This was delivered as a speech at a recent GRIH Calabash Breakfast.

Aloha everyone! My name is Ryan McDonald, and I am a 14-year-old home-educated student. I am the current president of Guardians of Liberty, the first Generation Joshua club in the state of Hawaii. 

I have been asked to give you some background on an organization called Generation Joshua. GenJ, as we members like to call it, began in 2003 with a purpose of preparing youth to become a force in the civic and political arenas and to ignite young people to help America return to her Judeo-Christian foundations. Their theme for this year is Faith-Duty-Courage. They believe these principles can be achieved through quality education and training, and meaningful activism.

That is the vision and I am here today to explain how we as individual members meet this standard. There are three main elements that I believe combined, produce the Faith, Duty and Courage that GenJ envisions! These would be the umbrella or national organization, the great civics courses provided, and of course the local clubs, like our own Guardians of Liberty.

Let’s begin with the umbrella or national organization. This element plays a large role in our success. It is there to supervise and coordinate. They make sure the clubs are running efficiently, keep in contact with the individual members, and provide opportunities. These opportunities include summer camps, student action teams, not to mention an amazing incentive program and other forums that allow opportunities for all GenJ members to come together and/or network on a national scale.

Of course there is one portion they coordinate that puts GenJ in the public spotlight—campaign work! The National Organization forms what they call “student action teams.” The reason for Student Action Teams, I believe, is best stated on the Web site and reads: “The best way to train the leaders of tomorrow is to have our young people elect the leaders of today! Toward that end, Generation Joshua provides opportunities for members to engage in the best training of all: direct work in real elections.”

This election season, teams of students were put together, and sent to tight races around the country—races where the candidate was fighting for Conservative Christian values. These groups of students phone banked, sign waved, handed out literature, and more. This is the best example, I think, to show just how involved we as youth can be. These Teams are funded by an organization that works closely with our national organization, which allows students to travel to areas and again work with other GenJ students on a National Level. Of course, due to the travel costs, we in Hawaii were not able to join a Student Action Team; however, we did not let this stop us from getting involved as individuals. Even though we are not old enough to vote, we can still do our part.

Many of our individual club members got heavily involved in local races. Members from our club, including those of us here today, helped four local campaigns and one national level campaign. Most of these races, which were thought to already have been decided, came down to single digit percentages. Not to mention, one of the candidates we supported came through with a win! This is the essence of GenJ; to encourage the involvement of youth in our government! After all, this is a form of “self-government”, and that means everyone! Getting youth involved is especially important, because my generation - the youth of today - will be playing a significant role in our country’s leadership is just 10 years from now.

On top of this, the national organization coordinates incentive programs and hold contest for essays, photos, and even political cartoons! Their top awards program, the Benjamin Rush Award, is very challenging, and includes many incentives to register voters, start local clubs, intern at the state level, and learn all we can about our Constitution. The rewards involve scholarship money, trips to Washington, D.C. and more. All of these serve as incentives to get involved, which is the goal of Generation Joshua. As you can tell the leaders at the National level provide so many opportunities for duty if we are willing to accept the call.

This leads me to the second element GenJ provides—Civics courses. How can we become leaders without knowing our history and how our government was meant to run? Membership with GenJ offers students online courses that are actually taught at Patrick Henry College, but of course, rewritten at a high school level. These courses include topics such as U.S. History, Founding Documents, Constitutional Law, words from our Founding Fathers and so much more.

Our faith can be constantly strengthened as we learn and read about the Christian principles our country was founded upon. But what is Faith and a call to Duty without the Courage to stand? Courage - brings me to the backbone of Generation Joshua, and arguably the most influential of the three elements: Local clubs! Once you are a member in good standing, you have the ability to join a club in your area, or start a club, like I did! The goal of a GenJ club is for the members in that area to come together, pray for our nation’s leaders, examine current events in light of our U.S. Constitution and Biblical principles and discuss ways to get involved in the community! A club is lead and run completely by the students. They hold elections and learn to govern, which strengthens their leadership skills. 

Our local club in Hawaii is named the Guardians of Liberty. Our club’s officers learn to take minutes, track funds, and get to sharpen their administration skills. We embark on projects as a club, such as service projects, voter registration drives, and hopefully next year a group online Civics course to enhance our current events discussions. To further our education we have been on field trips to City Hall and the Capitol on Constitution Day, sat in on a City Council meeting, and listen to amazing speakers each month. As I stated earlier, we became very active during the campaign season and held voter registration drives, including one at a Warriors game. That was a lot of fun! We’ve helped out a homeless shelter with our service project at Christmas and we’ve done all of this since September when we began here locally!

There are so many ways to get involved in a local club. Each of our members are encouraged to become involved in some way. For example, we have a worship and music coordinator, a committee that is preparing for our next service project, even people who organize games for icebreakers at our meetings, and many other volunteers. Clubs allow everyone, not just the elected officers, to find a place that they can help—and isn’t that how a self-government should work? Clubs also provide a unique opportunity for like-minded students to come together and hold each other accountable to have the Courage to go through with their Call of Duty they received because of their Faith!

Faith – Duty – Courage! I think they chose a good theme. With all this said, please remember we are kids! We enjoy the fun and fellowship club meetings bring—not to mention the great snacks our parents provide. We also have parties and just time to laugh. It’s fun learning how to be a better citizen.

I’m sure I’m not able to do justice to the enormous benefits of Generation Joshua by speaking here today, but personally it’s opened up many new paths in my life. I’ve learned the time and commitment it takes to start something up like the Guardians of Liberty, but also the rewards. I’m learning leadership skills by presiding as the current president and  dealing with people and problems as they arise in a Biblical manner. I’ve read the Constitution more times that I can count in preparation for our current event topic each month—and so much more.

As stated when I began GenJ believes, Faith – Duty and Courage can be achieved through quality education and training, and meaningful activism. I hope we, the youth of today, prove them right! Thank you!

-GIR-

For more information, please visit www.generationjoshua.org