Hi, my name is Ninos Shikhale and I’m 15 years old. First of all I would like to thank Qasha Dr. Gewergis Tuma and all the youth committee members for setting up our Church Youth Association and all the activities they have put together for us.

Recently we went on a Retreat. We had Bible Studies in depth; we learned about the race of life and how we should compare ourselves with how Jesus was instead of our friends. We had small groups and each group discussed one race in the Bible, the small group I was with talked about the race of the two criminals who died on a cross next to Jesus. One criminal said to Jesus that if he was all-powerful then why didn't he save himself and the both of them, but he was being sarcastic. The other criminal said to Jesus that he was sorry for what he had done and asked him to forgive his sins and to save a spot for him in heaven. Jesus accepted his apology and told him that he would be with him in heaven. (Luke 23: 33-43) This was just one race that was discussed. On top of this we also had fun activities.

We went on a night walk, it was so dark we could barely see the person in front of us, but we had to Trust each other and get through it. There were quite a few activities which thought us to have patience, there was one where we had to balance people on a teeter tooter and sing a song, another was we had to get all 27 people to jump rope without skipping a beat even the twirlers it took a while but we got through it. We had an activity which thought us trust, there was a platform which was about 5 feet high one person would stand on it and trust the 8 people below to catch them when they fell it was called a Trust Fall. I feel that with this retreat we became closer to each other and much closer to God.