During the first week, the Regional Leader of the St. Patrick’s Missionary Society from Lagos, Fr. Patrick Murphy came in company of other St. Patrick’s Priests. The purpose of their visit was to attend the thanksgiving mass for the celebration of the Life and Missionary work of late Bishop John Moore SMA. The mass, which saw so many visitors within and outside Nigeria, was celebrated on the 20th of May 2010. Late Bishop Moore was indeed a man of great personality, all those who spoke at the mass gave good testimonies of him. Indeed, we too at the Youth Formation Centre will not forget his commitments towards our programme, his idea of formation for the young adults of Bauchi Diocese was what lead him to invite us (Youth Formation Centre) to Bauchi Diocese no wonder he stated it clearly in his forward in our programmes manual that,
“Youth is something like this; in youth we are full of energy in the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment; joyful in the expectations of a hope filled future. Youth are generous with their time and talents, undaunted by opposition; forever trusting and testing the waters of life. The majority of the world’s population is under 35 years of age. Countries and religious bodies cannot ignore this potential powerhouse for development and goodness. Time, imagination and resources must be spent on guiding and forming our youth. The future of the world depends on it.”.
We will miss his kind heart and spirit for the young adults.
That same week, the SELL workshop was supposed to be delivered for the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) members of Bauchi, but couldn’t hold due to unpreparedness on their side, we hope that our next workshop with them will hold.
The second week which was last week, the Deacons of the Catholic Diocese of Bauchi had a one week Diaconate retreat at the Youth Formation Centre. Though the SELL team was not part of the facilitation of the retreat, Fr. Celsius Daklong from the Catholic Diocese of Shendam conducted the retreat. The deacons who were 5 in number enjoyed their retreat in the YFC compound which they said was a very calm and peaceful environment.
The workshop at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, which was supposed to hold last weekend, was cancelled by the students leaders. The president of the students group, Paschal, said student were just resuming from holiday and if the workshop is not cancelled attendance will be poor.
On Thursday 3rd June 2010, the YFC Team will be having their Mid-year Evaluation with Youth chaplains and stakeholders of the catholic Diocese of Bauchi at the Youth Formation Centre. The evaluation is to check how far the work with the young adults has gone this year and also to access the impact of the programme on the young adults.
UPCOMING EVENT
11th-13th June 2010 there will be a Personal Growth workshop at Gombe, Jonathan and I will be there to anchor the sessions of the workshop.
Stay with us in this column we will bring you more on our activities at the Youth Formation Centre
For YFC Team