LENT Photo #26 "Easter Camp"

   For about 30 years I would not want to be anywhere near as tired as I am today, this close to Easter!! I would have in most of those years been in the thick of some desperate preparation that would be reflected in a remarkable long weekend of Easter immersion at Singleton or Maitland Showground and beyond [including WA and Far North QLD]. This Hunter Camp was a unique and powerful experience for me and hundreds of others [and a curious 'so what' for a few]. I grieve like others, the loss of this event in recent years, almost the last [certainly of it's type] to go...
   There definitely needed to be a change and a different way of engaging people to create such a thing for it to have been sustained. Out of our own limitations it didn't quite work out and needed 'a rest.' There are as many opinions as people about hat was wrong, could have been done, should have been done, was not done... by a variety of groups and individuals to keep it going...

- I celebrate 'growing up' largely shaped for life and discipleship in this space
- I found my vocation here
- I had time and opportunity to shape my leadership and theology here
- I saw lives changed and made lifelong connections with hundreds of young people
- I took some of this 'bottled' to see how it played out elsewhere including inspiring Kuringgai, helping WA re start and FNQ experiment
- I saw how the unique understanding of discipleship developed here has created other spaces for people, seen many young adults offer their gifts for ministry in voluntary and paid roles, has a generation of young adults hovering nearby but unable [or unwilling] to engage in the existing UCA congregations. There are others who've joined other faith communities or turned a different way or just 'in the ether'
- I've laughed, cried, stayed awake all night, slept through and bled in and for this kind of space for people
- I hope our plans for a 'WeekendOut' in August can offer even a fraction of what Easter Camp in the Hunter brought... it won't be just up to me as others will be invited to seek God's engagement with us in and through the event itself and the relationships, challenges and spaces it might create...