[From Archdiocese of Regina Saskatchewan website]
Swift Current Youth Retreat
Last Updated on June 17, 2014
“Who am I?” and “What is the Plan?” are life-long questions that we journey through despite our path or age. This year Michelle Braden and her team of four young adults had the opportunity to work with grade seven and eights in Moose Jaw and Swift Current from May. 20-28th. The theme of the day retreats were “Who am I? And what is the Plan?” It was a blessing to be able to spend a day and focus on two main questions that society causes us, and especially young people, to ask often. Society says that you are what you do, say and produce, however God lovingly tells us that we are His Child and that is the core of our being and definition of worth. Society states that life’s purpose is to become wealthy, have purpose and achieve great things, whereas the future is God’s plan and our purpose is to love all.
The day was filled with a variety of activities ranging from active to introspective. There were times of prayer and praise and worship, ice-breakers, adoration, a personal testimony and thought-provoking sessions. Our goal was to bring God into their daily life, show them that they are not alone and to help them to see Jesus in the eyes of others.
Let me share with you two specific activities that we did:
As a way to combat against bullying the team took a different approach. We wanted to show that Jesus is in the midst of others and that what we do to others we indeed do to him. First we had a youth draw and person and name him/her then as a group we proceeded to say insults and throw darts at the picture. At the end of the activity we revealed a picture of Jesus with the same dart holes to show that Jesus is in the eyes of others and that we are not alone in our hurt.
The second activity was to physically show that we are not alone in our struggles. Each youth was given a glow stick and with the lights turned off and windows taped over a variety of questions were asked. When a question applied to the youth he or she would lower their glow stick. To look around the room when difficult questions were asked and see that you were not alone was amazing!
Please pray for these young people that God will continue to work in their life and reveal to them that their worth is not by societies standards rather His own.
Story written by Brandi Klein
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[The following is one of four pictures on the Archdiocese of Regina wesbite which accompanies the above article. That’s Nathan Labatt sitting on top of the dumpster. I opted to redact faces of the young people.] (pdf version: Labatt Swift Current Who am I Retreat 2014 sitting on dumpster)
