General Assembly... what is there to really say about being a YAAD at the 2010 219th General Assembly? Only one word comes to mind... YAADtastic!!!!! General Assembly has to be one of the best experiences of my life. It was absolutely insane, and absolutely hectic, and absolutely busy, and absolutely stressful, but most of all absolutely worth it. All of the days ran together when I was there, so there is no way I could do a day by day thing but I will try my best to categorize the events somehow... The first few days were great, I was extremely nervous going out there because I didn't know anyone (besides my pastor who didn't fly in until the next day) and had never been to the city before. Let me tell you one thing, God's children are amazing. Once in Minnesota, my fears quickly disappeared. I met my roommate Hannah almost immediately and we got along beautifully. She and I went downstairs to register and ran into an old friend of hers named Caroline (who by the way later became one of our co-moderators). And we agreed to all go to dinner together. Later that evening we met up with a large group of people (correct me if I am wrong YAADS, but there were 7 of us that first night right?) and went to chipotle for dinner. We then went to Target (Which by the way was HUGE) and laughed and had a ball (hahaha no pun intended YAADs). We all clicked really well together and the majority of the 7 of us spent a great deal of time together for the next ten days. YAAD orientation was long, informative, but long. We learned tons of new information about Robert's rules of order and how our meetings were going to be run and we worshiped and just got things done. Worship with the YAADs was something that I enjoyed. I loved looking around the room and seeing so many people my age just as in to God as I am. I haven't been able to see that in my home church so GA was a breath of fresh air for me. By Sunday, we were all oriented and ready to go, GA had begun. Sunday morning worship was ... well WOW! 10,000 presbyterians, god loving, children of our lord, came together to do one thing, Worship our lord and savior. The opening processional was a beautiful display of colors, animals, dancers, and all of god's creations coming from everywhere to join in that purpose. The four dancers represented the four winds (from the four edges of the world) and at the very end, each of them poured a pitcher of water into one single baptismal font. There was a call to worship, there were songs, Bruce Reyes Chow (former moderator) gave an extremely powerful service, there was more singing and more worshiping and then the service ended with all of us who had never witnessed a GA worship in awe. Business started either Monday or Tuesday I think it was monday... and we broke off into 19 committees. 1. Business referrals, 2. Bills and overtures, 3. General Assembly procedures, 4. Middle governing body issues, 5. Church Polity, 6. Church orders and ministry, 7. Form of government, 8. Ecumenical and interfaith relations, 9. Mission coordination, 10. Social Justice issues A: the promotion of social righteousness, 11. Social Justice issues B: the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world, 12. Civil Union and marriage issues, 13. Peacemaking and International issues, 14. Middle East peace making issues, 15. Church Growth, Christian education and PILP, 16. Theological issues and institutions, 17. Review of GA permanent committees, 18. Board of Pensions, Foundation and Presbyterian Publishing, and 19. Health Issues (my committee also the picture below which is almost all the YAADs from committee 19 I don't know where the rest of yall went!). Each committee was given overtures to read over, amend, and vote on whether to sen
d it to plenary. These lasted until Wednesday and were pretty stressful. YAADS were allowed to discuss, and vote. Our input was welcome in committee and encouraged. After hours of discussing, debating, disagreeing and finally voting, we were all exhausted. Our committee was having issues sweating the small stuff (And trust me I mean the small stuff like using the word females instead of women in an overture) and it seemed like we were going to be stuck there until late on Wednesday. Tuesday night however we were all bit in the but by the same bug and just got everything done! We finished first on Wednesday afternoon in time to get lunch! It was great! All of the YAADs on my committee went out to eat at this place (a sports bar and I totally forgot what the name of it is!) where we watched the tail end of a soccer game and laughed and truly enjoyed ourselves. Later that day, the YAADs all got to go to the Mall of America. When they say the mall is big, they mean the mall is gigantic. You can't walk the whole thing in a day, heck they said if you spend ten minutes in each store it would take you three days. There is an amusement park IN the mall! There is even a little lego land too its great! We had a ton of fun and I really got to bond with one of my favorite people in the whole world on the roller coasters, you know who you are. The rest of the week was business. Plenary to be precise. Boy oh boy did that get stressful some times. For the most part though it wasn't terrible. The YAADs figured out a way to chat through PCbiz so at least we could hear each others' reasoning for voting the way we did. Granted we weren't allowed a real vote in plenary, just an advisory one, it was still nice to vote for good reason since some people really did take into account our votes. By July 10th, the final day of GA, I was exhausted. I flew home and could barely function. Sleep was not something that YAADs know how to do very well. All in all the experience was one I won't soon forget and I truly miss my fellow YAADs. Hopefully that day wasn't goodbye and in fact see you soon.Ok, now teaching. The whole teaching experience was great. I loved being there to answer questions. I loved watching their faces light up when they knew an answer. I just loved the very act of teaching itself! I think I did a great job for it being my first time teaching. It wasn't perfect but it was my first time so I am ok with it. The students were engaged the entire time and overall it was fun. I know its not a very lengthy write up, but there isn't much to say other then I now know that I am doing the right thing with my life and let me just say, it is a wonderful feeling.
I wanted to share the freakiest story with you. I hate bees. I am absolutely am terrified of them and wasps. Well, I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of CSU, reading for class and enjoying the fall weather with my windows down. Next thing I know, there is a bee in my car. I sit absolutely still and wait for it to fly out. It flies into my cheek a few times and I shut my eyes hard. Then it flies into my hair! But still, I sat as still as I could just waiting for it to leave. After a minute or two I figure it probably flew out and I just didn't notice so I gently run my hand across the back of my head where it had landed and feel nothing. So I relax and go back to my reading. The next thing I know, I feel something crawling on the side of my head! It was the stupid bee! So I literally sit perfectly still and try to coax the bee out by moving strands of hair that were blocking it from flying off my head. I don't hear any buzzing and can't tell if it flew away but i don't feel it any more. So I get out of my car and gently shake my head and turn my hair upside down to make sure it isn't there anymore. To this day I don't know if it stayed in my car or what but for the rest of the day any tickle I felt I freaked out. Luckily there is no bee in my hair any more but it was the scariest thing ever!
School is going well, I am starting to learn to love Shakespeare and am definitely loving being an English teacher. Hope you all are well!
We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
-Ben Sweetland
(oh by the way I think I will finally get around to uploading the rest of my GA pictures onto facebook so take a look HERE)
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