Monday, August 20: Final Reflections

We've made it home... I imagine everyone is catching up on sleep now.
I'll post some pictures and thoughts from the end of the trip sometime in the next day or two. But for now, enjoy these reflections from two members of the team!

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Adrian

Hi, my name is Adrian and I’m an Anglican from Kamloops, BC. This trip was an amazing experience for our youth group and others that accompanied us on this trip to the great city of Saskatoon! CLAY wasn’t just a “fun get together”, it was also a great religious eye opener for me, for I thought that religion was only about God but I realized that it also has a lot to do with the people that you practice it with. This new understanding made me open up my eyes to places and people that I see God in and the workings of God in. Another thing I learned was that not only Christians worship God but Muslims worship our God too but they heard it from another source, this forum was my favorite by far from the rest of the forums and it was also the most meaningful to me. This gathering made me feel like I could do anything with the guidance of God, but it also made me feel sad that only Lutherans and Anglicans can go to this. But my overall feeling toward this youth gathering was positive.   

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mathias

Hi there, my name is Mathias Imeson and I am a Lutheran from Kamloops B.C. I go to Hills of Peace Lutheran Church. This is my second time going to CLAY and it was as fun as I remember it being. It was in Saskatoon this year. The bus ride from Kamloops to Saskatoon was pretty awesome. This CLAY was based around how teachings of God can go viral and how easy it is to understand the readings of the Bible. My favorite large group gathering was with Bishop Mark Macdonald. I really enjoyed this gathering because he talked about how we break down walls in our church to help people worship and understand God. He talked about how hard it can be to get into a church as a new person. God needs to be able to talk and communicate with all people.

Another thing I really enjoyed at CLAY was the forum Bull with Bill. Bull with Bill is a Q and A session with R. Bill Cliff, the minister from the chapel at the Huron College Chapel. The way Bill answers questions is amazing he doesn’t just answer the questions, it’s almost like he offers the answers as advice to the people who are asking his questions and he gives us solutions to problems we have in our life. If I could change anything about CLAY it would be to open the gathering to more races and religious people. I’m so happy I made so many new friends at CLAY, because they not just my friends, they have become new additions to my family. I feel like all these new things I learned will help me understand and become closer God in my prayers and worship.

Sunday, August 19: Attach and Send

Ready to load the bus!

Well... CLAY 2.012 has ended. We got up this morning and loaded the bus and then went for a 10am brunch at the conference centre. I must say, our team is awesome!! We needed to have all of our stuff outside of the hotel and ready to be loaded on the bus for 9am and without any difficultly at all we were successful. I had other home team leaders asking how we got our group up and ready in time... her group was still in bed. Team - you rock!!

Youth from BC at CLAY 2012

Following brunch we gathered with the other young people from BC for a large group pictures (I didn't realize how many of us there were) and then we went to the final Large 

Group Gathering. This was once again filled with worship, music and a keynote speaker... this time we also celebrated Eucharist together. Far too soon the morning was over and it was time to catch the bus and begin our journey home. 

We've made it to Calgary where we are spending the night once again at St. Peter's Anglican Church (thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!!), this time without the security system going off! Tomorrow it's onwards to Kamloops. 

Today we have some reflections from Peter, Jolynne and Drew from their weekend experience. Enjoy!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter

Hello everyone, my name is Peter.  Today was Sunday and sadly the final day of CLAY 2012.  We began the day with brunch at 10:00 which was a large buffet of various foods.  After words, all of the participants met for the final large gathering.  After singing, dancing and worshiping for 3 hours our time in Saskatoon was over.  It was also announced that CLAY 2014 would be held in our hometown of Kamloops BC!

It was an amazing weekend that I will never forget.  I especially enjoyed the selection of forums that were offered particularly “Bull with Bill” and the “Songwriting” session with the band Lost and Found.  Both were very interesting and very unique.  Hopefully all of the speakers will come back in two years so I and many others can hear them speak.

