These past months have come as a surprise to many of us. From one day to another we were forced to change our habits, routines, stop doing many things, but also start creating new things. It has been a challenging time for many of us. As many of our meetings have had to move into the online world, it somehow deprived us of the human connection, but it allowed us to connect beyond the physical borders. For me personally, it has been great to be in the Nepali classroom one day, at a Jamaican youth conference another day and then also being able to encourage South African youth in a video. It has been amazing to see everyone being so flexible, willing to learn and serve and finding new ways to connect. As a reflection, I would like to offer you a small overview on what has been and is happening around the Unity with some links to videos or events that you can also join and some prayer requests.
SOUTH AFRICA with its Moravian Youth Union of South Africa has been posting quite a lot of content with guests from different regions of the Moravian Church. They have included several challenges and had a lot of youth participate in their regular videos. I really enjoyed seeing them include different languages and dialects in the videos and keeping it diverse. You can see the videos and what they do here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/33738025778/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/MoravianCTSDY/
ZAMBIA is praying for their National Youth Conference that was planned for September. Many events had to be cancelled, but the country is slowly returning back to normal activities. Not all the youths there have good access to the internet, but the leaders are working on structures to work with them.
MALAWI struggles to advance with the youth programme. All activities had to stop and their August youth conference was cancelled. Pray for wisdom for the leaders and their relationships with the youth.
BRITISH PROVINCE has found a response to the inability of having a summer camp. Their camp is happening online for three days in August. All who sign up will get the necessary material in the mail and will participate through ZOOM.
CZECH PROVINCE has resumed to regular activities since the government allowed summer camps to be organized with only some small limitations. Many of the congregations run their own summer camp for their youth and their friends.
NEPAL has been going through a long strict lockdown, so the youth and the congregation are still not able to meet in person only via ZOOM. If you want to get a taste of Nepal, listen to this song that was recorded before the lockdown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoGDmcBpBP4
JAMAICA has held their Young Adult Conference in June through ZOOM. There was a worship session, word of encouragement, drawing and sharing stories.
U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS leaders took their planned Vacation Bible Study online and you can watch it live or recorded on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=275762960156470
AMERICAN PROVINCE (SOUTH) offers some virtual activities for children and youth such as summer camps and VBS https://www.homemoravian.org/index.php?cID=3708
Estamos Unidos Ministry posts reflections, encouragements for Spanish speaking audience and now also runs a VBS online. https://www.facebook.com/pg/estamosunidosmoravianministry
Moravian Board of Cooperative Ministries offers Connect Groups directed more to adults but also interesting for young adults. There are many different topics to choose from, you can see it here: https://www.moravian.org/bcm/2020/06/25/summer-connect-groups/