By Jaime Polmateer
Several local churches recently held what they dubbed Adventure Week, which was supported by the North Thompson Community Foundation, and according to youth pastor Kim Bridge, the event was a great success.
“We were planning for 20 kids and we had 46 different youth attend, so I’m thinking we did very well,” she said.
“We had three bouncy castles, which were a big hit, some races, some fun activities and we had a craft everyday, if not two. We also had the gym and youth room available for the youth to play in first thing when they came.”
Each morning during the week, which took place from Aug. 13 to Aug. 17, youth were treated to a guest speaker, or adventurer as they were called at the event, who was a person from the Clearwater community and had gone on real life adventures across the world.
The five adventurers spoke about their travels and the people they helped along the way.
“One was Linda Brierley, she and her husband started working with a group in Guatemala, and so she came and shared about how they’d helped one of the tribes there get water, because they had been lacking water and needed a source for that,” said Bridge.
“We also had Vienna Moilliet, who is a mid-wife and she’s going to be heading back to the Philippines to do that, and so she came and shared with the youth about some of her adventures.”
The Bakken family were also among the adventurers who spoke to youth, but because they are currently on an adventure in Indonesia, the talk had to be delivered via video to the youth taking part in the event.
Other adventurers talked about working in camps everywhere from Haiti to Nicaragua, all as a means to encourage youth to travel and see the world.
“We just wanted to plant the seeds, (so youth are) aware that hey, Clearwater is an amazing place and we hope you’ll spend many years here, but there’s a lot of adventure to be had and you can pretty much do anything if you can think it,” Bridge added.
“Then in the afternoon we talked about some of Jesus’s adventures and just encouraged the kids, showing that even though sometimes there’s trouble in our world, if we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we can have hope and peace in anything.”
Bridge said given the overwhelming attendance, there will definitely be a second annual Adventure Week, and ideas for next year’s event are already percolating in her mind.
“It was a great success and we look forward to next year.”
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