Trinity Newsletter - August 2019
“Amen; it’s in the bag” to quote from the sermon given by LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison Monday morning, 15 July, at the LCMS National Youth Gathering. Amen.
Our group of ten youth, Blake, Sammy, Emily, Aiden, Evan, Ryan, Chad, Carolyn, Mason, and Christopher; and five adults, Karl, Jennifer, Ronnie, Leann, and Bob had great time on the Accola Family Farm at Fall Creek, Wisconsin and the LCMS National Youth Gathering at Minneapolis, Minnesota. Twelve of us (Emily and Carolyn had left earlier with their family, and Leann flew out later) flew out of Savannah Monday, 8 July. We made it to Minneapolis after a long layover in Atlanta, checked out our rental vans and drove to Fall Creek. The Accola family, Ed and Melanie and children Laura, Gretchen, and George, gave us a great Wisconsin welcome with grilled chicken and side-dishes. Other local church members were also there to greet us and break bread with us. Mindy Fenno showed up with Emily and Carolyn shortly afterwards. The local church members had loaned cots, air mattresses, pillows and linen for our use. After a few hours of games and socializing, the girls retired to the farmhouse and the boys went to two other nearby homes to shower and then back to the farm where we slept in a large metal building.
Tuesday, the fourteen of us traveled two hours south to the Wisconsin Dells area for a Duck Boat ride on the Wisconsin River followed by a pizza lunch and then the Mt. Olympus Water Park for a couple of hours. We arrived back at the Accola farm for a hamburger dinner. After dinner we made brats for the next day’s dinner meal. We then played volleyball, had a campfire, made porgy pies (hobo pies), had a Bible study, and socialized. The boys then all headed for showers at two neighboring homes and the girls retired to the farmhouse.
Wednesday morning, we helped around the farm. Some beekeeping was accomplished. We had planned on washing sheep but ran out of time as Laura, Gretchen and George had a district gathering to attend. Melanie took us on a tour to a cheese curd facility with a stop for lunch at the Panther drive-in. We were back at the farm for dinner and ate some of the twenty-five pounds of brats we had made the day before.
Thursday morning, we piled into the vans for the trip back to Minneapolis for the gathering. Our goodbyes to the Accola family were long and for Emily and Carolyn a little sad as they had grown-up on a farm a short distance from the Accola farm. We picked up Leann in Minneapolis, checked in at the gathering site, collected our wristbands, backpacks, gathering Bibles, and gathering guidebooks, checked into the hotel, put our luggage away and headed to the opening Gathering Mass Event. There we were welcomed, along with 21,000 other youth and leaders to the 2019 LCMS National Youth Gathering. We arrived back at the hotel after 11 pm.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, found us waking the youth at seven each morning and ensuring they had sufficient breakfast items. The adults attended the daily 7:45 am leader meeting in the hotel. The youth arrived downstairs at 8:30 am and we would all walk to the Convention Center for the 9 am lesson on Psalm 46. The group meeting ended at 10:30 and the youth headed to various thirty-minute sessions on all sorts of topics until noon. After the noon check-in everyone ate lunch and then attended afternoon sessions or participated in any number of the at least 100 activities available at the convention center Gathering site. We would walk back to the hotel at 3 pm for swimming or rest until 4:30 pm. Dinner was at 5 pm and then we would walk to the Stadium for the evening Mass Event. The Mass Events featured studies and dramatizations on the Gathering theme: Real, Present, God; and lots of singing. We arrived back at the hotel at 11 pm. Saturday evening was a break in the schedule as we attended the Florida-Georgia District Event at the stadium prior to the Mass Event.
Monday morning found us staging luggage in a meeting room at the hotel and walking to the Stadium for the closing Mass Event. LCMS President Rev. Dr. William Harrison provided a powerful sermon, walking us through the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments and then proclaimed the message of reconciliation with God through Christ. He ended the sermon by saying “Amen, it’s in the bag.” Thanks be to God.
Sincere thanks to the congregation for the love, prayers, patience and support given to the youth as we prepared for and attended the Gathering.
~ Bob Hanovich
NATIONAL YOUTH GATHERING
The group left for Minneapolis on Monday, 7/8/19. We returned on Monday, 7/15/19. We had a wonderful week.
The first few days were spent at a farm in Wisconsin. The Accolas were the perfect hosts. They provided almost everything from food, sleeping items, bathrooms and activities. And the food was superb. We ate chicken quarters, hamburgers and bratwurst for dinner (in fact we helped make the brats!) We also went to Wisconsin Dells and other cheese related places. The farm had sheep, a bull, chickens, dogs and plenty of cats. The weather and scenery were what these Southern people needed.
On Thursday we packed up and headed for Minneapolis for the National Youth Gathering. There were mass meetings in the early morning, classes and activities during the day, and a huge meeting in the UB Bank Stadium (home of the Minnesota Vikings). It was fantastic with over 21,000 Youth and Leaders in one place.
We are back! But we still need your prayers and support. We need to take what was learned and make it part of our lives. We need to see the fruits of the National Youth Gathering in the Youth, the Leaders, Trinity and all those we come in contact with.
~ Karl Schumacher
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