CFCI Youth – Pune witnessed many happy smiles and excited faces headed towards the venue for the Youth Camp on 3rd May 2019. About 17 youth in the age group of 13-19 years attended the camp. As they settled down we encouraged them to join in the all-time favourite actions-songs ‘waves of mercy’ and ‘undignified’.
The first talk on God’s love was given by Shenaya with testimony by Zeus on how he experienced God’s love in his life. After group discussions, there was a short break. Then our team leader, Joshua, who came from Goa especially for the camp, made all the participants wear their thinking caps as he put forth some riddles for them. The second talk titled Jesus, our best friend was given by Andrea and Jonathan shared about how he had accepted Jesus as his best friend. After dinner, we had an entertainment night with exciting games and thus concluded the first day!
The second day started with praise and worship then breakfast which was good fuel to start the day. The youth was taken to the grounds for a game where they were tied together with ropes. It was a lot of fun with a message related to the first talk for the day given by David on Sin and Repentance. David had come from Mumbai with his guitar! Riva then shared how she turned her life towards Jesus. After a short break, the service team made the participants experience the faith walk and the faith fall with an explanation of their relevance in our lives. Next, we had a session on ‘Inner Healing’ conducted by Joshua where the participants experienced the Holy Spirit touching and healing their souls. After lunch, the group discussion heads conducted one-to-one sessions with each participant.
Kevin gave a talk on the Importance of Confession and cleared various doubts about the Sacrament of Confession by answering the FAQ’s. This helped the participants to prepare and confess their sins to a priest and start anew. Next, we had Brendon from Goa, who taught the participants about Free Praise – how to praise Jesus during the time of worship. He spoke about the Holy Spirit and the various gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nikita gave a testimony on how the Holy Spirit had worked in her life. There was a pray-over session where everyone experienced the anointing of the Holy Spirit and received different gifts. This motivated them to share their experiences after dinner. We then had games and another entertainment night which brought an end to our second fun-filled day!
The third day also started with Praise and Worship. After breakfast, the youth gathered for a letter-writing session conducted by Riva where she guided the participants to write letters to their parents. Theosia then gave a talk on Growing in the Spirit by prayer and scripture, and there were sharing by Aaron and Rhea on how these tools had helped them. Then we assembled on the ground for some fun water activities! The participants played water games with the service team and that too with water balloons! After these fun-filled games, the last session of the day was conducted by Aaron on Personal Prayer.
The parents of the participants had started gathering and then love letters were exchanged between parents and children – it was a beautiful sight to see them bond! After this Fr. Stanley, the Youth Director for Pune Diocese celebrated the Mass post which the participants shared about their experiences at the camp. To conclude we had a Praise Fest where everyone – the youth, their parents and service team together praised and thanked God with action songs which the participants had learnt over the past two days. The parents laid their hands over their children and thanked God for them and so did the children. There was a time of fellowship where everyone enjoyed the yummy snacks brought by the parents. And so we came to the end of an awesome camp!
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