Middle Youth Epistle, OVYM 2005

There were four of us, ages 11 to 13, who met, had fun, engaged in deep discernment, and grew close during the 2005 Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting sessions. We had two great staff, James and Ann, and we thank you!

Cathy Habschmidt met with us, and we talked about the New Testament. We found that Matthew 25:35-36 spoke to us: “When I was hungry, you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was a stranger, you took me into your home, when naked you clothed me, when I was ill you came to help me, when in prison you visited me.”

For our service project, we anoed and kayaked part of the Little Miami River, picking up trash along the way. Unfortunately, the project was a great success: we found three bags of cans, five bags of trash, a tire, a radio, a piece of siding and lots of fishing line. We paddled past Fort Ancienct State Memorial, a place used by Native Americans many years ago.

We wonder why people leave so much behind along the river. Perhaps the reason is that many people seem to think only of themselves and don’t think about what their actions do to others or our world. Perhaps people in the United States think the whole world is their trash can. We also wonder if the people who used to live at Fort Ancienct shared different values than those we see around us today.

We seem to go through life with our eyes closed so we don’t have to see what we’re really doing to our world. We only seem to be thinking of ourselves today, rather than thinking of the future.

We spent much time learning about Rwanda and the genocide there. We watched the movie “Hotel Rwanda” and discussed it afterwards. We all went to at least part of Cecile Nyiramana’s talk and some of us followed Cecile to the teen dorm to listen to her some more.

We learned from Cecile and the movie “Hotel Rwanda” that one caring person taking the initiative can make a tremendous difference in the world. Good done in a small place can spread out all over the world.

Sometimes we make judgments about people we’ve just met, or have known all our lives, which are very hurtful. We realized after watching “Hotel Rwanda” and talking with Cecile, that these judgments can even result in war or genocide. Then we realized that our earlier judgments about people who leave trash behind on the Little Miami River could actually be part of the reason our own eyes may be closed to what we do in the world.

We urge Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting to open the eyes of the world to the problems in our shared environment and take some initiative in correcting them.

We were so deeply moved by listening to Cecile that we invited her to our dorm to talk with us. She taught us a simple hymn in Kinyarwanda, which we would like to sing for you now. We encourage Friends to rise and participate as they feel moved.