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romanian!
Mark and I have just returned from a fantastic few days in Radauti. It was wonderful to see Misu and Livia again, and to find them in good spirits, bursting with ideas as ever. We were able to spend lots of time together discussing various projects and benefiting from each other’s company, although the focus of the visit was the one-day mini-conference, held at the Hannah centre.
I think it would be fair to say that this was the best conference yet (and that is saying something!), and we count it a real privilege to be able to spend this time with such a great bunch of students. There were about 20 participants, mostly sixth-formers, and a good mix of backgrounds. There were 3 or 4 newcomers, and the rest were those who had come to the November mini-conference (including many regulars such as Misu's and Orest's girls). Mama and Papa also decided to join in with the younger generation, which actually worked very well (they are exceptionally young at heart themselves of course!). There was general enthusiasm amongst them all to come to the main August conference, which will probably be held in the mountains at Brodina.
The aim of this conference was to act as a link between "Faith in Change" (November) and "Fear" (this August), and in this it was extremely successful, and we were able to elicit lots of ideas about the things which people are frightened of. Certain things stand out as being almost universal - such as fear of loneliness and fear of failure - but there were many other significant things too for us to think about in preparation for the summer, and it was encouraging to see how open the students were about these things.
The format of the conference was more interactive than ever, and the students responded with gusto. Once debate got into full swing, I was no longer able to follow the high velocity and passionate Romanian (Misu summarised for us afterwards), but using the number of decibels as a gage of participation, it was clearly successful.
I never like to presume that, just because it has worked in the past, what we do now is always going to be the right thing. However, in fact there can be no doubt that the needs of Romanian young people in a changing world, and the catalysing effect of what we have to offer, are coming together in an incredibly creative way. I'm very much looking forward to the summer, and probably to this November too.
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