July Stories
A month of Holiday Clubs, trips abroad, talent shows, garden parties, and outdoor adventures. Young people from the Church travelled to Zambia, South Africa, and Taiwan during July to help local communities and further their own faith journeys. Hundreds of children took part in Holiday Clubs across Scotland celebrating faith and fun.
Young people share ideas for future of the Church
The children and young people at Portobello and Joppa Parish Church participated in the Have Your Say project. The project explores what children and young people want for the future of the Church.
A summary of their ideas were shared with the Kirk Session and the wider Church, who agreed to act on many of them in the coming year.
Glasgow youth group take on ‘life changing' South Africa house build project
A group of 19 young people and seven leaders from Glasgow Presbytery embarked on a challenging ten day visit to just outside Johannesburg in South Africa in order to build houses for local families.
"It was a truly memorable and life changing experience for everybody, the true highlight was handing over the keys and seeing the family into their new home."
Youth talent show raises over £1000
The youth group at Kirk of Keith in Moray raised over £1000 with a talent show.
"In this small group of ours we have so much talent and it was great to give them a chance to shine on stage for the town of Keith to see. We have had a great year with our fantastic young people."
St Paul's Youth Forum in Zambia
St Paul's Youth Forum took a group to Zambia. They appreciated making new friends, learning about different cultures, and highlighting the fantastic work that is being done in local communities.
In It Together project
Family and children's worker, Elinor Denholm, from Carrick Knowe Parish Church reflects on activities taking place with young families as part of the In It Together project.
Holiday Clubs across Scotland
Overtown Holiday Club created a jungle experience with four days full of games, crafts, stories, snacks and fun. Ardoch Parish Church used the World Mission Airways materials with stories aboard a plane – the minister and leaders wore pilot uniforms and ‘visited' Zambia, South Korea, Italy, Israel and Palestine.
Holiday clubs were also held at Marchmont St Giles, Linlithgow Churches, Barrhead, Brechin Cathedral, Churches in Leith, St Johns Colinton Mains, Craiglockhart Parish Church. Househillwood had a street dance week, Carluke Churches had a hospital theme, and Largs Churches were exploring heroes. These have been very positive experiences for hundreds of children across the country and a lot of work for the teams that ran them.
Other
Several Church projects were recognised at the Queens Garden Party at Holyrood and Calum Dewar from the Boys' Brigade and Dylan Harper from Lochside Church in Ayr represented projects at the event.
Dalmuir Barclay Church hosted weekly themed nature trails with families throughout the summer as part of the Clydebank Waterfront project. They had wonderful weather and successfully outreached to the local community.
The pupils of Baltasound Junior High School demonstrated excellent hospitality skills recently when they served afternoon teas for Unst and Fetlar Church in Shetland.
St Paul's Youth Forum took a group to Camas on Mull and ran a summer food project offering healthy lunches.
The minister of Iona Parish Church invited a couple of youth representatives to visit and speak to the churches. Rachel Hunter and Fraser Borland spoke to various groups and took part in the leavers assembly at Iona Primary before heading home.
Fraser Borland from the National Youth Assembly represented the Church of Scotland at the I Love Taiwan Mission Camp.
The Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council supported six Girls Brigade companies as they represented at the European Gymnastics event at Glasgow Hydro.