Fr.Baptist and Fr. Vivian sdb
KUWAIT JULY 30, 2012
Frs. Vivian De Souza and Baptist Monteiro conducted Retreats for the four Parishes of Kuwait viz. Salmiya , the Cathedral, Ahemadi and Abassya. There were about one thousand one hundred children that we catered to during the month of July when children were in their holidays for three months. There are many children but some of them have gone out of Kuwait for holidays.
This was our first experience, conducting such a program outside India. Fr Vivian worked with the Senior Group and Fr Baptist with the Juniors. Fr. Francisco Pereira and Fr Blanny Pinto coordinated with us and helped us a a lot. The number of volunteers and the teachers varied from place to place. The most numbers of volunteers were from Salmiya and there were comparatively less volunteers in the other three parishes. The teachers and volunteers were very important as they helped the children form into groups. We also got a lot of support from our Salesian priests in Kuwait who constantly went before time to handle the logistics, the volunteers and the other arrangements.
The Senior children were made to think for themselves and discover elements for a fully alive experience, during the retreat. The Junior children were exposed to a lot of activities and biblical movies due to their short attention span.
Most of the children had a fully live experience and wished the retreat lasted longer. They were very happy and looked forward to many more retreats. We too learnt a lot from the varied experiences and the responses from the children. The volunteers and children worked a lot through their group activities, skits, preparation of charts and did their very best to meet our satisfaction.