(Photo ois of team of helpers)
This was an excited remark from a teenager at May Camp over the weekend doing archery.
May Camp is a unique, i think, event. its a gathering of 370 teenagers from across the Diocese of Chichester. They camp in their Church group circles and gather for loud worship and singing and silly games and sport and prayer and discussion. Archery is one of those options.
Perhaps five years ago or more, the Scouts i was helping, paid for me to go and do a basic beginner course on how to teach archery. Then the Diocese thought What if we buy some kit then James could teach it at May Camp and so thats what I’ve done for five or more years.
I cant do it on my own as the photo shows.
The teenager archer said ‘we’. ‘We hit the gold’. i said, Thank you for sharing the glory but really you hit the gold, you should be proud of yourself and chuffed at how well you did.
Then there was the boy with cerebral palsy who hoped his disability wouldnt disallow him from from shooting. He watched what the others were doing and then followed my instructions and shot fine. He loved it.
But my favourite was the little child, not a teenager, who came and tentatively aware that everyone around her was a tall teenager. Would she be allowed to shoot. We were too far away for her first arrows to reach the target, and its too dangerous for her to shoot nearer whilst the big people were shooting. So i asked her to aim for the tops of those trees and it almost hit the target. So i got her to aim high into the sky (generally dangerous advice) and the arrow flew far over. So in the end none of her arrows hit the target. I felt sad. She was jumping with joy just beside herself with excitement.
I think I learned something that day about trying, about taking part being more important than the score, and something about applying sun screen but you already knew that.
Pray for the teenagers who came to May Camp that God would meet with them and give them the gift of faith.