Overall, CLAY was a fantastic experience that I am extremely pleased I came to.  I will hopefully be able to participate in CLAY 2014 that will be very close to home.  I am bringing home so many memories that will not be forgotten. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jolynne

Hi, my name is Jolynne, and I am from Logan Lake. I found that CLAY was a life changing experience and I really hope I can go back in 2014! There were so many fun things. They made it so that learning about God was fun.

Everyday we were in Saskatoon we had these forums.  There was a bunch, but the ones I went to were Bull with Bill, Vocations, Song Writing, and Be the Hands.

 Bull with Bill was fun and hilarious! There were some serious questions and some silly questions, but his answers were worth it! He really knows how to talk to and with people our age, and I would assume his age as well.

The forum of Vocations was alright, it was kind of boring though. It taught us about how we have to listen to Gods calls and he won’t give up on calling us until we fulfill his circumstance. He will also do whatever it takes to make us realize that it’s him calling us and not just a coincidence this  ‘ job’ or  ‘ need ‘ keeps popping up everywhere. It really made me realize that I should pay more attention to conversations I have with the outside world.

Song writing was outrageous too! We had the main singers from the band ‘’Lost and Found’’ help us by answering our questions. The two guys also played a couple songs for us. They had a sense of humor with is amazing to have, especially when you’re speaking to a younger generation.

CLAY was amazing and I’m taking home many memories!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Drew

My name is Drew. I’m from Savona, B.C. Some of the things I participated in were LGG’s, Worship at the park, Forums and Late night worship. Everything I took part was amazing.

One of the forums that I went to was “Christian-Muslim Dialogue.” This was led by Rev. Dr. Volker Greifenhagem. He helped us realize that our religions have a lot of similarities. Some of the similarities are they believe Angel Gabriel is God’s messenger just like we believe; they praise the same God but I a different way. A difference between our religions is that they use their whole body to pray and we only bow our heads. This forum helped me realize that they are just as welcoming to new comers as we are.

I also went to a drama forum the leader for this was Jenny Salisbury. In this forum we were told to make up a skit about conflict but not solve the conflict. Doing this made me realize that trying to resolve conflict is very important, but that trying to resolve it can sometimes be tricky. Jenny’s workshop was a lot of fun it was very hands on.

My experience at CLAY was awesome, I met new friends and learned new things! If I had the chance I would go next time and I’m happy I had the chance to go to CLAY 2012!

Saturday, August 18: One very full day!

No reports from the ground level tonight… We had midnight worship this evening and didn’t leave the TCU Place until 1am. The group has gone to bed and soon will all be fast asleep. We had an amazing day filled with celebration, singing, worship, laughter, conversation, adventures around Saskatoon, dancing, clapping and a whole lot of fun!!

The group participated in two forums each including: Song Writing, Christian-Muslim Dialogue, Vocation – You Have an App for that, Youth Speaking Justice CLWR/PWRDF and Bull with Bill. Hopefully tomorrow a few members of the group and write down some of their thoughts and experiences to share with us all.

The afternoon was spent having Explore Saskatoon time. Some of us enjoyed the hotel pool while others did some shopping and wandering. Our sixth Large Group Gathering was filled with tons of energy. There is nothing that the energy of 800+ people singing, moving, praying, and celebrating! We also got to hear our own Bishop Barbara talking about “Going Viral”.

Late night spots of the evening consisted of Dance, Jam session, Improvisation, and quite time/games room. And then evening worship started at midnight. It was all wonderful but the day was full and long… which means it’s time for sleep.

Tomorrow our day starts later but we have to load up all of our stuff onto the bus so that we can depart from Saskatoon once the Gathering is over and start our journey homewards.

More tomorrow after we’ve all had a good sleep, a final celebration and maybe a nap or two on the bus!

Breakfast Time

Alex S. and Phil

Clapping along!

Lunch time!!

Waiting, waiting, waiting with Drew, Devon and Adrian

Mathias, Peter and Alex E.

Jaime and Jolynne

High energy evening Large Group Gathering

Yep... this is what a theatre with 800+ youth and leaders looks like!

Bishop Barbara share with us

Smiles! :) 

Friday, August 17th : Reflections from the Group

We had some Internet connection problems last night... so here are some reflections from some members of our team from CLAY Day 2! Enjoy!!

