No Toothpaste, No Cell Phone, What Are We Going To Do?!

Michelle Middleton

This past Sunday was the second Sunday in the Stewardship Campaign at Symons Valley United Church. The Stewardship Committee led the service and the treasurer, Michelle Middleton, offered a reflection for the sermon time. The Committee has been using the UCC's General Council resource, Salt & Light. The liturgy and message suggestions for the Campaign have been full of imagery of God's people being called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Michelle spoke about being salt and light for the mission of the church, both locally and throughout God's world. I have been told she did a very good job and that she even received applause!

The Zambia2017 Team

I was not at SVUC for Sunday's worship service. Instead, I was at St. Andrew's United Church in Cochrane, Alberta very much enjoying a youth-led service. I spent the weekend in Cochrane in a retreat with a group of youth, young adults and leaders. We gathered because we are a team of people who will be traveling together to the Copperbelt region of Zambia, in the southern region of Africa, during August of this year.

Our trip, the Zambia Youth Exposure Tour 2017, has four sponsoring churches in Calgary Presbytery - Symons Valley, St. Thomas, St. Andrews (Calgary) and Deer Park. There are seven leaders from these four congregations and sixteen youth and young adults (Grade 9 to first year post-secondary) from these congregations plus Wild Rose and Balzac United Churches. The focus of this trip will be education with an emphasis on the social, economic, cultural and religious realities in Zambia. We will visit and interact with members of the United Church of Zambia and with students from Racecourse Community School. We will tour the hospital, various health clinics and meet with community leaders to learn about the challenges of illnesses, such as HIV and TB. We will learn about the economic and environmental impact of copper mining in the region.

We held our retreat to so that we could do some team bonding and do some intensive learning about what privilege is and how power is wielded by those who have privilege. We also had Heather MacKenzie travel from Edmonton to share with us her story of Racecourse Community School - an organization that the United Church in Alberta Northwest Conference has had a long and deep relationship with over the years. I visited with the teachers and students of Racecourse when I first traveled to Zambia in 2003 and then again in 2008.

16 Confiscated Cell Phones

One purpose of the retreat is to stress the participants a little bit so they can 'practice' in the safety of home ground. We gave them a packing list that was sparse - we were to be away only for 48 hours. Toothpaste, hairbrushes/combs, makeup and cell phones did not make the list. And so they were taken away. The kids managed surprisingly well with having some of their belongings put into garbage bags and taken away. Their cell phones and other electronic paraphernalia were placed in Ziploc bags. Occasionally they had access to the phones but for the better part of the weekend, we were technology-free. We also went swimming and had McKay's ice cream.

The participants used Micah 6:8 as the scripture reading focus for planning worship on Sunday.

What does God require from you?
To seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.

Children's Time

We began the worship service by ringing St. Andrew's church bell (as is their tradition) cause they have a FOR REAL church bell that they ring every Sunday - how awesome is that!!? The youth wrote the prayers and chose the hymns for the worship service. One of the youth led children's time - a brilliant piece about people not listening to what people themselves say they NEED versus what it is believed is best for them.

Worship Service

The participants are divided into three home groups for when we travel and they decided that each home group would prepare one third of the sermon. One group took 'seek justice', another took 'love kindness' and the final group took 'walk humbly with God'. The result was a meaningful and profound message expressing why they are going to Zambia and what they hope to accomplish by going to learn, listen and be children of God with all whom they have the good fortune to meet along the way.

I missed being with the good folks of SVUC this past weekend but it was an absolute blast spending time with these amazing youth, young adults and fellow leaders. If you are able, please join us on Sunday February 26th as the SVUC Zambia youth share their retreat service with the congregation - I'm absolutely sure you will love it!