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Our good friend, Suzanna(Brazil), leads the Youth Group at the Shanghai Community Fellowship (www.scfenglish.com). It's the largest international Christian church in Shanghai, with two services and roughly a thousand people each week. We've been attending SCF since we've arrived in Shanghai and we're really love the community we've found there. I worked with youth at home in NYC for years and I had been wanting to do stuff with Su and the youth group here, but just never had the chance to in the past year. Until this weekend.
The pristine Silver Pearl Garden conference site
Every year, SCF holds two Youth Retreats at conference centers near Shanghai. The retreat center happened to be REALLY nice (have you ever been to a retreat with a bowling alley?) This year, I committed to be a counselor and teach some workshops at the April retreat and Daisy helped to organize and do set-up before and at the retreat. I was definitely looking forward to getting away from the city and to finally hang out with and get to know some of the teens. Since I'm pretty energetic, I'm comfortable with youth and I'm only 22 years old, I figured that I'd have alot to offer in helping out this weekend. What I wasn't planning for was how much I was going to receive instead.
How to feed 250 teenagers
The high school kids here have a maturity that I haven't seen before in kids their age. They're all international students, so their experiences in living and traveling abroad seems to have given them a wide perspective on the world and how they see it. They all seem so prepared to adapt to changes in life and know that the world doesn't revolve around them. Combine that with their youthful energy, excitement and faith, and you get a pretty amazing combination. These are the type of kids that you meet and think "wow, this kid is going to make a difference in the world with his/her life."
The retreat itself was all fun. A great, hip-hop loving pastor from Chicago named David Choi flew out to be the speaker. We had good weather, good food and great workshops and activities. As much as I do love China, that kind of mental vacation from living here is necessary every few months. Although, once the Miley Cyrus "Pop It, Lock It" dance came out, it made me start to miss China life again. Maybe it's because it was the adult counselors that were doing it. It was really touching to see kids' lives changed by something bigger than themselves and such a blessing to be a part of it. I can't speak for everyone else, but I came back exhausted, refreshed, energized and with 40 new Facebook friends.
Quote of the weekend from one of the kids in my group on being socially awkward:
"I don't feel I am, but I think I am from the way others react to me. *shrugs* I don't care."
And he really doesn't. Keep being who you are dude.
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