Final Thoughts from Josh

My experience at the 221st Presbyterian General Assembly was one that I will not soon forget.  

This was my first true traveling experience and that was fantastic. I saw many different cultures converge on the airports and people helping each other to find their ways.  

Then once I arrived I realized that I was already distanced from many of the other YAADs simply because of my opinions.  This made my encounters with many of them difficult to handle.  The one it did not impact was with my roommate. I was very fortunate to get paired with someone I could get along with.  

Once we got to the actual business of the week I came to terms that I would always find myself in the minority.  When dealing with people many were very relaxed in their views and made me feel better but then many were very upfront and aggressive with their views and that was a big disappointment.  

This particular General Assembly made some historic decisions, the first of which was to allow gay marriages to occur in the church, and secondly to divest from HP, Caterpillar and Motorola Solutions which they claim will help to support Israel's "in-humane" behaviors toward their Palestine neighbors.  These decisions promise to have a negative impact on our church as a whole but we have to remember that we may not all share the same opinions after this week but we do share one God.

Even though many parts of last week were difficult for me, I would not trade my experience for anything.  I was blessed by Beaver-Butler Presbytery to have been given the opportunity to be their YAAD representative.  

And the final place that I found Jesus was my partners from the Beaver-Butler Presbytery.  This was an incredible group of people that I had the opportunity to work with and they made all the difficult moments just a little bit easier and for that they are saints.