youth pastors Letter 9th July 2026

Anaiwan Ojala

Hi all, my name is Anaiwan, and I am the Youth Pastor for the Junior and Senior Youth Groups. This term has been so awesome for us as a team. The end of term 2 is when we really started to find our rhythm for the year and connect as God's people.

For Juniors this term we have been looking at how to pray. We have been following the Origins 24/7 Prayer course. It has taken us through the P.R.A.Y.E.R acronym. Pause, Rejoice, Ask, Yes, Endure and Repeat. One of the really exciting parts of this course is the prayer exercises that we get to run. For our last content night, the prayer activity was to write one prayer on a piece of paper that seems impossible, ask God for help, and then store them for 6 months before reading them and seeing how God worked through our prayers. We currently have these saved in our youth cupboard ready to be opened in Term 4.

We have also had a bit of fun. Attached are some photos of the cakes we made during one of our fun nights. The young people were given the themes, Aliens, Pirates and Minecraft.

For Seniors, we have been working through The Bible Project’s “Sermon on the Mount" series. Our young people have really enjoyed this series. Not only does it have amazing visuals, but it also offers plenty of opportunities to dig into deep theological discussions. One of the favourite conversations I've been a part of is what does it look like to be generous. We were comparing Mr Beast and ourselves when we give homeless people food. We talked a lot about the differences between the situations and the importance of the heart posture of our actions.

Another highlight of the term was the Quiz/gameshow night we ran on the last night of term. The boys' team took home the win with only a one point difference (98-97).

We have a combined seed-planting night, youth group fundraiser, and some refugee house setup planned for next term, and we are just so excited.

To end, I wanted to share a story of God working in our space. Recently we had Rise Up camp. One of the senior leaders, Caleb, wanted to run some evening prayers on the last night. For our boys, we felt that we wanted to challenge them with some uncomfortable prayer. At around 11 pm we took them down to the lake and sat in silence for 5 minutes before reading some of Matthew. We took another 5 minutes of silence. Caleb read out loud The Lord's Prayer, slowly, line by line. We sat in silence as a group; when you felt ready, you were to leave  in silence before making your way back to the cabins for bed.

Over the whole camp, but particularly at this moment, I was reminded of how it feels to be a part of the wider church community. I felt incredibly humbled watching how Caleb ran and held a space of such peace and quiet.

Blessings
Anaiwan Ojala