Youth Formation – “Strangers in a Strange Land”

This fall youth formation will learn about the Global Refugee Crisis and share what they learn with the congregation. The youth will study the Hebrew Bible’s stories of migration, hospitality, oppression, freedom and the quest for the Promised Land. They will examine what the Bible tells us about treating the “strangers in our midst”. Also the youth will explore their families’ histories. “Where in the world did our ancestors come from, if not native to America, and why did our ancestors come to the United States”?

The youth will host events to support the United Nations Emergency Refugee Fund as well as Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti and may sponsor an African Team Ministries’ Craft Sale to benefit HIV/AIDS orphans in East Africa.

The “Journey to Adulthood” program” is used for our youth in 5/6th through 10th grades. The two components St. Asaph’s uses are Rite-13 and J2A. Rite-13 is generally a two year program to build community among the members, and among the members and their adult co-leaders. Rite-13 focuses on prayer, images of self and God, decision making, compassion and mercy, faith and trust and service. Rite-13 ends with a liturgy the that marks the passage from childhood towards adulthood. J2A is a two year program that builds on Rite-13 and focuses on four areas: self, society, sexuality and spirituality. The J2A program ends with a pilgrimage that the youth decided to go on and help fund. Prior groups held yard sales, made and sold greeting cards, produced and sold a St. Asaph’s cookbook and so on to fund their pilgrimage. Bible stories and the life and teachings of Jesus are used as models for individual and community behavior. Both programs guiding principles are manhood and womanhood are free gifts from God and that adulthood is earned not given.