St. Mike's Thank You - Rector's Rambling for July 12, 2026

     Thank you to all for the prayers and financial contributions in support of the St. Michael’s Conference for Youth, Midwest.  What a wonderful blessing this parish is to the conference, and we were remembered in the daily prayers while there.

I am writing this mid-conference to meet the publishing deadline.  For 28 years I have been on staff of this conference, in addition to the 2 years on staff of the original one out east. 

This year was particularly interesting in that after last year’s conference being at full occupancy, we made the bold move to spin off a new St. Michael’s Conference for Youth, South, which is scheduled to take place in Stanton, Tennesse July 19-25.  This meant we split the staff (a few are doing both conferences in this transition year), and the Michaelites got to choose whether to come here or the new Conference. 

The majority of those attending the  Michigan one over the last few years have been from Tennessee, Kentucky, and South Carolina and they for the most part chose the new one.  And with last year being at the limit of 50 youth attendees (limited by the number of accommotations at the retreat center for students and staff), the split has resulted in the attendance at both conferences topping out at over 75 with more applications pending for the new conference in a week. 

The majority of students heading to the Tennesssee conference means that ours was considerably smaller, a community of 30 of us.  And although we missed friends from last year, we also were hopeful that this will be an opportunity for growth for both conferences in the coming years!  After all, we were a spin off of the conference that was in Massachusetts (now Connecticut), and the conference in Texas spun off from us nearly 20 years ago and operates at capacity at their retreat center.

So we are already praying for next year’s conference and look forward to what God may be doing next !

 

This week I will be out of the office Wednesday through Saturday because I am competing in USRowing’s Master’s National Championship regatta, which takes place this year on Ford Lake in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  My son Andrew and I are racing in singles in our age groups, and then we are racing together in the Father/Son Double race.  We will also be there supporting teammates and friends and volunteering with regatta operations too.  One good thing to come out of the covid shut-downs was my taking up the sport of my youth, and training for a couple of regattas a year: this one and one or two in the fall in Boston and Philadelphia.