“Faith, Love, Hope” — Youth meeting YouMe 2025 in Cluj-Napoca (Romania)

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Cor 13:13
 
Love, the one that is for God, for his word, for unity, that love brought us all together in Romania for our youth meeting from July 24 to 28, 2025. After 12 years, through God's grace, a new generation of young people came together from eight different countries: Albania, Austria, Hungary, North Macedonia, Poland, Switzerland, Serbia, Romania.
The meeting was attended by 60 young people and leaders, as well as Bishop Stefan Zürcher from the Central Conference of Central and Southern Europe and the Romanian District Superintendent Rareș Călugăr. The meeting was held in Cluj-Napoca (Romania), where love, joy, kindness, generosity, and sacrifice could be felt among our hosts. We are grateful to God for them.
The theme “Faith, Love, Hope” was carried over into every part of the program, conversations, ideas, and actions. The three main days of the camp represented three themes, where on the first day Bishop Stefan Zürcher directed us to reflect and pray about God's love, on the second day Jennifer Moore from North Macedonia reminded us to check whether the chair we are sitting on is a solid chair of faith, and on the third day at the Sunday Service, Ergi Kllogjri from Albaina, told us about the hope that existed in the people of Albania during a difficult period. In addition to the main lectures, the young people also reflected on faith, love, and hope during various workshops, which were designed to connect young people from different countries, so that in our differences we would see that we share the same faith, love, and hope in God.
The evening programs had a real wealth of different traditions, the city tour of Cluj and the experience of life in Romania was a great delight, and the greatest joy was felt in the communion of dance, singing, and games that the countries brought with them. We all came with the riches of our respective nations, but we left even richer with the shared blessings of eight different countries.
Positivity, joy, laughter, dancing, conversations, games, walks, enjoying food, etc. each evening calmed down in coming before our God in prayer where we humbly came to our Lord, realizing that everything we experienced, had, received, felt that day came from his merciful hand, and our hearts gave him praise.
Through many conversations, we felt and heard that the Lord touched the hearts of young people and the joy of meeting new friends, new brothers and sisters in Christ, and meeting people we already knew, was a great blessing for everyone. And God's love, faith, and hope that brought us to this camp, during the camp itself connected us even more and brought us closer together.
In that spirit, in those thoughts, with filled hearts, we went back to our countries and homes. And the camp may have ended, but the story of it is yet to continue.
We give our great gratitude first and foremost to God, whose gracious hand allowed us to be part of such an event, also to our Central Conference of Central and Southern Europe, which renewed the work of the Working Group Children and Youth, recognized the importance of our work and gave maximum support to the camp, to the General Board of Global Ministries for the most generous and very substantial financial support, to our Bishop Stefan Zürcher, who dedicated his personal time to the youth, who spoke to us about the great love of God, but also in many of his deeds during the camp he showed that love. And thanks to our hosts in Cluj, especially District Superintendent Rareș Călugăr, who with his presence, work, love, joy, and connection with the youth was also a great blessing to our camp. May the Lord bless everyone who directly or indirectly contributed to this meeting.
 
“For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.“ (Psalm 71:5)
 
Working Group for Children and Youth
of the Central Conference of Central and Southern Europe