#YoungLeadersEurope

It doesn't feel quite so exotic when your journey to a YMCA international event is just an hours drive up the road from where you live, especially now I've just spent the last 45 minutes engrossed in the blog posts from Colorado! Nonetheless, I had a great experience at Greenhill YMCA in Northern Ireland for the International Youth Leaders Camp this past week, and we had some stunning views of our own.

Seventy seven young leaders from YMCAs in Spain, Portugal, Russia, England, Scotland, Czech Republic, Germany and Ireland (North and South) met together to share experiences and learning of work with young people through our movement.

The programme was jam packed with plenary sessions, workshops, challenges, outdoor activities and we even managed to make it to the Festival of Flight held in the town showcasing an impressive fleet of RAF planes rounded off with an awe-inspiring display of the Red Arrows. But I like to think it was our YMCA street cheer performances that stole the show on the day!

For me the most inspiring message I took from the week concerned our passion, why we do what we do and how we do it. This message was reinforced through the week as I participated in activities including a values workshop led by Diana from Czech Republic; exploring how to handle challenging behaviour of young people through role play led by Bonny and Kiaralee from Scotland; and a detached youth work challenge led by Stevie from Northern Ireland where we had a thought provoking conversation on the purpose and reality of detached youth work.

The plenary sessions were equally powerful with inputs on building connections, knowing yourself, being a leader, creating change locally and creating change globally. I was also struck by Jools' inputs as he brought biblical stories to life and for evening devotions told tales around the campfire of misunderstood giants and lonely porcupines and the rest with heart warming messages of faith and friendship.

Again, as always my highlight is the new friends I've made, the laughter we had and the conversations we shared. And a massive encouragement for me was seeing four young people from Northern Ireland embark on their first international experience with the YMCA - the tears and the long goodbyes this morning spoke volumes of the significance this past week has had for them, for all of us.