---------------------------------------------


Jaime Millar has joined our CLAY Home Team from Victoria. She share with us here her experiences form our second day of CLAY:

Day two in Saskatoon and we had a great start to the morning. We all had a good sleep in  comfortable beds which had been missed very much, ate breakfast, and made our way over to the conference centre for our second group gathering. After the gathering we got to experience our first forums! The forum that the majority of the group choose was Be the Hands which was led by Andrew Rennie-Stephens. His talk was about how if we are Christians and want to live Christian lives we need to go beyond our homes and computers in order to act and love as Christ intended us to. We then moved into lunch with all 800+ people and tried to eat as quick as possible so we could get a seat in one of the second forum choices Bull with Bill which is where any questions that people had they could put a piece of paper in a box or vocally ask bill and he would answer, this is always a favourite at CLAY!

When all the forums were finished  we headed into the third large group gathering which was full of singing, energy, skits, and inspirational talks.    After this we proceeded to head down to the river for the Saskatoon Riverfest for an evening full of great music by various different bands.

We had an amazing day, and can't wait to see what they have in store for us tomorrow!

_________________________________________________________________

Jenny Ellis joins our Home Team from Savona! She share with us here her experiences from the day!

My name is Jenny. I’m from Savona, B.C. I would like to share some of the highlights from my day at CLAY! We participated in a variety of interesting and exciting events.  We went to two forums today and one of the ones I went to was “Vocation – You Have an App for That” where a series of people spoke about their calling.  Many of the speakers were pastors. It was great to hear their stories! 

 We also attended two Large Group Gatherings (LGG) that included excellent music, inspiring speeches from our keynote speakers and a drama team that is very creative… with a cute guy in the group. At the second LGG we got to sit near the front and I felt more involved with the band. We even made up actions to some of the songs and danced along to our favourite ones.

I felt overwhelmed when the Gathering first started but now I’ve met more people and feel more welcome. One of my favourite parts is hearing other people’s perspective on life and their experiences. And the food is great!!

Lunch Time

Devon, Drew and Jaime waiting for the "Bull with Bill" forum to begin!

Large Group Gathering singing time!

Enjoying dinner and music at Riverfest.

Evening at Riverfest.

Thursday, August 16 – CLAY begins!

Heading to the Large Group Gathering: Drew, Jenny & Jaime

Our first Large Group Gathering took place at 4pm this afternoon where we heard about the network that we are joining… “Therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12). We are invited to be part of that network… we are part of that network. Now, what are we going to do with it?

Introduction to the Bishops... yep, +Barbara is third from the left

Dinner was served with great ease, at least everything looked to be going smoothly with 

the 700+ people all happily enjoying their dinner! And after dinner we took over the 

town of Saskatoon for “Facebook It” – Purple

People Pursuit!! Folks from the Gathering and people from the town itself were being searched for by all of us participants. In our groups we embarked down the streets asking anyone who might possibly be someone we were searching for and asked them “will you be our Facebook friend?”. Those who were part of the game answered, “Only if we hyperlink!” and those who were not part of the games just looked really confused, humored, uncomfortable, afraid… you get the picture. And yes, a lot of that happened. I hope the town enjoyed the hundreds of Facebook friend requests they received!

Off to "Facebook-It"!

After the game ended at 9am and we had handed in our “friends list” we had a Home Team Check-In, made a quick stop at the nearby McDonalds and/or Starbucks and then started the Late Night Spots. Participants got to choose to do some dancing, participate in team building activities, be creative in the art room or relax in the quiet/games room. Most of the group went to either dance or enjoy the creativity in the arts room – everyone had a great time.

Facebook Friend?

After our 5am start this morning by the time the

Alex & Mathias

Late Night Spots were over at 11:30pm we were almost all too tired to stay around for the

Midnight Worship service (we’ll have to get to that on Saturday). So we headed back to the hotel and started getting ready to enjoy sleep in a “real” bed and some long awaited showers.

