Hello everyone, it’s Louissa!
Exactly a week ago I had just got back from TeenStreetBrazil. (I actually arrived at 3 in the morning!) For those of you who don’t
know, TeenStreet, a ministry of OM, is a Christian camp for teenagers. The
first TeenStreet took place in Germany in 1993, and since then, TeenStreet’s
have taken place in other countries such as Uruguay, Australia and South Africa.
This year, TeenStreet took place from the 21st of January to the 26th
of January, and it was held in a university in Maringá, in the state of Paraná.
Paraná borders with São Paulo, but still it took a 12h coach journey to get to
the conference but it was worth it!
This year, the conference was called ‘New Song’ and it was
based on psalm 40, the name of the conference coming from verse 3, “He has
given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he
has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in God.” The preaches went on
to talk about getting rid of the ‘old song’ and singing the ‘New Song’ that God
has given you.
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| Illustrating Deuteronomy 11:18-21 |
On most of the days the timetable was like this:
We would wake up at around 7:40. After breakfast we all
headed to the ‘Throne Room’ Where we would worship and listen to the main
preach for the day. There was always a game, that would help to illustrate the
message and after that we would get together in our small groups, where we
would discuss the message and do the study for each day that was in our manual.
After that was lunch and then we could chose from 18 seminars or workshops,
which were various things such as dance workshops, seminars about subjects like
tattoos, that interest teenagers, and also seminars about various ministries of
OM. Next was dinner, followed by ‘Throne room’ which was a time with a lot more
worship and a little to add on to the morning message. That was followed by a
chill out time and then another group time, just to share what had happened
during the day and then finnaly bed at midnight or even one o’clock!
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| The Throne Room |
On Thursday we had a big celebration because it was the
tenth TeenStreet Brazil. The first TeenStreet Brazil took place in 2004, with around
200 people participating. This year, there were around 2000 people
participating.
On Friday, there was a ‘missionary journey’ where we would,
as a group, visit various points around the site where a illustration would
help us think about the world around us. There were some points that had a more
missionary focus and others that were more about things that we face such as
materialism. After this, those who wanted to could take part in a race called
TNT, to raise money for Freedom Climb, a ministry of OM that works with human
traffic.
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| Try to spot me - I am at the far right |
It all happened very quickly, and before I knew it, I was
already sitting on the bus going home. But even the coach journey was
different. We were all tired, of course, but instead of the Brazilian nursery
rhymes (the teens in the back really did have nothing to do...) we all sang the worship songs that we
had sung during the conference.
I am already looking forward to TeenStreet Brazil 2014, where I
can see my new friends again and learn much more about God.
