From 13 to 15 February Lame went on retreat to Castlewellan Castle Christian Conference Centre. They were joined there by Joe Houghton, a youth minister from Sheffield who has worked there with Rev Clarke Deering's son Stewart. Joe Houghton spoke about Jesus' predictions of his own death.

Back row L-R

Stuart Beattie, Sarah Trimble,Peter White,Bethany Lindsay, Emily Wilson, Alex Redpath, Stewart Deering, Richard Bodles, Sarah White, James White, Kirsty Higginson, Hazel Deering, April Lindsay, Kim Lindsay, Rachel Deering, Mark Snowdon, Joe Houghton

Front Row L-R

Thomas Potter, Nicholas Trimble, Conor Deering

  Flame retreat Castlewellan - Youth Service interview with Thomas, April and Emily

Thomas: we arrived late on friday evening, and the prospects looked pretty bleak because it looked like an absolute dump. But after we settled our bags, we went on a walk where our responsible leader Nicholas Trimble got us lost. A few hours later we got back, where we spent the rest of the night doing such fool-hardy activities as making a human pyramid and restraining Conor.

April: On Saturday, we spent some time with Joe talking about—what did we talk about?

Emily: we'll get to that in a minute, April.

April: Later on in the day, we went to the maze where everybody cheated the entire way through—except Rachel and Conor.

Thomas: Especially Nicky, who illegally scaled the central wall.  

Emily: What a spoilsport. Anyway, on Sunday, we had our last session with Joe, some of the boys played a rather violent game of football, and the rest of us went on a very muddy walk. Then Joe had a question and answer session and we had our awards ceremony, and then, much to Richard's dismay, we headed home again. So, good weekend guys?

April: the best!

Thomas: actually, it was pretty awful. No, just kidding, it was pretty great.

April: probably cheating at the maze.

Emily: how very Christian of you.

Thomas: The 3.00 am games on the first night were very good. All the balancing, team-building games.

April: yeah, those were really good!

Emily: April, I think you just liked surfing on Nicky's back.

Thomas: We looked at the story of Jesus healing a blind man, and blindness in our own lives, and how we can be blind to the message of Jesus.

Emily: and there are different kinds of blindness, right?

Thomas: right. There's complete blindness, and there's nearsightedness. It took Jesus two tries to heal the blind man in this story, which is surprising. Later, when he is talking to his disciples, Peter says that he is the Christ but later rebukes him for predicting his own death. Peter was near-sighted, because, although he could see the good things Jesus was doing, he couldn't understand the sacrifice He would have to make. Peter wasn't wearing cross-shaped glasses, as Joe put it.

Emily: and Joe talked about how this passage was a call to cross-shaped living—by trusting in God and making an active decision to follow Christ, our lives will change. Will you talk a little bit more about that, April?

April: Well, we talked about what the non-Christian world sees as desirable attributes—power, wealth, influence. But that's not what Christian people see as desirable.

Emily: It's almost the opposite, isn't it?

April: Yeah. Like, in order to live your life by the cross, you have to serve others and deal with groups of people you might not want to be associated with, but doing service is a part of cross-shaped living. Jesus used the example of a child, and said that being a Christian means being little in God's eyes. Then we talked about different ways we could do service in our lives.

Emily: What kind of things did your group come up with?

April: Volunteering our time at Lisburn Sunday School or Street Reach.

Emily: Right, and then we talked about how, as God's children, we are called to be servants first and foremost by putting others first because we have a high position of power as far as Jesus is concerned. It's hard to live such a selfless, serving life sometimes, but Jesus's example inspires us and his sacrifice calls us. What Joe said that really got to me was the bit about living our lives this way because Jesus had sacrificed his life for us, and it was a way of repaying that debt. In the last passage we talked about, two of the disciples asked for positions of power with Jesus, and Jesus told them that the only way to be given a position of power in the Lord's eyes was to serve others. You want to read that last verse, April? Mark 10: 45.

April: 'For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.'

April: to be associated with the types of people you wouldn't normally want to talk to.

Emily: and why should we do that?

April: because that's what Jesus did.

Emily: We discussed ways to be a good Christian a lot, didn't we? And what kind of things are required of us, and how they can be kind of hard.

Thomas: I found it quite refreshing—i found it easier to concentrate on Christianity after that, and talking about Christianity while having fun and being away from the world of non-Christians made it easier for me to talk about it.

Emily: I'd say it was a pretty successful weekend, then, huh? What do you think, guys: next Flame retreat to visit me in the states?