ELCA Youth Gathering: Build Bridges

This morning we hopped on a bus to go to Hart Plaza. We waited there for the buses to pick us up to go to our service site. While we were waiting, there was a man singing to keep us occupied during the long wait. The buses arrived around 1 which took us to Oakman Blvd. for our service project. We were given the task to beautify the neighborhood. We took out weeds, cleared trash, and cleaned sidewalks for 3 hours. We were done at 4:30, and the buses took us back to Hart Plaza. We then walked to The Renaissance food court, ate dinner, and walked to Ford Field for the Mass Gathering, which started at 7:30. During the worship we listened to 4 amazing speakers, and had the privilege to listen to The Temptations sing a few Motown classics. Afterwards, we walked through humid Detroit, rode back to our hotel, had our closing, and then typed up what you are reading right now.

-Hailey Ostbo and Alessandro Squadrito

Our speakers at tonight’s Mass Gathering were phenomenal, and all spoke on the theme “Build Bridges.” First, we heard from Rani Abdulmasih, pastor to one of the only Arabic speaking churches in the ELCA. He spoke on bridging the gap between Christians and Muslims, and bringing to light our Christian roots in the Middle East. One of his quotes was, “The first Christians were Arabs, and the first Arabs were Christians.”

Next, we heard from a young woman named Sarah Funkhouser, who recently completed a year with the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission program, where she served in Jerusalem. She talked about how she was assigned to teach English to blind students at the Helen Keller School for the Visually Impaired. Not having a background in teaching and not knowing how to speak Arabic, she turned to a passion of hers: Yoga. She challenged herself to teach these blind students yoga poses, and reveled in the spirituality of the exercise. The impact she had on those students was great, and she is now discerning where God is calling her next.

The last speaker of the evening was Reverend Steve Jerbi from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He spoke about racial injustice, particularly in the story of a 13-year-old boy named Damaris Simmons. “Damaris should be here and having this experience, but he can’t.” He then when into detail about how a couple years ago, Damaris was taking out the trash, and his neighbor, who wasn’t particularly fond of having a black family on the block, shot him in his front yard, while his mother helplessly looked on from her front steps. The power in which he spoke about the plague of racism in our country was incredibly moving and powerful. At one point, the entire stadium stood up and clapped, and after about 10 more minutes of him speaking, I realized we never sat back down! He drove the message home that Jesus claims us, and we claim him as well.

Awesome day!!! What an incredible experience for everyone here. Thanks so much for reading our blog and sharing in our time in Detroit!