2010 National Youth Gathering

Every three years our church body puts on a National Lutheran Youth Gathering. This year it was held in New Orleans with the theme "We Believe." Bethel had twenty-four youth, five adults and one young adult volunteer attend. This slide show should give you at least some feel for our Gathering experience.

Events were held in the Superdome and in the Convention Center. Around 25,000 youth and adults from nearly every state and from several foreign countries were in attendance. Mass events in the Superdome featured the theme for each day. A variety of presentations, some humorous, some very thought provoking, were given each day. During the days we had choices of presentations, concerts, hands-on activities and information booths to take part in at the huge Convention Center. We also spent a lot of time walking the streets of New Orleans to get from our hotel to the presentation venues, as well as being in search of places to eat. New Orleans is a city that is still greatly struggling to recover from hurricane Rita. There were many closed businesses and others that were working hard just to stay open. We also spent some time in the 9th Ward (the area hardest hit) helping to clear a vacant lot.

We want to thank the congregation for their great help and support, as well as our thanks to the adults who tirelessly (OK, we did get tired at times!) worked to help our youth have a great experience at the Gathering.

We also are already looking forward to the 2013 LCMS National Youth Gathering, which will be held just down the road in San Antonio! We'll start making our plans to attend. Our youth that are at least aged 14 by July of 2013 will be eligible for this event.

DCE Randy Moerbe

National Youth Gathering Slide Show:

These pictures are hosted on a Google Picasa site, and can be viewed as an album here: 2010 National Youth Gathering