for one of four stories they could follow on the track. Each of the stories comes from a location where ELCA World Hunger supports water-related projects. We called this the "Walk for Water.

Inside the track, we had two main areas. The first was a donations area. Besides being an educational activity, it also was quite the fundraiser. We had a goal to raise $500,000 in the three days of the event...and there's even a family within the ELCA that agreed to match that money for $1 million raised for water-related projects! We had a screen that showed synod totals (like small regions of ELCA churches) which turned it into a bit of friendly competition. I'm happy to say that Nebraska started the week out in the #1 spot! Amazingly, we raised $402,000 at the ELCA Gathering. Absolutely incredible the power of the church.

The ELCA World Hunger team + Presiding Bishop Eaton
(this is before the chaos ensued on at the start of day 1)
...look at how awesome that photo frame looks!

The other main area inside the track was called "Dive Deeper." In this space, youth could learn more about water in many aspects. We had relay races to affix malaria nets to cots, team building activities to get water through piping systems from the municipal water plant to houses (this is based on the California drought), "Price is Right"-esque games to learn about virtual water content in industrial products, food, and water consumption in homes. ELCA Advocacy connected youth to advocacy efforts around the clean water act. And we even had an area to relax at our cinema (complete with turf, camping chairs, towels to lay on and picnic tables!).

start.
Each 5-gal jug weighs ~40 lbs

obstacle #1: Heat.
Not always perfect weather for water collection...

obstacle #2: Flood.
We called this the "noodle forest"

obstacle #3: Clinic.
You were diagnosed with diarrheal disease,
worms, or malaria. When you had diarrhea you 
had to sit on the latrine and read The Lutheran 
and learn about oral rehydration therapy.

obstacle #3: Clinic.
When you had malaria, you sat on a cot for 2 mins while learning about
malaria and then took your "anti-malarial" jelly beans. 

obstacle #3: Clinic.
"anti-malarial" jelly beans

obstacle #3: Clinic.
If you had worms, you learned how to wash your hands properly
on our very own Tippy Tap (thanks Pacha Soap for the idea)
and you also learned to spot clean water. 

obstacle #3: Clinic.
spot the clean water
(hint: it's the orange-ish looking one which has been treated with iodine)

obstacle #4: Change in Elevation.
The road may have been paved with good
intentions, but it's not always smooth. 

finish line/home.
You made it! Now go under our 5
awesome balloon arches!

photo op.
featuring nothing other than a balloon arch & the photo frame!

dive deeper entrance. 

higher/lower "Price Is Right" game.
virtual water content in industry: jeans, cars, paper,
water bottles, golf courses

grocery shopping "Price is Right" game.
Using your budgeted amount of water, how many food
items can you buy based on their virtual water content?
1 cup of coffee, eggs, t-bone steaks, cheddar cheese, apples

remembrance of baptism.
We had the globe and the baptismal font
anchoring the center of our space. 

And more than that, we had balloons. So many balloons! The balloons represented a dollar amount correlating to the money that we raised, so by the end of Day 3 we had an inordinate number of balloons all over the place.

Martin Luther even came for a visit!

Each day, 10,000 youth were invited into the COBO Center (where we were stationed) to listen to music, to play games, and to connect to organizations such as ELCA World Hunger and others. I honestly am not sure how many people we had at our "booth" each day, but my guess is that it was around 2,500-3,000 daily. Youth groups were waiting an hour and half on average to walk the 15 minutes or so around the track.

That's utterly amazing to me!

I think that says something truly profound about the youth of the ELCA if they were willing to wait so long to carry a 40 lb jug around a track. I was stationed at the start line of the track and quickly lost my voice after trying to give a short orientation to the track over the rest of the noise in the COBO Center. It was so great though! If you want to hear my spiel, just let me know. I'm sure I can still recite it, no problem.

When we were done each evening, we found a quick dinner and then headed to Ford Field for the nightly programming. There we heard from inspirational (generally young adult) speakers from within the ELCA and then also others who were just phenomenal. My favorites (although I'm a bit biased) were Mikka and Rozella. I also really enjoyed spoken word from TMiller Poetry. There's music, dancing, singing and general excitement at these evening programs...so overwhelming, but also very powerful.

Mikka sharing her story on Wednesday night. 

Rozella sharing her story on Saturday night. 

the view from my seat: Wednesday

the view from my seat: Friday

the view from my seat: Sunday morning worship

My goal for the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering (in Houston) is to be cast on the Youth Gathering dance team. I don't know who I have to bribe in order for that to happen, but I've been trying to cast a wide net, early and often in hopes of my dreams coming to fruition. We shall see if it happens...

One evening, a few of us staff snuck off to Canada after the evening programming. We were headed for ice cream, but as it turns out, pretty much everything in Windsor, Ontario closes at about 10 pm. The option we were left with were McFlurries. Turns out McFlurries were invented in Canada! Who knew? AND they have different flavors than we do. I highly recommend the Rolo McFlurry.

At the very end of the week, we closed with a 2-hour long worship service at Ford Field. Getting 30,000 people through Communion is just an impressive feat, if nothing else. Presiding Bishop Eaton preached a compelling sermon, there were dancers, and much rejoicing! A great end to a great (and exhausting) week.

Want to see more photos of the experience...from the building demos in the office to setting up the space to the youth invasion? Look at our Storify!

Really the only downside of the whole experience is that my fanny pack broke on the final day and my heart is shattered with sadness. How am I supposed to keep snacks close by at all hours? Or where should I keep other necessities (like my phone, cash and ID) when I need my hands free for activities? I plan to investigate further to see if I can find a fix once I get back to Nebraska, but for now the sadness pervades...

everyone that walked or gave got a button,
respectively. For the brave handful that finished 37x's, 
they got a coveted 3.7 button!

I call this "Balloon Graveyard."

the "Spirit of Detroit" was renewed and re-excited by 30,000 youth!