Alejandro is the youth pastor in a church that is gradually returning to face-to-face activities in times of the pandemic. He described to me how the group of young people who used to meet regularly disappeared. Now they need to start from scratch and they are in need of all kinds of support.

It is right there where I saw the opportunity to offer him a help. I told him about the workshop “A Day at Camp,” which, as I explained to him, consists of carrying out five recreational activities guided by a theme that leads to exploring nature, starting early in the morning and ending in the late afternoon. In this way, I also achieved my goal of putting my essay into practice for the CCIAL’s New Pathways program.
The topic to work on was Energy.

The long-awaited day arrived. The church is located in a mountainous area and has a beautiful extension of land, with large green areas, a small forest, nature trails, rustic ranches, and a topography that invites adventure. Arriving that morning, I perceived a tremendous latent energy in the 15 young people of both sexes between the ages of 11 and 16. Along with Alejandro, three collaborators from his team would help us as facilitators, bringing the same load of “energy.” Thus, we began to embrace the adventure within the fantasy of being “shipwrecked on an unknown island.”We moved forward, guided by the energy activities plan, to confirm that there was significant hunger for recreation due to the social isolation imposed by the pandemic.

After just over an hour, the group was integrated and committed to achieving the necessary teamwork synergy to overcome the recreational challenges. The game –once again– as an extraordinary scenario in which God moves minds and hearts, wills and energies. The activities flowed until the end of the day, with a great accumulation of moments and immediate memories, due to a common factor: fraternal joy.

We concluded by singing together, the song “Jesús es mi todo” (Job González), to thank God for a wonderful day at camp. The participants expressed their desire to “have a four-day camp” and “overcome more challenges together” in their evaluation notes. The team of leaders conveyed their gratitude to me, commenting on “how much they learned” and how motivated they are to participate in the Expo Games, scheduled by CCI Costa Rica for next December.
This is a synthesis, to give testimony of how God gave us the opportunity to support the youth ministry of a church, fill the need of the same young people to develop stimulating activities and mine as a writer of Nuevos Senderos.