Zeebu 2025

Thanks to Selkirk United Church for hosting 20 young leaders for the Feb 14th Zeebu pre-event leader training plus an additional 20 grade 7 to 12 participants for the Zeebu retreat, Feb 15 to 17, 2025.

With a theme of Biblical Allyship, the youth considered a bunch of actions and decisions taken by the United Church throughout its 100 year history. They pondered when the UCC did or did not follow Jesus’ example of showing up and speaking up as allies to marginalized communities.  Participants had fun weeding out the few untrue “facts” and placing all the others in the 100 year time-line.  Some events were things we felt proud of and some made us determined to do better going forward.

Another theme time was spent playing a simulation game where each person was a member of a family and had different jobs, different traits, different conditions and as a family had a goal of making a living and getting their family chores accomplished.  They experienced being treated differently depending on the traits or an unidentified mark they were given at the beginning of the game. They found that sometimes people got paid different amounts even if they did the same job, some people were treated different by authorities which sometimes got in the way of them getting their jobs done.  It gave the youth a lot to think about in their debrief session as they contemplated where in society similar situations might be happening, whether their friends and family members deserved the treatment they got, and how people might be able to act as allies to bring more equity to the situations they experienced.

In worship we explored Biblical Allyship through music, prayer, and exploration of the story of Jesus’ interactions with the Samaritan woman at the well. We also explored the theme in worship stations where we looked at many more Bible stories, discovering so many examples of Jesus acting as an ally and encouraging others to do the same; how the Bible often gets misinterpreted, how that can come about and how we can be careful not to let the Bible be used to hurt people; and what kind of people Jesus sought out to follow him as disciples. At one station, we took time for prayer and meditation.

At Zeebu there was also plenty of time that was dedicated just to having fun and building friendships.