I don’t know about you but the past few months have been absolutely amazing. I am an Orthodox Christian college student currently in my freshman year at Gordon College—a non-denominational Protestant school. I can tell you honestly that my intentions for going to college, in high school, were not totally pure and well conceived. I was planning to experience the "college scene" because, no matter what I had been taught by the church, I felt that it was necessary to do this in order to graduate the "school of life," with all my requirements in tow. This disastrous misconception somewhat guided my attraction to a few particular schools, but it was really the sports—wrestling and lacrosse—that I was concerned about the most. If the school had neither of these sports than I was not going to attend, end of story. I had my choices laid out, applications in, and was ready to go when I found out that most of my choices for schools would not work out for either admissions or financial reasons. I was dumbfounded because I knew that my grades and sports backgrounds were strong enough to be able to get into any of these schools and attend with a decent scholarship, but it was obvious that God had different plans (obvious to God not to me). Through a series of inexplicably Providential events I ended up at Gordon College—a school that I had always made fun of people for going to—where I was to play lacrosse and be surrounded by morally, and often spiritually minded youth. I cannot tell you exactly when the transformation occurred, but somewhere between the time I was accepted at Gordon and now God completely changed my direction in life; it was as if my water—the old, dead, way of life that I had been consumed in before—had been changed to wine—a joyful, curious, vivacious mindset. It was truly a transformation, and something that I had been feebly praying for throughout my high school years but was now brought into full fruition. I felt quite literally a burning passion inside of my body to do everything in my power to come closer to God and my church. Before this transformation my actions in the church as a reader and sub-deacon felt merely like duties to the "religion of my parents", which I do not regret because of how God used these things to bring me to where I am today. After feeling this change I slowly began to see the desperate shape the youth of our day is in. I also saw the empowerment that we, as Orthodox Christian young adults, have through the teachings of the fathers and saints that came before us to spread the word in a holy and burning manner. With this same passion and excitement I feel that it is my duty to beg every young person who is reading this to come to the 2005 Conference, not with merely the expectations of only having a good time or socializing, but with the knowledge that the world that we live in and that we will inherit from our parents is in desperate shape. The time has come, this is the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than we can ever imagine. Great things are happening around us even now, and the battle—waged from the beginning of our faith—has now begun anew. Come if you want to leave renewed and sparked with a burning passion, come if you want to leave with a purpose, and come if you are dead and wish to learn how to live an exciting life for a bigger cause than yourself. I can tell you for a fact that a year ago these words would never have been heard leaving my mouth but I am a different person and was given this second chance by Christ, not by my own doing. I know that if He can do this to me than He can do this to an entire generation. Can you imagine? If MTV can transform a whole culture then certainly an army of youth on fire for God can do greater things; come and see it happen!
