Victorious Voyage Retreat a Success (with Dodgeball for dessert)

The parish team in Athenry held its second overnight retreat for
third years to leaving certs this past weekend (Feb 19-21) and it was a great success. There were 16 youth who attended at the nearby Esker Monastery Youth Village. The theme Victorious Voyage: Ransomed and Restored focused on the journeys and challenges that we face every day. The winds may come and push the sails around but if we let Christ lead our lives we will certainly have a good and meaningful course to follow.

The young men of Athenry continue to surprise the team as two-thirds of the participants was male. Athenry’s parish team had no choice but to call in the veterans to help out: Hugh McGloin and Tim Jackson, both NET Ireland Alumni came to the rescue.

Each day had amazing high energy activities, inspiring small group sessions, a main talk and presenter, and tonnes of fun! Despite an early morning on Saturday, some of the boys didn’t even go to sleep Saturday night (until 10 minutes before breakfast Sunday morning, that is!).

My favorite memory would have to come from Saturday night as the NET Team dressed up and served the youth a nice, fancy dinner. Okay, maybe it wasn’t even that fancy considering it was garlic bread, bagged salad and spaghetti Bolognese AND apple tarte! But we felt it important to let them know that they are important and special, not only to us, but to God as well. That’s why afterwards we moved into a blessed time of prayer.

The youth really seemed to enjoy themselves and we had great feedback from them (well… most would have liked to sleep more – including myself!).

We went ahead and had our Sunday LifeNight despite the three-day retreat ending that day. And let me tell you, it was so much fun! We played dodgeball with about 12 youth and it was awesome! The night had so much enthusiasm and energy that it made it even easier to sleep that night, not that we needed it! Everyone was enjoying it so much that we stopped only for a Powerade break halfway into the dodgeball mayhem. The NET Team decided to take on the youth towards the end. There was a fierce competition between the two sides and in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy, it was decided that it was better to let the youth win. Through this we could show them that we were truly humble and desired great things for them.

… or we just aren’t that good at a sport that none of the youth had even heard of before that night. So much for the cultural advantage.