August 1—Travel Day 3 Adults, and 9 youth From FPC Yorktown joined with 1 adult and 1 youth from FPC Montgomery to travel down to Montreat NC for the most amazing Youth Conference. We all climbed into 2 mini vans at 6am in Yorktown and arrived in Montreat at 8:30pm. (Minus Alice since she flew down a week earlier).
August 2—Mission Work—After a good nights sleep we joined with Asheville Youth Mission Group and had a day of mission work. Since Hurricane Helene did a considerable amount of damage around Montreat back in Oct 2024 there were many projects needing to be done. We were assigned to working on a new walking trail around the William Black Lodge. This trail helps connect upper portions of the Montreat Campus to Assembly Inn which is a focal point of Montreat. We actually worked so fast that they ended up needing to find other work for us. A group got to go on the roof of the lodge and pushed off rainwater that had been collecting. They did an overall cleaning of the roof as well. Then we all got to sit down and do an art project. We made small works of art that will be given to low income families as they move into their new luxury homes thru an affordable housing group. After a successful day, we all needed showers and naps before dinner!! That evening the Montreat Youth Conference officially started with its evening welcoming service.
August 3-7—The Youth Conference—Our typical day started out with Breakfast at 7:30, Morning service with Keynote speaker at 9am till about 10:15. Then we were off to our Small Groups where we met from 10:30-noon daily. Lunch was from noon-2pm but those involved in the choir had choir practice from 1pm-1:45pm. After lunch we had our afternoon session with our small group from 2-3:30pm which would then lead straight into our afternoon rec 3:30-5pm. The afternoon rec was different each day but was usually something fun like a scavenger hunt, Olympics, self guided tours, and even a carnival with fairy hair, cotton candy and mask making. Dinner break was at 5:30 which gave us plenty of time for food, nap or shower before our evening worship which began at 7:30. If you think that’s a full day already well there was still more!! After worship we would head right into our evening rec at 9pm which again was usually something super fun. We had a foam party, DJ dance Party, as well as a choose your adventure night with mazes, tie dye, and inflatable obstacle course. Then everyone’s favorite night the variety show! We had our very own Amy Cross perform with her amazing guitar in the variety show. Phew what a lot!!! Every night we ended it in our Back home group meeting space at 10pm. Here we reflected on the day, talked about our highs and lows as well as discussed what we learned in Keynote, small group, and worship that day.
August 8—Travel Day—We packed the vans at 7, had breakfast at 7:30 and were on the road by 8:15am. We were determined to get home much quicker so we had only a few stops on the way home. Our most memorable stop was Bu-cee’s!! You would think that it was the Buc-ee’s itself that was memorable, and it was! However the most memorable part was during our walk back to the vans, which didn’t seem to be that far away…until the sky opened up and dropped buckets of water on us. That was the longest run of our lives, dropping down between cars trying to get what little relief we could from the rain coming sideways at us. Several of us fell flat out on the ground before making it to the vans. Once in the van we sat there soaking and dripping in disbelief of what just happened. We went thru many emotions in the 5 minutes sitting there. Laughter and disbelief were the bulk of it and then hunger because those in my van realized that Tami had all our food and she was in the other van. Eventually the rain slowed down enough for Tami to come out with her umbrella to give us our food. Once the rain was at a level that our wipers could keep up with, we were back on our way. Thankfully no more incidents on our way home. We pulled into FPC Yorktown at 9:45pm phew what a drive!!! (Alice has her own exciting adventure to tell about her flight home)
We had an amazing week and you will all probably hear lots of stories about mice and bears among other things when asking the youth how their week went. Thank you to all who donated to help make this trip possible. We all can’t wait to share what we learned with you in church! (Find more photos on page 10 and 11 of the Disciple.)
Kaycee