AEYF East - Seniors Retreat

This was a great weekend filled with fellowship and fruitful conversation. We give our praise to the Lord for how he worked in each of us this weekend. We pray that he continues to speak to each attendee as they leave the conference and continue on in their lives. The speaker for the weekend was Obed Bazikian, the interim pastor from the Armenian Evangelical Church of New York. Obed worked off our theme for the year- Rewritten: Living God’s Story.  

Through Obed’s insightful sessions and our engaging discussion groups, we discussed God’s purpose for our lives and how the gifts he has given us can be used for his glory. We learned about our primary purpose for our lives, which is to be children of God. Obed spoke about how we can best live out that purpose. Our discussion groups and questions helped us to think about how we can best instill this into our lives. On Saturday, Obed and Sylvia Jizmejian held a discussion on Biblical lament in which attendees were invited to participate. The discussion was focused on Psalm 88. This was especially timely considering the immense pain and grief the AEYF community has felt as a result of the passing of Arie Orchanian, a long time AEYF member. This was an extremely healing moment for attendees as they were able to work through some of their grief together. 

Along with our sessions and discussion groups, we had worship, led by Sona and Moses Kazanjian. During free time, participants took part in ice skating, rock climbing, volleyball, basketball, along with many other fun games! Our Seniors 2026 retreat was a blessing and we pray for more success in our conferences to come! We pray that these conferences continue to guide youth and young adults towards our Lord.