The continually growing D & G Summer Camps with its increased 90 campers & 18 leaders led by Susan Connolly was held over the 2 weeks commencing July 5-18, held in Gurteen Agricultural College. These camps consisting of regular inter-active worship, sports, fun activities, day trips and engaging conversations exemplify what community is all about. A continued ongoing highlight is the development of leaders that takes place with 15-20 teenagers taking up volunteer leadership positions on the camps.

A very special thanks to the Mother’s Union for their very generous and kind gift to the diocesan summer camps.

My D&G Summer Camps by Elizabeth Granger (Camper)

Without a doubt one of the highlights of my summer!

The D&G camps run by 3Rock Youth are without a doubt one of the highlights of my summer, they’re so much fun and it’s a place where you can feel safe and talk about anything and everything and get closer to God in fact it’s where my journey with God started in the year 2007.

This year was my third year going to Gurteen for camp and it was as good as ever. Everyone got very close and new friendships were made, being one of the older campers was different but nice as you get to look out for the younger ones, like the years before when we had people looking out for us.

The week was full of surprises and fun and water was a big part of the week, from water fights to swimming to bouncy castles filled with foam, and not to forget the famous “dangerous” Olympics! The whole week was great and the bouncy castles were probably my favourite activity. The fittest man and fittest women put us all to the test one evening and had us all sleeping that night. But the funniest had to be the talent show where we had impressions and singers and a slightly…different version of thriller… And we had a few dancing leprechauns.

I loved the discussions that we had with all the girls one evening, it was great to have an adults point of view based on their experiences in life and it was lovely that we all opened up to one another and that some peoples worries and questions were all worked out. The leaders really helped and really cared so it was easy to open up to them.

Worship, which was held by Greg Fromholz was also another favourite part of my week, as we got to talk to others about their faith and when God started making sense to them, we learnt about choice and how everything starts with one, and we learnt about God and how wonderful he is through the amazing stories Greg told us, we were told about how we are all wanted and loved by God and how much God loves us.

My D&G Summer Camps by Eric Denner (Leader)

It was a dream to be a part of.

As I look back on this years camp and try and summarize in a few paragraphs what it was like, in simplest terms it was a dream to be a part of it but even that doesn’t seem to do it justice.

From the very start all the young people were willing to join in and give absolutely anything a try, made all the more amazing by the fact that the first activity of the camp was our messy games were everyone from the people brand new to the camp right up to the boss (Susan Connolly) end up covered in all manner of messy items!

As the week progressed a bit of a water theme emerged in our activities as we spent quite a lot of time getting wet and generally having an absolute ball of a time, in everything from our very own Dangerous Olympics (our annual diving competition) to our bouncy castles as part of our All-Star games all featured quantities of water to add to the fun. Of course we did have activities were water wasn’t actually poured over anyone, for example our trip to the Atlantaquaria Aquarium in Galway and our Annual Fittest Man and Woman Competition.

The highlight of the week for me came as we were all sitting down at the end of the week discussing the highs and lows of the camps and a number of participants couldn’t name a single low of the camp but were willing to give a list of highs!

I’m looking forward to seeing all the friends that I made this year at camp over the course of the year and seeing everyone again next year.

And for those of you who were on camp you’ll understand this, WOOHOO!

All in all Gurteen was as great as ever and I hope to go back as a leader next year for the junior camp to show the kindness and to help make Gurteen as fun as the leaders throughout the years have done for us.