A reflection from Colter Sprague, 10th grade.

Thanks to Hope’s generosity, I was able to attend the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering in Houston, Texas. This was my first time to attend a youth gathering. During this week, I saw God’s love emerge in many different ways.  When we first arrived, we joined 31,000 Lutheran youth and I witnessed their compassion and support of each other even though we were complete strangers. One of the things we did in our congregation was to help weed a garden and do landscape maintenance of community members needing help. The Treasure Valley youth all cooperated and showed love towards these people we barely knew. We ate with them and talked with them and became friends in a very short time. In my opinion, I thought that was amazing that our congregation helped these people in God’s name.

On Sunday of our visit to Houston…