WCA Juniors Attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Association Conference

by Evie Fordham

This past April, four Wake Christian Academy students, Carson Adams, Zane Chandler, Luke Ryals, and Elizabeth Slaney, had the privilege of attending the Rotary Youth Leadership Association (RYLA) weekend conference for Juniors.

“Its purpose was to put us into an environment with other leaders and improve our individual leadership and people skills through numerous games and obstacles,” Luke explained of the conference. The four students were first nominated to attend by WCA and then interviewed by Rotary Club members. Then, after several weeks of waiting, these four students were informed they had been selected to RYLA!

Each student learned at least one valuable lesson at the leadership conference. Elizabeth said she learned “you don’t have to be an outgoing people-person to be a good leader. All personality types can be effective leaders.”

Of the conference, Luke said, “I think the most important thing I learned was that when you are working with others you cannot do things by yourself. You have to be able to work with each other and communicate effectively.”

Carson also learned about teamwork, adding, “The most important thing I learned was you can accomplish some pretty amazing things if you and other people are all working together.”

Most importantly, Carson, Zane, Luke, and Elizabeth were able to live out their faith at RYLA.

“Many people asked about my faith since they knew I went to Wake Christian,” reported Luke. “I was able to talk with several people about my faith. There were people of different faith backgrounds that I had to work with, and we were still able to communicate well, even though we believe completely opposite things. I didn’t talk to this person directly about our faith, but hopefully through my actions I was able to show the love of Christ.”

Elizabeth interacted with a Muslim student and hoped she was able to show the love of Christ to her. “I did not hide my religious beliefs,” Elizabeth recounted. “We didn’t believe the same things, but she was very nice and we worked well together.”

Carson stated that he was careful to monitor his conduct at the conference, saying, “Throughout the weekend I was watching my words and actions and trying my best to be a good Christian influence on others around me.”

Although RYLA was not an outright Christian conference, the students were able to identify some Christian themes. Luke recalls, “From what I remember, there wasn’t much that came from the leadership of the camp that didn’t match up with my Christian faith.”

Carson said he could not find anything overtly Christian, but he did spot “a few Bible verses written in some of the buildings of the camp.”

All four students felt they benefited from the conference. Both Elizabeth and Luke would like to return to the RYLA conference next year as counselors. Each of the Juniors did their best to represent Wake Christian Academy through their Christian testimony.

Congratulations to Luke, Zane, Elizabeth, and Carson for their hard work that led to their reward in attending the RYLA conference!