Tag Archive for: Gen Z

FSY

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend FSY Nederland-Vlaanderen in De Beukenhof, Biezenmortel.
For the Strength of Youth (𝐅𝐒𝐘) conferences are five-day events that include activities, devotionals, and classes designed to help strengthen faith in Jesus Christ and provide opportunities for youth to grow spiritually, socially, physically, and intellectually.
My co-facilitators were 5 of our missionaries, Libby Wilcox, Averi Hanny, Christian Adams, Luk Vanderlinden and Dallin Doxford.

Workshops

We had the opportunity to run 4 workshops, attended by in total, 100+ Gen Z participants, aged between 13 – 18 years old.
Our topics –
– Preach My Gospel – 2nd Edition.
– The Benefits of Serving a Mission.
To begin, we ran some fun icebreakers on communication, change and observation.
I retired the first edition of Preach My Gospel, and everyone received a hard copy of the second edition.
We used it to teach some key principles about technology and sharing the gospel via social media.
Technology allowed us to connect to the Missionary Training Centres (MTC’s) in Preston England and Provo, Utah.
We were joined by former missionaries Joey de Sousa and Nathanael Strickler who teach at the MTC’s.
They facilitated a discussion with missionaries who were enjoying the first few days of their MTC experiences, and fielded questions from our participants in the room.
Four of the missionaries online, will be arriving in the Belgium Netherlands Mission in 5 weeks’ time.

Expert Panel

We followed up with an expert panel of our own missionaries, who have served from 13 – 22 months in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Questions came freely from the workshop participants.
They listened intently to the answers from our missionaries.
What’s been the most difficult thing in the mission field? Do you have any fun? What do you do all day? How long do you serve in an area? Is it hard work? What is it like to be with your companion 24/7?
It was fun to be with everyone.
Somehow, we managed to engage with our Gen Z digital native friends for around 50 minutes at a time!
And we even managed to share a fun Instagram post together!
Please invite us again! 😊

Gen Z Children

“That is so annoying!” I said to Megan as we laughed and smiled together.
Let me explain by introducing you to our Google Smart Speaker.
I am neither a technophile or technophobe – somewhere in between – I think!
However, after this last experience, I am acutely aware of my limitations!!
A few weeks ago, we had a new Wi-Fi system installed to improve coverage throughout our home.
It meant several devices had to be reconnected, including the smart speaker.
I was mindful of Wendy Nelson’s recent message about her husband, that he never delays! Her words ring in mind, when she shared, “he’d frequently say, “what’s wrong with now?!””
In a like manner, I knuckled down as quick as I could to get all the devices connected again.
The smart speaker however, turned out to be a tricky one.
Eventually, I got it reconnected and was happy.
Then the problem started.
Monic likes to listen one specific radio station here in the Netherlands and despite the fact that the smart speaker was reconnected, it wouldn’t play the station….
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
And thus began the quest to overcome the technical problem.
I researched, I connected, I disconnected, I hunted even more online, I fiddled, I checked settings, I removed google home, I reinstalled google home….. and so forth!!!
Eventually, after many, many hours, over several days, I gave up!
My conclusion – maybe it was something to do with the home settings.
In the meantime, Monic was none too happy about the fact that she was unable to listen to her favourite radio station.

The Solution

Then Megan arrived.
One of our three Gen Z children, a digital native and technical wizard.
I mentioned the problem to Megan one afternoon and explained the situation.
I thought to myself, “Good luck with that, she’ll be busy for an hour or two.”
I left her in the living room and started my walk upstairs to the office.
I had barely sat down for less than a minute, when I heard a clarion call from downstairs “𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭!”
How annoying is that!!?
I returned downstairs.
Sure enough, the smart speaker was playing Monic’s favourite radio station and has done ever since.
The problem – the speaker thought it was in Scotland and not in the Netherlands!
Megan changed the address and hey presto the music returned.
Moral of the story – Gen Z kids can be annoying at times, but always great to have around to fix technology issues 😊
Thank you Megan – again!!!
I am all alone in this world, or can anyone else relate?