Interparishes Camp 2018

By Prenov. Lưu Hành

Cau Bong, Viet Nam, 25 April 2018 -- With good tradition, every year at the occasion of Gio To Hung Vương (Anniversary of the Death of the Founder King of the country) often on Marh 10 according to lunnar calendar. This year, the Savio Community of Cau Bong continued organized interparishes camp for catechists belonging to parishes located in Sai Gon and outside of Saigon city. This year the theme chosen was “With God I will go”.

This year, there were more than 150 catechists participated, they came from Tan Thinh parish, Hoc Mon parish, Cu Chi parish, Tan Thong parish, Cau Lon parish, Bac Doan parish, and Phu Trung parish.

This camp happened during two days of April 24 – 25, 2018. The organizers were Salesian priests and brothers and also all the prenovices and aspirants. The camp was begun on the afternoon of April 24 with the greeting and openning ceremony of the Rector of the community Fr. Peter Nguyen Doan Ngan, SDB. Then the theme song “With God I will go” was sung with athusiasm and cheerfulness. And the participants prepared tents according to each parish. After that, they had a night with burning fire full of happiness and friendship. The next day of April 25, the participants celebrated the Holy Mass of St. Mark. After the Mass, they had games, they also had a cooking competition and making wall newspapers; after lunch, they presented wall newspapers, and participated on ringing golden bell. After that, all the participants had a time to have Eucharistic adoration. Finally, they were annonced the results of the two days’ activities and sending off ceremony.

This year camp, the young were invited going out with God – going out in order to bring love and help to other young people. This camp was not only a chance for many young catechists to have a time of happiness and rejoicing but this was really a time of learing different skills relating to camping, and organizing camping; besides, the participants also had chance to practice cooking, living in solidarity, and dynamic. This was a time they totally gave to each other, they sacrificed by not using any kind of cellphones or laptops in these two days so that they could really used their time for each other and brought joy to each other. This was a true challenge for the young of this digital age.

Ending two days of camping, the participants didn’t feel any tiring but they really experienced a time full of friendship, happiness and cheerfulness. Going home they carried with them a fire of the mission of the catechists that was to bring Jesus to others. Hopefully, next times more catechists will come in order to experience good time together and then they will continue to be concious and happy to serve others in joy.

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