The Youth Focus schedule for the 2024-2025 school year began on September 14 with an event that took place at the campground activity center. The evening started out with a time for visiting, and then prayer was given by Samuel Oni to transition the young people into line for dinner. Salad and a variety of pizza was served, from combination, to pepperoni, to cheese, followed by a delicious chocolate layer cake and ice cream for dessert.

The young people moved chairs around to converse as they ate, and the youth leader, Erik Calhoun, encouraged them to write questions for the question-and-answer session that was to follow. The questions were to be written anonymously and placed in a red basket. The food was promptly cleaned up by each young person and the chairs were moved back into rows before Caleb Copko led the group in a few lively songs.

Brother Erik collected the basket full of filled-out papers and asked Brother Samuel to lead in prayer again before answering the questions carefully, with the help of Scripture. The questions were read out loud as they were discussed. Some examples were, “Did God create evil? And why?” “How old was Moses when he freed the Israelites?” “Do those who are not fully consecrated go to Heaven (Matthew 7:21-23)?” and “How do we get out of a spiritual funk?” Brother Erik responded with encouragement to keep on praying, reading the Bible, and showing up to church. Others also raised their hands to add their thoughts and share their experiences. The topics covered were challenging and inspired each person to spend more time in study and prayer.

After the question-and-answer session and a time of prayer, chairs and tables were moved to make way for a fun game of dodge ball with everyone to conclude the night.