by Espérance from DR Congo

One week, with people from nine different countries, Germany, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Namibia, with different time zones, different activities but on one sky and one objective.
The Global Youth Faith Event 2021 (GYFE2021) was organised and supported by an international team of youth officers, volunteers, pastors, musicians and ecumenical officers with the text from Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 10, which says: “do not be sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength”. This event was a blessing for me and I am so grateful for being a part of that.

The event was online due to the global pandemic COVID-19, but it had his particularity being connected with others the same time and we couldn’t feel being far away from others because we were connected together by the Holy Spirit and every new day I was excited to weak up, beginning my day and meeting new people.
Being together in this time of corona, talking, sharing thoughts, sharing the word of God by the Bible sharing was very important for me because it’s always interesting to hear the interpretation of some verses from someone else.
We had also different dishes from the nine countries that we were preparing everyday what was amazing… I have never been in Indonesia for example but I ate in that week a typical Indonesian food and it was very interesting.

With the painting as one of activities we had in the GYFE week, it was interesting to see different paintings from everywhere and for me in particular it was a joyful time that I had to paint, I was like “oh, I can paint also”. It was not only painting or drawing we did but for me it was to surpass myself, to defeat my fears and tell myself “you can do this” because I was thinking that I couldn’t paint and it was only for others but I did it and I’m proud of myself. I really liked it and I would like to paint again and again. It’s the same in everybody’s life to limit ourselves in some or some other point of our lives, saying I can’t do this or that, it’s only for others but when we fight our fears and have the courage to say why not? It’s where we find that we were missing so many important things. And it’s what I did and I’m so happy for that.

We had also other activities like dancing, poetry, photography. We had pictures of the sky from everywhere and it was just amazing seeing them together, and that remembered me the words of Christina Biere, one of our pastors who said: ”One week together, one Sky, one body of Christ”. Under one Sky, we were there in our event sharing our faith, in the corona pandemic situation where many people lost their beloved, talking about Joy and to remember what the word of God said to not be sad for the joy of the Lord is our strength.
“One week together, one Sky and one body of Christ”.

We had a music workshop where I had an opportunity to participate on and sung with Vera Hotten and Louis Purba and from the other side in China Daniel and Isaiah. It was just amazing singing songs in different languages, dancing, praising and worshiping together.

We had also to talk about the climate change, which is the biggest problem the planet is facing on and which is getting worse every single day. We were sharing our view point about it, what to do for change, what are our responsibilities…

Due to the restrictions in Germany and Dortmund in particular, it was not possible to meet a lot of people from other households. But I thank God that today the situation is going better than some months ago and on evenings, all the GYFE week activities were undertaken in the volunteershouse in Dortmund. We could meet for cooking together, talking, painting, dancing and doing some other activities and meeting great people.
We could feel the Joy we were talking about the whole week and it was just amazing.

Seeing people, young people from all over the world motivated by sharing their thoughts, talking and most of all knowing something interesting about other countries, the language, and dishes. It was so nice and that impressed me. Even though it was fun, it was educative as well and I’m excited and looking forward to the next Global Youth Faith Event.