Hey, all you crazy and God-loving youth-people:

My name is Kristian... and mine is Jason!

Jason: Kristian is a fun pastor who stole Harry Potter's glasses. He has extensive experience working with youth as a leader in the church, outdoor ministry, and also abroad during the 1998 Rafiki Project in Tanzania. He's a die-hard Quidditch fan who also enjoys long walks along the beach and spending time with his wife and their smiling baby boy.

Kristian: Jason is a funky guy with a pierced tongue (ouch!) who'd rather be yaking with friends while guzzling tanks of joe at the local coffee bar. He's worked in outdoor ministry, and spent significant time in rural Mexico – significant enough to meet the love of his life! These days he pastors a downtown church in Lethbridge, Alberta and spends his nights waiting on Oslo, his puppy.

We are excited to be the coordinators of the 2006-2008 National Youth Project: Project Reunión. That's the Spanish word for Gathering, and it's pronounced ray-youn-YON.

Why Spanish, you ask? Well, that's the language of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bolivia (or IELB for short - remember, it's Spanish). Youth in that church face enormous social challenges: poverty, illiteracy, lack of access to basic health care, economic injustice and racial discrimination. In that context, youth gatherings are a source of encouragement and empowerment, enabling youth to strive in solidarity for positive change in church and society.

Project Reunión is the response of the youth of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) to a need expressed by our Bolivian sisters and brothers. Through this project, we have the opportunity to support Bolivian Lutheran youth as they are equipped and mobilized in God's mission to shed Christ's light in the shadowy places of poverty and oppression. The goals of Project Reunión are:
1) To raise $25,000 for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bolivia (IELB) to fund national youth gatherings and regional youth workshops.
2) To foster connections between the youth of the ELCIC and the youth of the IELB through mutually increased awareness of one another’s realities.

These goals are easily accessible for all of you who have faithfully proven yourselves as amazing stewards in God’s mission through our National Youth Projects. What an opportunity it is to be
called into a mission that will have such a profound and lasting impact in the lives of God’s people in Bolivia! Together we have a lot to learn and a lot to offer. Let’s all get excited as God holds this place for us In Mission for Others.

We are inviting youth groups across the ELCIC to support Project Reunión by raising money and learning about Boliva. History shows that youth have an enormous capacity to invent and carry-out creative fundraising ideas. Support for Project Reunión may be forwarded to:

Project Reunión
c/o ELCIC
302-393 Portage Ave
Winnipeg, MB R3B 3H6

All cheques should be made payable to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada; please indicate Project Reunión in the memo field so that funds are correctly allocated.

Additional information on Project Reunión is posted on the ELCIC youth website, Deeper, at http://youth.elcic.ca/

Contact information for the crazy and God-loving Project Reunión coordinators is as follows:

Pastor Kristian Wold
Bethel Lutheran Church
4102 73 St
Camrose, AB T4V 4G4
kwold@cable-lynx.net
780.672.3659

Pastor Jason Anderson
Christ Trinity Lutheran Church
416 12th Street S, Lethbridge, AB
403.327.0709
pastorjay@gmail.com

The ELCIC National Office contact is Rev. Paul Gehrs, pgehrs@elcic.ca, 204.984.9156.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

I Corinthians 12:12-13
Peace to you in Christ,

Jason Anderson
Kristian Wold