My first BBYO experience wasn’t a chapter meeting or a regional event.

It was ILTC.

I didn’t really know what I was walking into. I knew it was a leadership program, I knew people said it would “change everything,” but that didn’t mean much to me at the time. I hadn’t experienced BBYO yet—I didn’t have anything to compare it to.

So I showed up not fully understanding what BBG was, what BBYO felt like, or why people cared about it so much. And then I walked into a space filled with people who already did. That was the first thing I noticed.

Everyone around me seemed to get it—the energy, the traditions, the way people connected so quickly. It felt like I had skipped the introduction and landed right in the middle of something that had already been going on for a long time.

At first, it was overwhelming. Not in a bad way, but in a way that made me realize how much there was to understand. There were people from different regions, different countries, all bringing their own experiences with BBYO.

And somehow, it all worked.

Even though I was new, I started to notice things that didn’t need to be explained. The way people showed up for each other. The way traditions carried meaning, even if I didn’t fully understand them yet. The way you could walk into a room of strangers and still feel like you were part of something.

That’s when it started to click. This wasn’t just a group of people who happened to be at the same program. This was something bigger.

ILTC didn’t just introduce me to BBYO—it introduced me to the scale of it. 

To the idea that what I was stepping into didn’t belong to one chapter or one region, but existed across so many different places, connecting people who may never meet but still share the same experience. And the more time I spent there, the more that feeling grew. I realized that even though this was my first experience, it wasn’t the beginning of the story. All the traditions, all the energy, all the connections I was seeing had been built long before I got there. I wasn’t starting something new—I was joining something that already meant so much to so many people. And somehow, that made it even more meaningful.

Now, when I think about BBG—about separates, inductions, and everything that comes with it—I think back to ILTC.

Back to That first night when all of Kaf’ar BBG gathered together in the gym and the staff around us shared stories of motivation that got them where they are today,  so that we could be the next generation of global leaders. This was my first seperates, when I really understood how much BBG meant and then it was bigger than anyone of us in that room. 

I realized that this wasn’t just something local or temporary. It was a movement. Something that exists far beyond one room, one program, or one group of people.