North Pacific Yearly Meeting

July 1, 2006
Epistles from Children, Central Friends, Junior Friends and Young Friends

Dear Friends,

Hello from the NPYM 2006 one room schoolhouse! We are a kindergarten through eighth grade group of fourteen kids. We all met new people and had a great time mixing ages together as well as hanging out within our age groups.

Our theme this year is "Courage Comes in All Sizes." We explored this theme by interviewing elders about moments of courage in their lives and by telling our own stories. The older children "worship-shared" about their moments of courage. We all presented our stories in skits to the larger meeting.

We also played games, swam, went exploring, and hung out. We're all sad that our time together was so short, but we grasped every moment and look forward to meeting again next year.

Sincerely,
The kids of the one room schoolhouse

Exceptionally enthusiastic and excited, a group of Junior Friends gathered at Pacific Lutheran University for NPYM 2006. In line with the theme, we participated in intergenerational worship groups, many ultimate Frisbee games with the young Friends, and a balance and tumbling workshop.

As well, we shared poor campus fair with many young and old Friends and a humorous skit, created by the ad hoc "skimittee."

In our free time, we enjoyed card games, "street fighter," winkum, and stargazing from a cuddle puddle on the local high jump pad.

In our business meetings, we chose to give up showers for our Junior Friends camp, thoroughly discussed our code of conduct and received and approved many nominations most notably a new clerk, Rosa Ostrom.

In the Light,
The Junior Friends of NPYM

Adult Young Friends present for North Pacific Yearly Meeting Annual Session, together with several others arriving early for Friends General Conference, gathered on the evening of Sixth Day, Sixth Month 30, 2006, to Worshipfully consider our business together along with a query on the nature and function of our spiritual community.

This report deals solely with the Worship Sharing portion of our time together this evening, and even there its scope is limited. While this does not begin to attempt to document the initial responses to the query considered ("How can we have a spiritual community of peers in the context of YM given that we are the 'lost generation'?"), it does capture the sentiments expressed in response to a challenge posed by one Friend during Worship Sharing, in which we were asked to speak to the specific things we seek in coming together as Adult Young Friends in North Pacific Yearly Meeting. The following responses are not in their original order. We seek:

• Worship Sharing on topics other than why our group is not working.
• Backrub circles following the rise of Business Meetings.
• Through Worship Sharing or just by hanging out, learning together about our spiritual journeys.
• Seeking out how we as individuals fit into Quakerism.
• Cuddle Puddles.
• Quaker Process, leading the Meeting. By being ever more grounded in Quaker process, we can challenge our Meetings to live up to the Light in which they gather.
• Figure out what the good stuff is/was and implement it as fast as possible. ("Kicking ass and taking names, Quaker style.") Look to our own experiences as Young Friends and Junior Friends, and bring the best aspects of those experiences into the programs of the Yearly Meeting and our Monthly Meetings.
• Activism-- let's live our Quaker principles together.
• Welcome Rituals (and welcome document(s)) for incoming Young Friends.
• Rotating leadership, so that everyone can experience the blessings of Clerking.
• Sharing our Gifts with each other.
• Serving on Meeting Committees, and over time becoming the Meeting.
• News of each other's lives.
• Activity together that is more than just bumming around.
• Comfort and Community.
• Listening and Support.
• Queries relevant to concerns specific to Adult Young Friends (eg: relating to job decisions, romance, and other such topics).
• Having a group identity that is larger and more significant than the fact that we are a group that gets together-- there are any number of such groups, and we want to engage with that which makes this experience distinct.
• To forge and re-forge bonds with like-minded people, and spend more time playing games, engaging in activism and Worship Sharing, and getting to know each other.

These responses to the challenge, in the context of the query, begin to outline the labor we can hope to undertake together.

Respectfully Submitted by Gavin White,
Ad-Hoc Recording Clerk for Young Friends of NPYM