St. Kevin's Oamaru (27th - 3rd March)

St. Kevin's Oamaru (27th - 3rd March)

Our first retreats away from home were spent in Oamaru at St. Kevin's College. We spent the whole week down there, staying in the male and female boarding houses. We presented retreats for Yr 9 - 13's. It was a busy week filled with tonnes of fun, incredible moments with the youth, some great praise and worship and Jesus was most certainly present.

Liam was greatly missed as he was spending time with family after his Grandad had passed away. He was there in spirit and definitely in our prayers.

We headed down to Oamaru in a staggering way, with a heap of equipment in the van (aka beast) and trailer. Peter done a great job driving in a manual :P (considering he'd only just learnt to drive stick.

Monday Year 9's:

We arrived at St. Kevin's around midday and had to do a year 9 retreat that afternoon. We realised very quickly that we needed to adapt our retreat style to suit the school. It was fabulous to get an introduction of the school from the Year 9's and we were blessed to have Maria come join the end.

Tuesday Year 13's:

Our Year 13's Retreats was lots of fun, we were really challenged as it was our first Year 13 retreat and we realised how similar in age they are, but from that real beauty was able to come from it as we could connect really well.

Small Groups

Games run by Lauren

Samantha doing what she does best- Telling a fab story

Reflection time

Yr. 13's Prayer Board

#Stabletable

Group Photo :D

Wednesday Year 12 Retreat

Group Photo :D

Our Year 12 Retreat was also tonnes of fun, we really felt like the group was needing unity and trust between each other, especially the guys and girls. So we improvised and brought in a bit of a trust fall activity which was awesome and they all appreciated it a lot. Reflection time was beautiful and we saw a lot hearts being changed during this time.

Thursday Year 11 Retreat

Year 11's Retreat was great, they bought tonnes of great energy and lots of fun, and we really felt a change in their attitudes throughout the day. Samuel and Teresa whom were not overly confident doing live music in front of crowds, done an awesome job at playing the theme song for us, which was "Lord I Need You". The last time we did it they were all singing loudly and were really involved.

Mouse Traps

Singing the theme song

Group Photo

Friday Yr 10's and School Mass

We had the Year 10's for a half day retreat which meant it was hard to really build those relationships with them, but the team did their best and it was still a really fun day. Talia in particular had a really fun small group and she was becoming more and more comfortable with small groups.
We then had the privilege of presenting music to the school during their school Mass. Which was the Ash Wednesday Mass. We also got to be Eucharistic ministers for the school, it was lovely for them to let us be apart of the mass and it made us feel really welcomed and considered apart of their school.

Delbert and Lauren presenting a hilarious Vaseline Skit

Group Photo

Ash Wednesday Mass ON Friday.

Adoration

We had 3 awesome nights of Adoration, the first night we only had a few turn up but by the last night we had approximately 30 youth which was an amazing turn out, with each of them encountering Jesus' presence and adoring him.  We organised prayer teams which Samuel and Talia had the privilege of being apart of. Our worship team were on point each night but particularly went 110% on the last night with a few youth staying behind just to hear us worship to our hearts were content.

 

 

 

 

 

Highlight:

St Kevins Highlight Thursday - small groups had gone from a lowlight to a highlight - I got asked about how my life had changed after I met God, and one of the girls said I’m like Lucia in ‘You are Special.’ And adoration was amazing! - leading praise and worship with Delbert, with Jesus right there. - Teresa