Last week, we welcomed 38 young Christians from Manchester and our partner diocese in Tampere, Finland, as they joined at Scargill House in the Yorkshire Dales.
Hear from our Assistant Director of Education, Susie Mapledoram, as she reflects on the visit.
Susie also gave us a quote following the end of the confirmation camp.
"Since 2012 we have welcomed a big team of young people and their leaders from the Diocese of Tampere to Scargill House in the Yorkshire Dales for a confirmation camp. This week and this place provides a wonderful opportunity for 25 or so young people to prepare for their confirmation back in Finland (this takes place the following Sunday after they return home) with teaching, services, small groups, games, night prayers, entertainment, waterslides and the now infamous football match.
There is something very powerful and important about young people and residentials – its about creating a space for them to discover more about God for themselves and explore their own faith, ask the important questions of life and have time to talk them through, to create and cultivate friendships, and have a lot of fun. Having a space that feels like home for a week isn’t to be underestimated either.
So we went again this year with a small but magnificent young leadership group from Manchester Diocese who worked with the Finnish young leaders to create games, entertainment, small group work and evening reflections for the 25 Finnish young people. They worked hard, built trust and friendship, and delivered some brilliant sessions across the week. The camp would not run without these young leaders – this is how critical they are to the day to day effectiveness of this week.
It might have rained pretty much every day but we didn’t let that get in the way, carefully scheduling the waterslide and footie for the episodes of sunshine and when it came the alarms going off at 4:15am on the day of departure, it was clear that this week had made all the difference to all of us."
You can see our full Flickr album from the week here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjANbkN
