Greetings from EYE 2017: Youth from the Episcopal Church in Vermont Discuss Their Experiences in Central Oklahoma (Video+Transcript)
Youth from the Episcopal Church in Vermont discuss their experiences in Central Oklahoma with the Rt. Rev. Thomas C. Ely, Heather Ogelby, and Jack Karn. Recorded July 13, 2017 during the EYE 2017 at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. Transcript is as follows.
Bishop Tom: Hi, Bishop Tom here at Oklahoma EYE17 along with the Vermont delegation, and I want you to meet them all and have them say a little bit about their experience. So, let me introduce them.
Chester: Hi, I’m Chester from the Church of the Good Shepherd, and I met a ton of new people here.
Morgan: I’m Morgan, also from the Church of the Good Shepherd, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing ultimate Frisbee with my new friends.
Jonathan: Hi, I’m Jonathan from St. Paul’s. I just love the energy here, and just everybody’s super excited and super nice.
Alec: Hi, I’m Alec and I’m also from the Good Shepherd, and I love the 4-Square and all of the activities we are doing.
Makaylah: Hi, I’m Makaylah. I’m from St. Andrews’, and I’m really enjoying all of the positive energy around this environment.
Spencer: I’m Spencer. I’m also from St. Andrews’, and I really enjoy the huge worship sessions that we have.
Dylan: I’m Dylan. I’m from All Saints’ Church, and I’ve really been enjoying blob tag.
Bishop Tom: So, that gives you a sense of who the young people are. Here are our two adults.
Heather: Hi, I’m Heather from St. James’ in Essex, and it’s just been a joy to spend time at EYE again.
Jack: Hi, I’m Jack Karn, and I’m from St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Brattleboro, and it’s again a wonderful joy to be supporting these young people and encouraging them on their journey to be peacemakers and builders of the New Jerusalem.
Bishop Tom: Thanks. Now we’ve heard about all the good fun times you’ve had here, and so tell us a little bit about the program you’ve been experiencing here. Who wants to go first?
Dylan: I’ve had a whale of a time!
Bishop Tom: So, tell us why.
Dylan: Well, just playing blob tag just… [laughter – inaudible] especially when you’re getting chased. Man, it’s tough.
Alec: You’re free to express your religion, and all that, because everyone else around you has the same one. So…
Bishop Tom: Who else has something?
Chester: The Praxis Sessions are also interesting because you get to choose what you want to learn about and what you want to hear from other people of the Christian faith.
Bishop Tom: Uh huh…And you’ve been here with the Presising Bishop, too, right? How’s that been?
All [clamoring]: Good. Amazing.
Bishop Tom: Tell us something about it.
Chester: He’s very energetic and get’s everyone going, gets everyone happy.
Bishop Tom: What did he have to say to you? What did he have to say to you that you remember?
All [long pause, glancing at each other, then laughing, then talking all at once]
Bishop Tom: What!? Say that again.
Spencer: If you believe in Jesus you can change the world.
Bishop Tom; There you go, You wanna change the world, follow Jesus. Yeah. What else do you remember? Some of you went to the session he was leading, right? The questions and answer –
Alec: Oh yeah, the Following –
Spencer: No, the Jesus Movement.
All [agreeing]
Alec: He explained…He explained how it started out with a movement, like people following Jesus, and how it spreads, like, throughout the world. And it started out as such a small thing, and someone mentioned, I remember someone mentioning—cause we were doing questions afterward—someone mentioned, like, how our church is getting smaller, and he mentioned how, well, Jesus, his followers started out very small, too, and looking now at, like, how big it expanded that it doesn’t really matter how small it is because it will get bigger. And that one really…
Bishop Tom: And yesterday was Oklahoma Day, and you went to a lot of different places. Tell me about something from yesterday that you really –
Chester: We went to the Cowboy Museum. I thought that was really interesting. Yeah, me and Dylan went into the jail. It was a lot of fun. [Other laughing]
Bishop Tom: What else?
Dylan: We went to the Indian Museum for a pretty long time, you know, 10 minutes. It was really fun.
Bishop Tom: The museum of art, right? The Indian museum of art?
Alec: Native American
Bishop Tom: Native American. Thank you.
Bishop Tom: What else did you do?
Jonathan: We had a candlelight memorial service at the Memorial, and we heard a story by a survivor.
Bishop Tom: From the Oklahoma City bombing, yeah. Mm-hm…Back in, what day was that? Who remembers? April –
Makaylah: April 19, 1995.
Bishop Tom: Good for you.
Spencer: At 9:02 AM.
Bishop Tom: Great.
Alec: And they have a nice big building that has 9:01 and then 9:03. The 9:01 represents when the city was pure and undamaged, and then 9:03 represents the time where it was damaged and unpure [sic]. And then the time in between is what happened —
Spencer: A huge, shallow pool of water –
Alec: And then they have on one side bleachers facing these —
Spencer: A hundred sixty-eight chairs, all varying sizes, to represent all victims of the bomb.
Bishop Tom: And those chairs are placed where they actually found those hundred and sixty-eight people who were killed. That was powerful.
Alec: And at night they light up, and it’s just a sight to see because it represents them living on.
Bishop Tom: Well, that’s it for now from the Episcopal Youth Event here in Oklahoma. We say so long. Say goodbye to Vermont.
All [Waving]: Bye
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