Eden’s campus is a gathering place for many groups of the church and beyond. As groups rent space, sometimes they have opportunity to interact. Some of those moments came this week as Freedom School scholars of St. Louis and Young Ambassadors of the Indiana Kentucky Conference UCC and the church in Westphalia, Germany gathered around breakfast tables together in the Eden Commons. Sacred moments emerged.
Freedom School hosted by Peace UCC through the Deaconess Foundation with the Children’s Defense Fund completes their summer 2024 programming this week. Young scholars and their college-aged servant leader interns have been filling the Eden buildings with enthusiasm as they enjoy reading, singing and dancing, learning, and developing leadership and getting involved in the community. They carry on the tradition of the continuing Freedom School Movement, unleashing the joy in growing up.
At the same time, the Young Ambassadors group of the Indiana Kentucky Conference UCC and the Westphalia region of the German Union of Evangelical Churches (UEK), are considering the Eden campus their home base while on the St. Louis portion of their partnership trip. For eight generations of groups, teenage youth from IN and KY and Germany exchange trips and travel together in the USA and in Germany to embody this church partnership, learn, and grow together.
These groups were together in the Eden Commons this week around tables and singing.
