Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Second Time's the Charm...

This is my second year of participating in the Kansas City Interfaith Youth Alliance summer internship. I have been involved in KCIYA since the beginning of KCIYA-I think I was one of the first people to go to one of the first meetings held in February of 2008, when Second Presbyterian hosted youth trainers from the Interfaith Youth Core. I still remember what they were talking about-how the media only shows the bad interactions between different faiths, and rarely ever shows the good relations between different faiths. The goal of IFYC was to promote religious pluralism, a concept that I had never heard of until that time. Religious pluralism goes beyond tolerating religious diversity, it celebrates religious diversity and builds bridges between different religions and beliefs.

After that first meeting, I was excited enough to come back to the next meeting. Soon, I was meeting with two of the adult mentors who were leading this initiative along with a couple of other youth who were returning members. We met a Dean and Deluca in the summer and discussed the idea of this interfaith group going forward. We came up with service ideas, ideas for social projects, and ideas for how to get this group off the ground. It was a very excited meeting, and I know, personally, I was very excited to be involved with this group that was just starting, and was very excited to see where this group would go. Which I guess, is the reason why I keep wanting to help out with KCIYA now, partially because I remember that excitement that I felt from the first couple of meetings that I attended, and partially because I still see a great future for this group and want to help it along the path of becoming a group that is beneficial not just for Kansas City, but maybe even for the world.