Mid year retreat

As I am now half way though my gap year, it was time for mid year retreat. This is a retreat time with with all of the YFC gap years in the Lake District. We stayed in a youth hostel and got time to just relax and spend time with God. 

It took so long for us to get there! I left at 6:45 and after 1 hour on the bus, 2 hours on the train, one hour on the tube, 4 hours on another train then over one hour in the car, ( because we may have got a little bit lost!) we finally arrived. 

When I got to my room I had a few little bits and pieces on my bed. One of them was a little message from the YFC one manager and support worker. It was such a nice supporting message. I got an invite to posh nosh night, see more below, and also got my YFC one 'leavers' hoodie. It was a lilac hoodie with my name on the back at the top with everyone else's name from the gap year on the hoodie. It's such a nice little memory of the gap year and everyone for when I leave, but is also really comfy!

During this retreat we had a lot of free time, which meant that I spent a lot of time playing board / card games, but also walking around the lakes and up the hills/ mountains, ( we couldn't work out what it was). This was so cool and there was snow at the top, so we made a little snow man!

Everyday, usually at the end, we had a celebration. This was like a service, with worship and a sermon. These sermons were from Nathan Iles, and one from Neil O'Boyle, the national director of YFC, who came for one evening of the retreat. This time was so good to just worship God. 

Part of the celebrations was each team reporting back on what they did in their placement. The time was strictly cut to 5 mins so we had to quickly talk about what we did, and also cut lots of bits out of what we had planned. Our main thing to show them was a part of our anti bullying road show drama and show how we use that to teach students how to stop bullying in their schools. 

One of the evenings, instead of a normal celebration, we had a 'soak' session. This was time to just worship though many different ways, such as singing, but also art and writing. I enjoyed this so much. 

On the last day we had the celebration a bit early before getting all dressed up to have 'Posh Nosh' which was a fancy meal served by the YFC staff. It was so cool to get all dressed up with everyone and have a lovely meal all together as a good bye. 

I'm now got going to see everyone again until end of year bash, which will be the last time we will all be together. *sad face* 

We have become such a family together and it's so hard to not see each other but I'm so happy for what everyone is doing in each of their placements. 

Prayer requests:

For Roberto who has now left the gap year and is going back to Italy