FGConnections Winter 2006

Young Friends

Members of Youth Ministries Committee at work and play. Photographs by Emily Stewart.

Finding God in the Unfamiliar

By Geoffrey Black. “When I cam home from the World Gathering, I carried with me a vision. A vision of Friends of all kinds coming togeterh and mending the brokenness within the Society of Friends. Not giving up our differences or throwing away our diversity; simply choosing no longer to allow them to divide us as deeply as they have.”

Interview with Emily Stewart

As Friends General Conference initiates a new program on Youth ministries, Emily Stewart has been appointed on a one-year interim basis to serve as coordinator for this exciting new committee and work.

Being a Friend

By Aliyah Meena Shanti. “Since turning 18 last October, I have been pondering what it means to be a young Friend. I have only recently allowed myself to be identified as such, as for most of my childhood and teenage years I preferred to be known as simply “a Friend,” with no qualifications.”

My Experience at the Gathering

By Anna Lindo. First-time Gathering attender talks about being in Junior Gathering. “I didn’t known anyone there except my parents (of course), but in two days, I had made friends.”

Youth Ministries—FGC Program, then Movement?

By Karen Stewart. “If the hopes and dreams of the Youth Ministries Program come true, Quaker historians in 50 years will be looking back at this time and trying to understand the forces that changed the face of Quakerism. I hope they will see the convergence of several forces into a groundswell of enthusiasm that enlivened and enriched our faith community and enabled us to better reach out to serve the wider world.”

Clearness

By Tristan Wilson. During late October, I found myself struggling with a decision that would undoubtedly affect the rest of my life: draft registration. I had turned eighteen several months earlier and had been putting it off since then.

Wearing their sword as long as they could

By Jane Orion Smith. “I returned from Christmas vacation in January 2004 to find that Canada had its first refugee from the US military who was seeking sanctuary from being deployed to Iraq: Jeremy Hinzman, soldier in the elite 82nd Airborne unit.”