The 2021 W.A.Y. Summit – a sisterhood gathering to empower teen girls to find their identity in and love boldly for Jesus – will take place Saturday, April 17 at the Coggin Avenue Baptist Church Connection Center. Doors open at 8 a.m. and the event begins at 9 a.m.
W.A.Y. is short for “Who Are You?” and Malaina Jesko, Lynn Humeniuk and Ricky Cavitt – representatives of the summit – recently stopped by KOXE radio to speak about the upcoming event.
“The W.A.Y. Summit is designed for 7th-12th grade young ladies and their mothers, mentors, guardians, whoever it is in their life that they would like to bring, or they can come with a friend in their youth group,” Jesko said. “We’re probably going to have a wide range of ages actually. It’s a timeless message. We’d like to invite Howard Payne girls if they’d like to come.
“It’s going to be a day filled with life-changing information, truth from God’s word. The purpose is to help girls and women find their identity in Christ. The world is throwing so much at us. We’re just trying to find our worth, identity and purpose in a culture that’s just an entire roller coaster that can leave us feeling really empty. We’re trying to help girls and women build relationships between moms and daughters. A lot of girls are going to peers for really important advice and they’re getting on the wrong track with that. Hopefully we can start important conversations and have some real meaningful messages that are going to be life changing.”
Humeniuk further elaborated on what will take place during the event.
“It’s going to be one activity after another,” Humeniuk said. “There’s going to be some activities that will be panels with young women and mothers and daughters on stage answering questions. There will be young men up there talking about what they see in a future wife perhaps and what a Godly woman would look like.
“This is one of those things that I really truly wish that when I was in this age group, someone would have brought this to my community. It’s so hard right now to be a teenager, this is going to be one day that you’re going to walk away as a young woman and realize there’s a hope and a future and it’s in Christ and it’s so important. You don’t have to find your identity with a guy, or what you’re wearing, or on social media, it’s going to focus on who you are in Christ.”
Cavitt spoke of the importance of the event as well.
“When Malaina came to me with a vision of this I said yeah let’s do this, the need is so huge,” Cavitt said. “There are so many voices out there and we want to point them to truth and things that will help them. We really want to help moms have those conversations with their daughters and we hope that weekend opens some doors for good conversations. One of the things I would say to mothers is bring your daughters to this. When it’s all said and done you’ll be so thankful you came. Even if there is some tension between moms and daughters, this has an opportunity to have some really good influence and impact in the home.”
Jesko added that Gloria Umanah will serve as the keynote speaker during the event.
“She travels the world speaking on issues of identity, stress, anxiety, everything these girls are dealing with she has walked that road and it’s very real to her,” Jesko said. “God has used her in a mighty way both through speaking and she also spoken word. I can’t say enough about how profound her gifting is and what a difference that she’s making.”
For more information about the summit, visit the waysummit.org website or call Coggin Avenue Baptist Church at (325) 646-1506.