Today's the Day!

Well, folks, this is it. The day that the first ever Young People's Address is presented at General Conference. All those months of planning, and now the day has arrived. It feels almost surreal. A lot of people have been asking if I'm nervous. The answer: Not really. Maybe I'll start getting really nervous right before I go up, but perhaps I'll just avoid the butterflies entirely. I don't feel like I have a reason to be nervous. We're ready. We've prepared and practiced this. We have an important message the Chuch needs to hear. And I'm excited and honored to be one of the ones sharing that message.
Today's the day...and what a glorious day God has made it.

Rehearsal

Rehearsal was a lot of fun…we made it through the entire address in 35 minutes. Add in the technical aspects and applause and we should be good! We enjoyed our time together and managed to end in time to get to opening worship at a leisurely pace.

Evening Rehearsal

After returning to the main hotel after Panera, we met for an evening rehearsal. Professionals that we are, we gathered around the hot tub outside the hotel to rehearse. We talked through our speech choirs several times to work out the timing, and then spoke about our Press Conference. The Press Conference will happen just after our Address. The DMYP staff gave us practice questions and we discussed how we could answer them, how personal we would get in our responses, etc. We had a lot of fun (who wouldn't in a poolside meeting?), but it made for a rather late evening, since my hotel is half an hour or so away. But life goes on. Tomorrow I will be heading off to the Convention Center early without the YPA team to begin my duties as a delegate in addition to my YPA duties, so it will be a busy day. So this is Becca, signing off for Tuesday. Have a good night!

The "Final" Run-Through

Well, we have yet to fully run the Young People's Address. It is not going to happen before the live show. Never fear, everyone, the Address will go really well and we're greatly looking forward to it. There were just some technical kinks that still needed to be worked out. And they have been. So Thursday morning at 11:35 is going to be wonderful!
We saw the backstage, got wired up with our mics, and began running speeches. Tonight, we will be working on our Speech Choirs in order to get them in "synch" with each other. It's getting very exciting!!!

The YPA Team

A brief introduction to the team of young people giving the Young People's Address. (Picture at right taken by Ronny Perry for UMCom.)

I should mention that with the exception of Andrew (who wrote his own bio), I'm grabbing all these facts out of my head. Spellings may be incorrect, but I did my best. These folks will all have access to my blog, so make sure you check out their comments with additions/corrections.

Me: Becca Farnum, age 17, West Michigan Conference. Secretary and Treasurer for the North Central Jurisdiction Division on Ministries with Young People. Delegate to General Conference. I'll be graduating high school on June 1st of this year and attending Michigan State University in the fall, double majoring in Microbiology and Interdisciplinary Humanities. (For those of you wondering what on earth you can do with that combination of majors, the answer is take a lot of pre-med prep classes and international relations with focuses on Africa and the Middle East so that one day I can serve as a missionary doctor in that area.)

Andrew Craig, 16 and an active member of Park Hill United Methodist Church, is a sophomore and a straight A student who is a journalism/communications major at Thomas Jefferson High School. He currently writes for the school newspaper, The Jefferson Journal, and his hobbies include oratory, reading, writing, studying, debating, and campaigning for Barack Obama. He has participated in and won numerous speech competitions, and is a proud member of the Blacks in Government (BIG) organization and is the president of Rocky Mountain Conference's Conference Council on Youth Ministries.

Annie Rigo Arnoldy, age 30, is a pastor serving in Grand Junction, Colorado, where she heads up the Young Adults' Ministry at First UMC. She just got married (yay, Annie!) and has a gorgeous ring. Annie and I have majorly conflicting personalities but have a lot of fun knowing that we're going to totally disagree on everything. Somehow we're very good friends and get along.

Kira Volkava is in her late twenties and serves as a pastor in Russia. She serves on the General Division of Ministries with Young People and has been a great addition to this group.

Matt Lockett is a chemistry major at Washington University. He works in his Conference Office with media and video and is a part-time photographer. He's been our liaison with UMCom.

Jason Rathod is in law school at Duke right now. His grandfather immigrated to the US from India and served as a pastor. His father was also a pastor. The boy claims to be becoming a lawyer...but you have to wonder. (Just kidding, Jason.) Jason is very into politics and social justice.

And that's the team of young people. Adults who have been instrumental:
Julie O'Neal, Director of Young Adult Ministries at the General Board of Discipleship.
Jay Clark, Former Director of Youth Ministries at GBOD, now serving as youth leader at a church in Arkansas.
Hank Hilliard, Current Director of Youth Ministries at GBOD, known affectionately by Annie as "New Jay"
Make Ratliff, Asssociate General Secretary of GBOD for the DMYP
Ginny, Nancy, and many wonderful people at United Methodist Communications
Sarah Brockus, Stage Manager of General Conferences, and her wonderful team

And a big thanks to General Conference 2004 for creating this address!!

Rehearsal

We were able to rehearse in the Arena this evening. We thought we would have to be in the Ballroom, so that was a nice surprise. It was very helpful to be able to run all the sound and tech before our officlal Dress Rehearsal run-through. Jason was not able to be with us, as he took his finals at Law School today before getting on the plane. The poor boy must be exhausted. Sarah, the Stage Manager of General Conference, was wonderful as ever. We got a chance to work with the slide shows, lights, mics, and professional drummers. One of the UMCom staffpersons stepped in to read for Jason...it was very entertaining to hear a white women from Tennessee with a full Southern accent talk about growing up as an Indian male in rural Nebraska! But really, Nancy, thanks for your help.