Year 8 Trip to Mull and Iona

June 2012

Twelve students and four staff set off from Hartlepool early on a wet Monday morning to make the long trip to the Hebridean Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. We were heading for Camas, a youth residential centre run by the Iona Community, a world famous ecumenical Christian community founded in 1938. Camas has a history of working with marginalized young people, guided by its mission statement: Together, we seek to enable growth in love, respect and awareness of ourselves, each other, God and the environment. We hoped that the young people we were taking with us would benefit from what Camas had to offer and come home with greater self-esteem, an improved ability to integrate into group activities and a deeper sense of their own spirituality. We also hoped that they would have a great time! In all of this our hopes were more than fulfilled. Read on!

Camas is a special place. Situated on the edge of a secluded bay, the nearest road a forty-five minute hike away, it is impossible not to feel that you are somewhere very different. The scenic beauty is at once striking and breathtaking. This difference is reinforced by our accommodation in converted fishermens cottages- bare stone walls contain minimal furniture and no electricity. With vegetarian meals and home-baked bread, it is a place that challenges our expectation of what normal life is. This is, of course, the point: the removal of our everyday material possessions- mobile phones, hairdryers, beef burgers- leaves the way open for a greater awareness of the spiritual. When combined with the warm welcome of the staff and the emphasis placed on the group, the young people are quietly offered the opportunity to meet God in each other as well as in the glory of creation.

Each day, our students were encouraged to take part in organised adventure activities abseiling, kayaking and raft building. In most cases, the students threw themselves into this wholeheartedly and many achieved beyond their expectations. In particular, two of our students (and one of our staff) managed to climb a cliff-face, a feat requiring both skill and determination. But in many ways the less-organised activities were just as beneficial football and sand sculptures on the beach, clambering over rocks and discovering rock pools. These served to bring the group together in a shared sense of fun and gave the young people a feeling of freedom I suspect many of them rarely experience. Each evening we played games together in the common room, a challenge for some of our students at the beginning of the week, perhaps unused to this sort of social situation, but one which they adapted to and then enjoyed with encouragement and support from the staff. Jack Cranages face was a picture when he beat everyone else to win Empire!

Each morning and evening, the group met for a spiritual reflection. The Camas staff have their own approach to this which is not specifically Christian, using the time to encourage the young people to explore their hopes and dreams and to reflect on their stories and the stories of others. On the final evening, working with our students, the EMS staff rooted all of this explicitly in our Christian faith, pinning the things that had challenged us to the cross and giving thanks to God for all we had received during our stay.

On Wednesday afternoon, we headed back up the track for a short drive in the minibus to the port of Fionnphort. From there we caught the ferry for the 10 minute journey to Iona, where St. Columba founded a monastery in 563 which in time led to the spread of Christianity throughout northern Britain. Our hope was to give the students a sense of this history and the importance of this place to our spiritual heritage. We attended a service in the abbey with the Iona community and afterwards wandered with them around the building, pointing out things of interest and answering their questions. Later, in the best weather of the trip, we ate a picnic in the grounds, simply enjoying each others company in this inspiring setting.

On our final day, our students were given The Camas Challenge, an opportunity for them to take over and plan the afternoons activities. Different groups decorated the common room beautifully, prepared a very moving reflection and planned a social evening of great excitement. The highlight for me, however, was the group who cooked dinner 3 lads who took huge pride in preparing the best lasagne Ive ever eaten (dont tell my wife!) and then making Jack a stunning birthday cake. The effort they put into this and the satisfaction they gained from it were visibly immense.

The ancient Celts said that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, and, they said, that distance is even smaller in the thin places, the sacred places where heaven comes close to touching earth. George Macleod, the Church of Scotland Minister who founded the Iona Community, described Iona as a thin place. It is our hope that our students felt that touch of heaven, even if they are unaware of it, and that it will grow in them in the years to come.

Blue butterflies eyed wings, Eyed buzzard high in blue sky, Mountain isles blue veiled In fleeting shade of fleeting cloud, Of these I am the I. Kathleen Raine