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Palmerston North Youth to Melbourne & World Youth Day

Tim Darbyshire

Hi, I’m Tim Darbyshire and I’m from Palmerston North.

Going to the Passionist Youth Encounter and World Youth Day was an experience I will never forget and will tressure forever. I learnt so many things, funny, interesting, and just plain weird. I learnt that there are so many other people in the world who are Christians and that a lot of people express their faith in different ways. I also learnt that no matter how hard life is there are people who have it worse than me. Also that the church doesn’t mind Harry Potter as long as you understand it is a fiction story and its not true.

The atmosphere at WYD was crazy and I especially enjoyed meeting all the different nationalities, like the French whom for about 40 min in the train sang the whole time and it was amazing to listen to. I also enjoyed being able to spend time to get to know people while you could just enjoy yourself and be happy to be a Christian.

Many things happened while I was away for those two weeks one of the funniest was when we were in a train and a girls cell phone started ringing with a familiar song that us five kiwis knew, and Daniel decided he would start singing the song then the ring tune stopped and Daniel continued singing while the whole trained looked at him blankly…….

Another thing that happened was at the PYE when I was asked to be Jesus for the Stations of the Cross in front of all the people at the encounter. Putting the nerves aside I actually really enjoyed it and participating fully in the stations helped to understand them more and how hard it was for Jesus to carry his cross (Because I struggled with mine!!!).

Out of WYD and the PYE I think I enjoyed the PYE the most because you didn’t just get to meet the people from other countries you befriended them and with the technology in the world today I can keep in touch with all of them very easily. If anyone was going to WYD in the future I strongly advise you to go to the PYE or a retreat involving other nationalities.

MADRID HERE WE COME!!!!!!