Senior High Youth Invited to Diocesan Fall Retreat
The Youth Action Council has announced plans for the fall Diocesan-wide Senior High Retreat. The event will take place September 21-23 with participants gathering at the Episcopal School of Knoxville following the Friday night football games.

As everyone filters in, there will be games and ice-breakers. A visit to the Diocesan Camp and Conference Center is on the agenda with the youth doing some needed work around the place.

This will be a different take on the camping theme. There will be camping on a wooden deck with a roof overhead, a convenient bonfire location, indoor plumbing and private showers, real food, lots of neat people, a gym to retreat to if the weather is too cold or too wet, indoor and outdoor games combined with the opportunity to see old friends and make new ones.

More information will be available as the time grows closer. Mark your calendars now for an event to remember!

Diocesan Youth Summer Service Project
The fourth annual Diocesan Summer Service Project for diocesan youth ages 12 through high school will take participants to Rock Lick, Virginia to do home repair work.

Youth from all over the diocese are invited to attend -- but there is only room for 20 participants! The dates are June 24-29, 2001.
The cost of the trip is $150 and registration forms are available from youth leaders. The deadline for registration was June 7.

Province IV Youth Gather
The Province IV Youth Event 2001 is a triennial event for senior high youth sponsored by Province IV of the Episcopal Church and by a grant from the Episcopal Church Center in New York. The Event will take place August 9-12 at the Summit Conference Center in Brown Summit, N.C.

The Design Team made up of youth and adults representing seven dioceses in Province IV have decided to make the classic Dr. Seuss book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, the starting point for a great weekend looking at many difference Dr. Seuss books and the Biblical lessons they can teach.

It will be an amazing weekend with youth from the top of Kentucky to the bottom of Florida, and from the Mighty Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean. It will be a weekend of laughter, prayer, singing, worship and more surprises than you can shake a stick at.

Registration forms are available from youth leaders. The registration deadline is July 2. The cost of the weekend event is $175.

On Random Intentional Acts of Kindness
by Isaac Doty
James’, Knoxville
I live in Knoxville, a town where everyone drives like a madman, thinking only of themselves and their destinations. Everyone is like this every once in a while, including me.

I go to West High School and on one particular Thursday I decided to go home a different way, just to do it. So I headed this other direction and it brought me onto Kingston Pike, a very busy road, especially when school lets out. After getting stuck at every traffic light between Forest Glen and Northshore, I was getting frustrated.
But as I was driving and about to pass Food City I noticed an old couple standing on the side of the road, loaded down with groceries. They obviously did not have a car for they were trying to cross the four lanes of traffic, five if you count the turn lane, to reach the other side. They looked as if they had been there forever.

A sense of compassion came over me, and since no immediate traffic was in the left lane and the light ahead was red, I pulled into the middle of the lanes and turned on my emergency blinkers and waited for the elderly couple to cross the lanes of traffic.

At first the young lady in her SUV behind me honked, but she then seemed to understand why I had stopped as the two crossed into the turn lane.

To my amazement, all traffic on the other side of the road had halted as well, and the couple did not have to stop to get on across the busy street.

A man in the car headed in the opposite direction smiled at the couple as they crossed, and I could tell that they had smiled back at him when the elderly man turned back to thank me. That’s when the light turned green.

Editor’s note: Isaac Doty is a sophomore at West High School. He attends St. James’, Knoxville, and is a member of the Youth Action Council.