Eight members of the middle youth group of the Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends gathered at Earlham College for the 2002 Yearly Meeting. Each of us experienced challenges, changes, and trying things new.

Many of us enjoyed making the large puzzle with all of OVYM.

In our group we did a worship sharing session with the theme of Healing Our World, discussing current world events and other countries.

A favorite of our group was the rock climbing wall at the Earlham Wellness Center. Although not all of us reached the top, we were pleased to see our progression. The Wellness Center also provided a pool that we used almost every day!

At the Lily Library, Tom Hamm gave us an interesting lecture on Quakers living in the southern states in 1903. Many of us were surprised at the rules against color, music, and dancing.

We all greatly enjoyed making postcards and decorating candles this year. We decided to sell them at mealtimes in order to raise money to buy seeds for Zambia.

Our movie for discussion this year was Pay It Forward, a story of a young boy who comes up with an idea to change the world and puts it into action. This fit in well with our Yearly Meeting theme, and the movie made us think about trying new ideas.

The Hueston Woods trip proved to be great fun, with canoeing, swimming, and much joke-telling. For lunch, we did a small simulation to experience what it would be like to eat like those in third world countries. It made an impact on us all.

For this year's variety show, we did a small skit about Quakers in 1803. The show was a great success, and we had fun performing.

This year's service project took place at Circle U. We stocked cans in the pantry, ate lunch, and washed dishes. We realized that although we may not want to eat canned food all the time, having something always tastes so much better than nothing.

This year we all have realized how very fortunate we are to have the things we do, and we've become very grateful for all the good people in the world who are striving to make a difference for those less lucky than us.

In the Light,
The Middle Youth Group