Tonight the JV Baltic Academy began! We've got almost forty leaders from Latvia and Estonia with us this weekend in Riga. Tonight we had registration, dinner and our first main session!
And, because we are youth ministry people, we, of course, had some fun games and videos that all keep reinforcing our theme of passing it on.
We're spending our main sessions learning about how to lead ourselves - in creating a life plan, setting goals, and personal productivity. We want to be people who love God, love others and produce good fruit, and we want to be successful at what God has called each of us to.
We also have six workshops throughout the weekend - on becoming unstuck, camp follow-up, creating and delivering a good talk, the i-generation, situational leadership, and working with volunteers.
One thing that has surprised us is how young a lot of these leaders are! As we met people and got to know them tonight we discovered that a lot of them are sixteen to nineteen years old - and some even younger.
In these places youth ministry is often done by young people. In some of our countries there really is only one or two places where you can continue education so people often leave their home towns to go to university. Or youth ministry can be seen as something that single people do, and once you get married you stop going.
So we have a young crowd! It means that some of us are having to alter our talks slightly, and come up with new illustrations. But, overall, it is so exciting to think about the impact these young people will have for Jesus in their communities! And that we get to come alongside them, provide training and encourage them in their calling!
Please pray for us as we continue tomorrow!
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