This year, the BUV, held their second Ignite Multicultural Youth and Young Adults Conference. It was really different from last year’s conference, with the Ignite Committee making some changes to make it even better!
My highlights:
I had the opportunity to meet new faces from other church communities. It was really cool that Gang Nam Baptist Church came all the way from Korea! They prepared so many performances, and made the effort to get to know us, even though it costs a lot to travel to Australia! They shared their different talents with us, and shared their hearts too. I was so happy to have met them and we are keen to welcome them back any time!
Mi Doh
The food was excellent! The Werribee Karen Baptist Church, and Bentleigh Baptist Church provided us yummy traditional food!
This conference is so good for young people to attend and learn so many things. The conference is multicultural and combines churches from diverse backgrounds. We got to know each other through our small group activities, working together as a team, and also doing group challenges. I also loved worshipping and celebrating together as sons and daughters of God.
Each night we had a keynote speaker who gave us a message to encourage us young people. After the speaker shared, we would have a group discussion and share our story and how we were encouraged. This was really good because some of the people can’t speak English well, but we tried to understand each other.
We also attended a workshop, which I thought might be a bit boring – but it wasn’t!
I hope the workshops will help young people gain more skills and knowledge and also develop in their spiritual health.
A few organisations came to share about what they’re doing like the Hope Project, Surrender, Whitley College, Praxis, Global Interaction, and Daily Rice. It’s good to show young people ways to study and develop in their faith. I myself am studying at Praxis and this has helped me a lot in my wellbeing and faith.
What I learned:
I learned so many things that I can’t explain it all. I learned how much teamwork, cooperation and communication are important to our lives. Our small group facilitators, Sam and Rachel, did great in helping those who can’t speak English well and helping us understand and connect with each other.
The other thing I learned was how to love Jesus better. I know some people try to be cool and nice but if they don’t live in Christ like ways, nothing will happen. Also we need Christ in our lives; he is the one who can help us. Sometimes we fail but we have the Holy Spirit to encourage and help us.
Sam Chan
One of the keynote speakers, Sam Chan, spoke about how different it is between 1st and 2nd generations in how we show love. We had a small group discussion afterwards about our cultural backgrounds, and we shared how differently our parents show their love to us, and vice versa. Some Karen people are shy to say they love their parents or parents are shy to say that they love their children. Some other cultural groups were different. We came away with questions such as, how can we help our parents and how can we love our parents better? I hope that the talk will help all us young people love our parents better.
I want to encourage young people who have not attended the Ignite Conference to come along next year! Bring along your friends and church community with you. I want to encourage you to come and build on your communication skills to help for the future, and for your community. We came and learned so much and connected with people from other cultural backgrounds. We need lots of young people to be leaders who care about their communities. My last encouragement is to come and share your own stories, and your own culture!
Thanks so to the BUV for this conference! I look forward to seeing you all next year again at Ignite 2017!
Mi Doh Htoo is a member of Werribee Baptist Church who attended our recent Ignite2016! Conference
Source: BUV News