We have gathered with over 700 youth and youth leaders from the Anglican and Lutheran Church, from all over the country… and my goodness are we ever excited to discover what is in store for us!

Thursday, August 16 – When things go beep!

6am Departure!

Today started super early for some of us... At 12:55am as we were sleeping at St. Peter’s I was woken up by Drew who started explaining that an alarm was going off. She had tried to get to the bathroom and then the whole building started to sound like a swarm of crickets had taken over.

It took at least fifteen minutes for the security folks to show up at which time the alarm had ceased. But as soon as the door was opened it started again. Thankfully parishioners on the security phone list showed up shortly after and 

they shut off the alarm and we explained who we were and why we were there. The whole building is set with motion sensors from 12am to 6am… so even if someone hadn’t gotten up and set off the alarm we would of at 5am when we all started to get ready to leave for the day.

Lunch Stop

It took some time for sleep to take over again but it eventually happened, as soon as my anxiety around every sound stopped. It will make for a fun story to tell everyone at home though.

The biggest question… why were only four out of the twenty-eight of us up and out of bed wondering what was going on. Were they terrified or actually sleeping?

Peter, Alex and Mathias - lunch stop

The real morning started for us at 5am and I’m super excited to report that we had the bus loaded by 6:07am with us pulling out of the parking lot at 6:12am. We were on a role this morning!! It may have had something to do with the fact that we told the group that they could go across the street to Starbucks when it opened at 5:30am if they had all of their stuff packed and by the door ready to be loaded. Looks like that was quite the motivator.

Sleeping on the bus... the main activity for the trip!

The travel today has gone smoothly. We stopped for lunch at what we were told was a rest stop… Well, it was a rest stop indeed… A rest stop with two outhouses and no picnic tables. Just another chapter of our journey to check off for the day. The group boarded the bus very soon after eating, either they enjoy sitting too much, they’re far too excited, or they were terrified that we’d leave them in the middle of nowhere!

We’ve now arrived at the hotel and have had just enough time to unload the bus and get what we need for the evening ahead.

We have made it!

Let CLAY begin!!

Wednesday, August 15

The Group!

The journey to CLAY has started!! 

We gathered together last night at the Cathedral in Kamloops. The bus had started yesterday morning on the lower mainland and brought to Kamloops friends from Victoria and Vancouver. The Montreal group who has been in the Kamloops area since Friday got back to the Cathedral in time for dinner.

Our friends from Hills of Peace Lutheran Church made us a delicious dinner of lasagna, ceasar salad, bread and ice cream and berries for dessert! Thanks so much to Alana, Lisa, Rae and their team! The rest of the evening was spent getting to know one another with games and conversations. There was much laughter as the groups all mixed together and started to become one.

Loading the bus to leave Kamloops

We had a check-in in our Home Team groups and then gathered together for a simple but powerful worship service before heading off to get ready for bed. It didn’t take long for everyone to fall asleep for the night.

Morning started by 7am… some of us had the good fortune of being up earlier. By 8:30am (only 30 minutes after the anticipated departure time) we headed out of Kamloops and started our journey to Calgary.

We are traveling on a fabulous bus with an amazing driver! The comfort of this bus is making the trip feel easy and enjoyable. We have comfy seats with lots of space, a DVD player (so the movies have been non-stop), bathroom and of course air-conditioning. Oh – thank goodness for air-conditioning.

Lunch stop in Golden

We had a stretch break at the Last Spike – Craigellachie and our lunch stop in Golden. Our lunches are “make your own sandwich” style with a lot of teamwork for the prep and the clean-up.

I am happy to report that the day of bus travel went very smoothly and we arrived at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Calgary right on schedule. We were greeted by some friends: Jill, Chad and Aaron who fed us and amazing taco dinner with ice cream sundae’s for dessert. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!!

Dinner at St. Peter's

As I finish typing this we are all getting ready for bed… our goal for tomorrow is to leave the church by 6am so we can get to Saskatoon for the start of CLAY. Yep, that means a 5am wake-up call. Can we do it?! Yes we can!!

It's time to mentally prepare to enter a very flat part of Canada... goodbye beautiful mountains!