The MAD Weekend was the first retreat I attended. MAD stands for Making A Difference, which is an awesome acronym and I felt that the weekend reflected it accurately. It is a really big gathering of Presbyterian youth from all over the island of Ireland. It consists of worship, different talks from speakers, sessions about different faith related topics, a fun fair, and it's just a lot of fun.
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| Photo of all the participants of MAD during worship. |
This year's theme at MAD was Live Love.
The first night we got there and had worship and then a talk from the speaker Duffy Robbins. He is American (Yay!) and is a Professor of Youth Ministry at Eastern University and speaks all around the world. I found everything he said to be really relevant and helpful. He put meaning behind the theme of Live Love. I also just think I found him really relatable and thought a lot of his talks were good for me to hear just for where I am in my life and being here as a YAV.
After his talk it was a dance party for everyone and our group had fun dancing to different songs that the band played. However, apparently everyone there knew "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus except me. So when that song came on I felt a tad left out.
The next day we had more worship and another talk by Duffy. We then had the opportunity to split up and go to different sessions. Our group broke up and I attended the leadership session with Duffy.
I really enjoyed it and found it helpful for me since I do not have a lot of experience in a leadership position with youth ministry. I also think he had some points for me about prayer that I could follow in my daily life.
Our group then reconvened and went around the "MAD Fair." First stop was the table quiz, which we didn't win but I was proud of myself for knowing some of the answers and being able to help out my team.
Then we went around to the inflatable slides and game section, and a social. I think we do not have those type of socials in the States but maybe we do and I have just missed them. Either way it involved a lot of dancing with partners... and needless to say most of our group didn't participate too heavily.
We also had a talk done by Al Bennett who works for Stand By Me. A non-profit that sponsors children in need around the world. It was really inspirational, and is a charity that I would be interested in helping out, however it's only in the UK.
Here is a video showing a child that has been sponsored through Stand By Me.
During the break time on Saturday we took a trip to Morellis. Which is an amazing ice cream shop that also happens to have another location right at the end of my street ( so far I've only been there 4 times, so I'm doing well.) But it was another chance for all of us to hang out in the group and I got to see a little bit of the North Coast town, Portstewart.
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| View from Morellis in Portstewart |
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| View from Morellis in Portstewart |
The night consisted of more worship, another Duffy talk, and a lot of singing and dancing. Then back to the house where Jenny (SNOG leader) made brownies and we stayed up late again chatting and just quite frankly being girls. I felt like it really helped me to get to know the girls and other leaders and it gave them a chance to know me better.
Sunday was sadly the last day with more worship and Duffy speaking, however, they played this video:
And had each group fill out a piece of paper saying what they would do to live love and pay it forward (I really want to watch the movie now.) They also had individual sheets for everyone to fill out for themselves about how we can each live love.
It gave our group an opportunity to brainstorm and come up with ideas for how we could live love and I hope we are able to carry out some of them. For example: a clothing drive and sponsoring a child through Stand By Me.
All in all, I really loved it and thought it helped bring us all together. I'm sad I won't be able to participate in MAD'15 next year. Here are some photos from this year:
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