2015 AEYF Fall Conference

October 9th through 11th marked our annual AEYF Fall retreat, graciously hosted by the Armenian Presbyterian Church in Paramus, New Jersey. The conference brought together over 120 youth from all across the east coast, uniting us all in a weekend of worship, fun and fellowship.

We had the privilege of having Professor Varouj Mazmanian as our speaker for the weekend. Keeping with the theme for the year “Walking in Obedience” he began by speaking about how critical it is to put all our faith and trust in God. The physical manifestation of this trust is shown through our obedience to Him. But how does one obey God? How is one supposed to know what God wants them to do? The answer is not as complicated as one may think. One way to know what God wants us to do is by immersing ourselves in scripture. He stressed the fourfold purpose of the Word in which it goes through a perpetual cycle of teaching us, rebuking us and correcting our behaviour so as to mold us into Christ-like individuals. As we broke off into discussion groups, he challenged us in our daily quiet times encouraging us to give all our troubles to God trusting that He will take care of us. During his final session of the weekend Prof. Mazmanian stressed that living a life of obedience is living a life of prayer. He left us with the message to live a life of obedience we must first be in the word, pray and grow in fellowship with each other.

Activities were planned for time between sessions including a friday night game of Bible themed wheel of fortune as well as a saturday afternoon bowling activities. Break between session were also marked by testimonies each of which were encouraging and showed that God is working in us and through us.

Finally, none of this would have been possible without the dedication and hard work of all the volunteers that came together to plan and execute this weekend. A big thank you goes out to all the volunteers who came in everyday during the conference to prepare the meals as well as to the host families who took in 2 to up to 10 youth. A thank you also goes out to the amazing worship team who lead us beautifully in song, they were a huge blessing to the weekend. All in all it was truly a great conference filled with people with open hearts, minds, ready to worship and grow in Christ-likeness.

“And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.” 2 John 1:6