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Kairos
Summer Academy in Brussels - July
2015
Each summer Kairos
in Europe and the Middle East
offers a week-long academic training
in living life as a follower of
Jesus Christ, reaching others and
studying the Bible. Dr. Dan Keating
was the main teacher for the Summer
2015 Kairos Academy held in
Brussels, Belgium.
Knowing
God Is Like
Swimming in a
Lake.
by Stephen Bick
It had
been three years since I last went to
Kairos Summer Academy (KSA) but I was
still surprised to find, when I arrived
at our location outside Brussels, that I
had somehow become one of the older
people there. My email inbox told the
same story: I could no longer be the
kind of spiritual tourist I had been at
18, merely attending such events and
seeing my friends from other European
communities. Now I had jobs to do. That
said, it was good to be back.
I study at Cambridge University which
presently has no Kairos Outreach
chapter, and I had just returned from a
month of recording and touring with my
college choir, in which I am one of the
only Christians. I love being in choir
and being a Christian there, but it was
enormously refreshing for me to be back
in a Kairos environment, among
other students with the same worldview
and Christian mission.
All of the teaching was excellent, but
especially Dr. Dan Keating’s talks on
Christ’s redeeming work. I was already
familiar with some of the ideas
presented, but the talks were excellent
at tying these ideas together into a
coherent whole.
One of my jobs at KSA was to present
short sketches before each talk, which
was great fun and also let me get more
familiar with the material. In one of
his talks, Dan compared knowing God to
swimming in a lake: We can swim down all
we want, but we’re not going to be able
to reach the bottom. It was good to go
in a bit deeper, and it was also good to
remember that I’m swimming alongside my
brothers and sisters. That’s an
encouraging image for me, one that I
will treasure during the next academic
year.
Roots
Away from Home
by Paula Arce
This year I am doing a ‘Brecha’
year of service and mission in Spain,
which gave me the opportunity to attend
Kairos Summer Academy (KSA) in Europe.
This week felt completely new and at the
same time familiar. I am from Costa Rica
and have been part of many Kairos events
before, but never in Europe. I was
really excited to get to know some
people from this area and to experience
the event.
I was asked to serve as a small group
leader, and it was awesome. Even though
I had done it before at home, the
culture, the language and the people
were completely different. I knew no one
before I got there, but as soon as I
did, I felt very welcomed, like I
already knew them. What a blessing
it is to be part of such a huge thing
called Kairos, that even without knowing
each other we can feel at home - not
only with the people, but in the way we
worship and search for the Lord.
KSA gives young people an opportunity to
live a daily pattern of life together
for a whole week, with morning and night
prayer, deep formation through talks and
discussion, and fantastic time to build
relationships with people from different
countries.
God is working in the youth of Kairos,
and being able to see it is amazing. God
wants more from us. He is calling us to
go into a deeper relationship with him,
to give more of our time to serve him,
to learn more and stand firm in his
truth. We don't live in easy times, and
this week definitely gave us tools and
motivation to keep going, to stand firm,
and to keep living a radical life for
God.
> See
related Kairos articles and
reflections in this issue:
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