YCC's Vision
YCC's vision of bringing a piece of heaven to earth—honoring God out of passion, love, and
freedom with the talents and gifts the Lord has given each of us—became a tangible reality
again this year. It was a place with a heavenly character. We thank God for every answered
prayer during the planning and throughout the retreat. For instance, the leadership team
started looking for a guest preacher very early but was unsuccessful for a long time until
Himang thought of Pastor David Kim. He had our theme, "Restlessness – Be still in God,"
particularly strong on his heart due to his personal story and agreed to come without
hesitation. We considered how the theme of rest in God could be reflected in all teams,
ensuring people were not overwhelmed and stressed during their service. For example, we
had two worship teams for the first time at YCC, allowing them to share the worship times.
Thanks to Daniela H. and Daniel C. for assembling and leading the music teams. This year, an
especially large number of people participated, whether as workshop leaders, in the tech
team, the prayer team, the program team, the admin and finance team, as translators,
group leaders, in worship, the care team, or as financial supporters. We cannot help but
thank God for the beauty He has placed in this group, the ability to meet freely without
persecution, and to enjoy divine fellowship.
Sermon
Pastor David Kim preached on the theme "Restlessness – Be still in God," addressing the
problem of restlessness and connecting it with his personal story. He preached about the
hope and identity we have in Christ and how we can live a life of God's rest and peace. He
emphasized the importance of observing the Sabbath, explaining that God's creation work
ends with the Sabbath. Rest is an integral part of our work. Additionally, each of us is a
"Poiema"—a masterpiece of God. The function of artworks is to be viewed. God sees us as
masterpieces and wants us to recognize how wonderfully and uniquely we are made before
we start working—wherever that may be.
To be God’s Light
The culture of openness, warmth, and love brings new people from different churches,
cultures, age groups, and other backgrounds to YCC each year, and for that, we are very
grateful.
It was wonderful to see how we, as the YCC family, built a culture of warmth and love in the
youth hostel despite the somewhat challenging premises. Kai, the owner of the house,
attended the service on the last evening. A little girl, Luisa, who originally came with a choir
group, also attended the service on Saturday evening. We received feedback from the youth
hostel that we were a very warm-hearted and respectful group, which was very nice to hear
and we could only reciprocate.
Gifts and Talents
It is astonishing how many people participated this year. So many people came to us
independently because they wanted to join our teams. How wonderful that our vision of
empowering people to grow in their gifts has become a reality.
Encountering God Personally
Christian, Helmut, Lydia, Noah, and Ann-Kristin shared their testimonies on the last day.
Noah comes from an atheist family and, during a difficult phase of his life, searched for the
meaning of life and heard God's call to buy a Bible. Through reading, he began to build a
relationship with Jesus and came to faith. Christian shared how he was held captive for
seven years by the thought that he always had to be strong for his family after his brother
took his own life. Constant accusations of what if his faith had been deeper, could this
incident have been prevented, and many self-doubts left him standing unfree before God. At
YCC, two people prayed for him, and he broke down in tears and spent the next five hours in
his room wrestling with God. On the last evening, God finally freed him through David Kim's
sermon. These are just two stories of many miracles we experienced.
We pray that God continues to show us His heart for YCC and guides our steps. Thank you
for your prayers for us.
From the YCC Leadership