Hospitality was main focus for this year’s Provincial Youth Conference.
Officially titled the Provincial Leadership Programme, the conference took as its theme ‘Under the Tent of Abraham and Sarah.’ The diversity of the group was one of its most striking features. The participants were 21 young people from across the province: Qatar, the Emirates, Jordan, Jerusalem, Cyprus. Their origins were diverse: India, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Palestine, Nigeria. The leadership team consisted of provincial clergy and lay people from the diverse contexts of the Province. All were able to bring together different experience, religious upbringing, languages and culture.
Fr George Vidiakin, one of the team, writes:
We gathered in Famagusta, a city in Northern Cyprus, which gave all the participants a taste of the very rich history of the place. The programme had four strands : worship and testimony; immersion into the context of Cyprus; religious pilgrimage, and talks and group activity related to the main theme of hospitality.
Each day of the week we had several liturgies: Holy Communion or morning prayer, evening prayer; all prepared by the liturgical team of young people. Apart from well-known Western hymns worship included Arab and Tamil hymns and religious songs.
On the very first day of the gathering Bishop Sean presided at the Eucharist and told his own story. He said that it was the very first time in his life for him to speak about his faith journey and ministry.
Bishop Sean’s story hardly left anyone indifferent.
Personal testimonies about each one’s faith journey were a very important part of the event. Participants and leaders listened to each other’s stories and once again were convinced that there is no identical journey of faith. It’s actually very striking how diverse, dramatic, colourful, exciting and just interesting our journeys can be.
A speaker of the conference we had Revd Dr Peniel Rajkoumar, Theologian and Director of Global Mission with USPG, who funded the event. He made three presentations and also led group activities on the topics of hospitality, mission and interfaith dialogue.
The programme paid great attention to the local context. Cyprus is a divided island with ongoing, though frozen, conflict between the two communities. It seemed crucial to give participants more information about the tragic event of 1974 and their consequences. In cooperation with ‘Home4Cooperation’, an organisation which promotes peacebuilding efforts in both communities, an educational guided tour in Nicosia was organised. On another day the group visited Varosha, often labelled as the ghost-town of Cyprus, a place where time has stopped and devastating results of the Cyprus conflict are visible.
The group visited places of particular religious interest including the ruins of ancient Salamis, the once flourishing city of Hellenistic and Roman times, where Barnabas and Saul arrived during their first missionary journey (Acts 13:5). Barnabas, who is deemed to be patron saint of Cyprus and the founder of the Cyprus Orthodox Church, was buried not far from Salamis. His tomb today is marked with a chapel, also visited by the group. A former monastery dedicated to St Barnabas (today functions as an icon museum) was one more destination for us.
During the feedback session on the last day of the event the leaders listened to participants’ impressions. Building relationships with others, not avoiding painful issues, leaning into God’s strength and not our own strength, practising hospitality and responsibility for good with a sense of humility were among the key takeaways.
We left Famagusta very inspired, feeling linked together and determined to make a difference.
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