What a beautiful essay this is today from Daniel Gullotta? I am sure many who read it will feel enlightened and uplifted. It is a poignant reflection on the meaning we can take today from that ancient story where Jesus encounters the foreign woman at a well and has a conversation with here…

Changed perspectives over a period of twelve months…

Youth Camps are always an interesting experience, but I don't think I can recall any being more challenging or rewarding as Ichthus 2007. Basically Ichthus is a week long camp where young people can get together and forget the troubles of school life and other stressful things, and spend time having fun and getting to know Jesus. The camp includes everything from arts and crafts, creeking and hikes to worship services and reflection times. The camp is led by young people as well, all of whom give up their holidays to make the camp more enjoyable for the campers.

This year, like last year, I was one of the Dorm leaders.

Last year, I was in High School, in a relationship, excited about formal (and the formal after party), and lived in a world the size of cardboard box. The campers in my dorm last year were quiet, shy, remained focused on the tasks at hand and really got to know God. This year was very different, being a theology student, single, living away from home, working a job that requires me to wake up at 2am and with a few assignments looming over my shoulder. My dorm were a mix of all breeds, some loud, some crazy, some shy, some focused and some really distracted.

I found it really easy to talk about God, Jesus and all that Christ stuff, but last year I wasn't in a theology course… This year I couldn't talk about Tom Wright or Rudolf Bultmann, John D. Crossan or the Jesus Seminar, I couldn't use the John P. Meier Five Criteria to prove anything (sounds like a week of hell ). The kids had a lot of questions, stuff about was Jesus married, how can Jesus be fully human and fully divine, why is there evil in the world, and the list goes on and on.

How on earth do I answer these questions? I gave my opinions, some things I had learned from my studies but half of the time I sent them to the Chaplain of the week, a priest and much better educated man than I.

However the theme of the week was the Parables of Jesus. Each morning, during worship we learned a different parable but we concluded with a very special one, the Parable of the Sower:

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop — a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

At the end of the final service, we threw seed over the campers, telling them that they were good soil. While I knew of this idea before hand, it was really at the end, during the service that I got the gist of our chaplain's approach. I guess in the stress of being a leader I failed to see the questions being asked as a blessing and not a task, also overlooking at all the bonds and friendships being made as the kids traded emails, mobile numbers and even parish details, and the smile on their faces as they thanked the leaders for an "awesome week".

Getting of my soap box now, I would just like to say thankyou to all the leaders and campers who came on and worked behind Ichthus 2007 (You all know who are!).

Let us pray for more good soil in our youth leaders but even more in our youth!

©2007 Daniel Gullotta

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