El Salvador Youth Conference: Éxodo

At first, it was just a splash of water. Two Salvadoran youth had been called to sit in front of the audience, and everyone listened closely, wondering what the speaker would ask them to do. The speaker was Gregg Garner, and as he talked to the audience, standing in front of the two sitting students, he began to wave his hands. In one of his hands was an open bottle of water. At first, it was just a splash of water that splashed from the plastic bottle. But as he talked, more and more water splashed onto the two students. They didn’t move. They didn’t move even as the rest of the bottle was emptied.

The conference happened right before Covid-19 caused a worldwide shutdown. The youth thought it was going to be postponed, but they were ecstatic that it wasn’t. Gregg Garner captivated the youth from the first session as he talked from Exodus 3, about how Moses didn’t know he was a historical person and had to learn his identity by following God. His identity became historical and meaningful when it became connected with God’s presence.

Now the audience was listening even more closely. What had this strange demonstration meant? Gregg explained that everyone, including the two students, could have seen what was going to happen. “You are either going to do something, or something is going to be done to you,” he told the Salvadoran youth. The water represented the issues that they faced as youths, and these issues were predictable, but they were predictable only if they opened their eyes to see what was happening all around them.

When Gregg called up another two students, and he held another opened bottle of water, the two students no longer just sat there. They knew what was coming. They watched the bottle carefully, and at the first sign of movement, they moved to the edge of their seats, attentive and ready to take action.

This moment touched on the central purpose of the 2020 Exodus Youth Conference--to wake students up to the issues they faced, and the ways that they could take action. Students learned to open up their eyes and ears and use their voice, to not just be passive recipients of what life threw at them. And most importantly, they learned about a God who wanted them to join him in making a difference. By learning to listen to God, they, too, could make an exodus.

Prayer was an essential element of the conference. At the start of each day, the youth gathered in the courtyard where leaders would teach them about prayer. The last morning, students were encouraged from James 5 to pray under any circumstance, and it led to a powerful time of prayer later that day where youth were seeking the Lord and interceding for each other.

The conference offered several ways for students to learn and practice these truths. During the general sessions, Gregg Garner challenged them to listen to God’s word in a new way. He challenged them to think about the deeper meaning of the text.

The conference also had group discussions, where students got a chance to talk about the most important issues that they face as youth in El Salvador. In one discussion group, students talked about relationships. Students talked about teen pregnancies, and about the prevalence of absent fathers. This became a central topic of discussion during the youth conference. In the case of women, absentee fathers led to the need to find male attention elsewhere, and for men, it left them without a model of how to be a father. This led to a cycle of teen pregnancies and absent fathers. This was one of the issues that the youth needed to talk about, one of the issues that would splash onto them if they didn’t learn to open their eyes and follow God to change history by breaking this cycle. Other discussion groups tackled the issues of money and status, and another discussion group opened up to the women in the conference, talked about forms of abuse.

Though most of the youth are neighbors and schoolmates, several of them testified on the last day of the conference that they formed new friendships. Praise God! Healthy, God-centered friendships provide much-needed accountability during this vulnerable stage of life.

Students were also given a chance to express themselves creatively. There were three groups. Genesis Garner taught a group of students a dance. Robert Muñoz taught a song, and Benjamin Reese taught a Reader’s Theater. During the last night of the conference, the students all performed what they had practiced. Gregg Garner explained at the end of the performances how these creative expressions were connected to the theme of the conference, “with the dance you used your eyes, with the reader’s theater you used your ears, and during the song, you got to use your voice.” It was all part of students learning how to open up their eyes, ears, and voice to communicate a different message to the world and exit their ‘normal’ lives.

Over the course of the conference, we got to witness the change in the students. Students who had been silent spoke up. Students who had been skeptical listened up. Students who had been discouraged looked up. In our last morning together, students shared testimonies of what God had done in their life. Students testified to how they had made friends, and how they learned that they could talk with people about what was happening in their lives. Students testified that they had learned how God’s word could speak into their lives. Students testified to how they had become confident that they could make a difference. None of these descriptions can capture the look on their faces, the confidence and gratitude in their face, and the sincerity and love in their voice. God had done something special.

And the work still continues. All the students who came to the conference live close to our campus, where we continue to offer Bible Studies and internship opportunities, along with other opportunities for education and accountability. We also have a full schedule of youth events for the coming year.