Epiphany Goes to New Orleans
2024 ELCA Youth Gathering
We are so excited to head to New Orleans for the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering with 30 students and 7 adult leaders from Epiphany! Our journey will begin on Sunday, July 14 as we commission the group at the 9:00am worship service at the Far Hills Campus and then send off the bus between services. The whole congregation is invited to join us for our send-off around 10:15am! The group will spend two nights in Birmingham, Alabama working with Service Learning Camps and exploring Birmingham’s rich Civil Rights history before heading to the Big Easy for the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering!
The theme of this year’s Gathering is Created to Be. We have been created to be ourselves. Created by the Holy One. Since the last time the ELCA came together for an ELCA Youth Gathering, our young people have experienced several major life events. Still today, we are experiencing an ongoing public health crisis mixed with an economic and political crisis. However, we can rest assured that we are created to be in relationship with one another.
We are created to be…
…brave, to show up with an open mind and heart, willing to be challenged.
…authentic, to bring our whole selves and know that we are loved by our Creator.
…free, to be transformed by the gospel.
…disruptive, to work for justice for all our siblings.
…disciples, to be sent out into the world to love our neighbor just as we are loved by God.
Our family, friends, and congregation are invited to follow our journey to New Orleans here on our trip blog, as well as through Epiphany’s church and youth ministry social media channels (Visit @ELCYouthDayton on Instagram). We will share daily updates on the blog throughout our journey.
Created to Be Authentic
We started out the morning with a nice breakfast before walking to our service project at 8am. For our service project, we made hurricane survival buckets of important necessities that people need in order to live from hurricane damage. After that, we went to lunch at the center, which was right next to our service project. There was a lot of different places we could choose from, and everything was delicious. Once we were finished eating we took a quick walk to Vue Orleans, where the view from the top was amazing and there was many fun games and activities to do. We then had about an hour wait until we walked to dinner at Johnny Sanchez. The food there was excellent and everyone left full and ready for the gathering. Blessing Offor was the special guest band playing at tonight’s gathering. Once we left the gathering, we went back to the hotel and talked in our small groups about the importance of being authentic. We then showered and went to bed excited for tomorrow.
Alayna H.
Birmingham and Travel to NOLA
Monday, July 15:
This morning, July 15th we started bright and early and all ready to go for the day at 8am. We loaded the bus and headed to the Lovelady Center for a tour. All of their stories were very touching and we loved learning about how they help and rehabilitate women and their families. We then split into two groups and went to different facilities. These facilities are thrift stores where 60% of their profit goes back to the Lovelady Center. They also served us lunch and then we got to do some browsing around the store. Next, we headed to our next service project at the Cahaba River. We split up into two groups again – picked up trash around the trails while others pulled unnecessary greenery. Some chose to hop in the river to cool down after the time spent in the heat. After we got back to the church that was hosting us we had some downtime with a slip and slide to follow. We ended the night with a cookout provided by the church, yoga led by Pastor Julie, devotions, and prayer partner time. – Mayci M.
Tuesday, July 16:
This morning we woke up bright and early to get ready to hit the road and head to New Orleans. We stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-A. A huge shout out to the chick-fil-a team for being so amazing. We then hopped back on the bus to drive two more hours to our hotel. After we arrived at the hotel, everyone helped out to get the bus unloaded quickly. We had a little bit of free time to unpack and relax before heading back downstairs to hear about our dinner options. We then headed off to 3 different dinner locations. After eating amazing food, we next headed to the Smoothie King Center. There we spent the next few hours with 16,000 other Lutherans worshipping God and singing songs. The Afters played many good songs throughout the night. After that was over we then headed to the closest hotel for Night life. We spent roughly an hour dancing and singing and getting to know others. There were many good songs played, and such great people to spend our nights with. We got to meet many people from across the United States. After it was time to head back to the hotel we all met up and started our walk. We got back then it was time to finish up the rest of our night with devotions. After talking then meeting with our prayer partners, it was then time to head back upstairs to finish up our night. – Sarah B.
Commissioned and Sent to Birmingham and NOLA
“Good Evening, Epiphany!
This is the first blog post of our trip to the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering hosted in New Orleans! Today we drove down to Birmingham, Alabama to stay the night for various activities tomorrow. (Be sure to check out our next blog post to find out what we’re up to!)
But first, we began our day at 8:00 AM, loading all of our belongings onto the bus. Shortly after, we headed to the worship service at 9:00. The whole congregation had the opportunity to pray over us during the service. Following, our congregation formed a tunnel to send us off as we boarded the bus to Birmingham. There’s definitely no better way to bond with everyone than an 8 hour bus ride!
Quick stops for lunch and dinner and a long journey, we finally arrived at Shades Valley Lutheran Church in Birmingham. We finished the day with prayer partners and large group devotions before heading to bed. We cannot wait for an awesome day tomorrow!”
By Aly West
Be sure to follow Epiphany’s Youth Ministry on Instagram for lots of pictures and videos along the way: @ELCYouthDayton