As many have you may have heard, the National ELCA Youth Gathering has been cancelled this summer. We are all bummed by the lost opportunity to experience the magnitude of having thousands of high school youth together for a week of faith formation, learning, and fun. However, we support the difficult decision to keep teens, leaders, organizers, and the community safe during the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. After taking a few days to process the cancellation, we began pivoting to plan B. After a group vote, we will be moving forward with a service learning trip to Chicago during the originally planned dates of the youth gathering, July 24th-29th, 2022.
The trip is still in the early stages of planning and we hope to have more details to share soon. Previous gifts for the youth gathering will be used to fund our way to Chicago. We appreciate the generosity of this community immensely and are so excited for a week of continued faith formation and learning, even if it looks a little different than originally planned.