Student

It was nearing the fall of 2003, when our church was having a youth revival. I was one of the coordinators for the revival, and it was very difficult to plan every little detail. I, along with out youth vice-president, talked about what kind of theme the revival should be. We came up with "The Lost Generation," and it was a great theme. The theme meant that these generations of young adults are getting lost in their beliefs for God. All the coordinators decided that the revival would be better if we invited all of the Hmong Mennonites across America. What I didn't know was that we had another Hmong Mennonite Church in Canada. It came as a surprise when our pastor told us to invite them too. The revival would last about five days and it would help the young adults get to know each other better, too.

We decided to schedule the event from July 21st until the 25th of 2003. When all the registrations for the revival came in, there were more than we projected to come attend the event. The planning was finally approved by the committee board of our congregation. The even would last from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. for all five days. Everything was planned out and everyone was excited. There were volunteers to pick up the out of state people from the airport, and many homes were open for the guests to stay at. Registration was finally over and the youths got to get to know each other a little bit. Then, the revival began that afternoon.

On that day itself, I got to know that I was not alone. There were so many other youths out there that were in the same position as our youth group was. I felt that we were lost in our beliefs for God, and thought that this revival would help us. I cannot explain the feeling I had when I came to understand that they also needed guidance in their faith with God. I was really upset with our youth from our church because all of them were going the wrong way. They love to drink alcohol, party out really late until in the morning, go to clubs every weekend, do drugs, smoke who knows what. I, as the president of our youth group, was also disappointed in myself. I also did some of these things with them and I knew that I had fallen with them. Finally, I got to meet the youth presidents from all our churches. They were so spiritual and their belief in God was so strong. I was embarrassed about myself. I was talking to the youth president from Minnesota, Alice. She gave me so much inspiration. I