The annual Morden Youth For Christ (YFC) banquet wrapped up Friday evening at Morden Mennonite Church.

Staff and volunteers shared their passion for Morden teenagers at the casual annual-general-meeting type event. One young woman, Arial Giesbrecht, was the main speaker.

"They changed my life," said Giesbrecht. "That's my family."

Giesbrecht has spent the past two years or so travelling around the world as a missionary. She worked with sexually-exploited women and children in Cambodia, prostitutes in Las Vegas, and taught Biblical studies in South Africa.

"When I come home from overseas, [YFC is] the first place I go because it's safe, I know that I'm loved, and they are committed to me as well."

All the speakers emphasized a theme of masks, that teenagers and young people who come to YFC in Morden are pretending to be what they're not. John Rempel, Executive Director of YFC Morden said that the kids who come through YFC's doors are looking for simple acceptance and love.

Rempel is starting his 15th year as director, and said, in that time, the need for an organization like YFC in Morden has not decreased at all.

"There are kids that will always fall between [the] cracks; it's just reality," said Rempel.

"It's nothing the community did wrong, but you need something that these kids get to step into: their own youth group, and that's what they call it."

The YFC banquet was held on two nights this week, Thursday and Friday, because Rempel believed a smaller, more intimate setting was the best way for the passion of the staff and volunteers to be spread to the audience.