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.
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.