It is hard to believe that it has only been a couple of months since the Lynchburg convocation meeting. The day began by attending the morning worship services at St. Stephen’s Forest. This is the home parish for a few of our long devoted YMT members. After working in the Episcopal church for over 15 years, it seems that everywhere I go I find connections. St. Stephens was no exception. I was approached by Cindy Heying, wife of the rector of St. Stephen’s. She asked me if I was the same Aimee Klaas of Camp Hardtner. If you have spent any time with me and we have discussed youth ministry, you have heard me speak of camp and how much it has influenced my life. Cindy served on staff at Camp Hardtner. In fact the two of us helped increase the ranks of female head counselors. There is a tradition at camp that staff members sign the walls of various buildings at camp. I often read the name of Cindy Perkins (aka Cindy Heying) and heard of her excellent leadership at camp. To top it all off, I served along side her brother Chris Perkins. Talk about a small world!
The afternoon led to messy games for the youth during the convocation meeting. Once again, the volunteer youth leaders of this diocese went above and beyond. Not only did they gather their youth and bring them to the meeting, they also helped facilitate games and even got messy themselves (some had more fun than the kids!). Many thanks to those youthworkers who helped with this meeting. I could not have done it without you!
On May 18th after an incredible weekend at SYE I traveled down to St. Thomas Abingdon for our last convocation of the year. As I was driving it was raining and the temperature was rather cold. I was thinking that we probably would not do messy games. I arrived to find 7 very excited and enthusiastic participant who were anxious to play. I warned them about the wet and cold, didn’t bother them! The most enthusiastic and messy of games followed. Kudos to those Abingdon convocation youth- impressive!
There is something about messy games- it puts everyone on equal ground. No one feels as though they are not good at getting messy!! For those of you who joined us for SYE, you experienced messiness at it’s highest level. Check out the SYE video below
Messy games has finished for this year. We hope to see all of you at our Fall convocation meetings where more fun and fellowship will be had by all.
