Wilderness Youth Leader Training in Austria
In March two members of our Alltnacriche Outdoor Centre team, Bregtje Sijtsma, Guest Services and Facilities Manager, and Paul Singleton, Lead Instructor, went on an exciting trip to Austria to take part in Wilderness Youth Leader Training. The training was provided by the Wilderness Ministry Institute in partnership with SU Austria. Bregtje reflected on the trip:
On the course we learned how God can speak through Creation. Jesus was often out in nature when teaching and meeting with people, and the Bible uses a lot of imagery from nature. In the western world we sometimes struggle to understand nature imagery because we have lost some connection to nature, the seasons and farming. This is why reading the Bible whilst being in nature can be helpful. To experience this for ourselves we did outdoor activities every day whilst looking at Bible passages.
During our via ferrata session (a type of rock climbing with a set route) we were told a story about an influential Christian who climbed the mountains in the locality, and we read a Bible passage. The via ferrata instructor compared ‘climbing whilst being clipped in’ to ‘living in God’s protection’. He said some climbers like to feel free and therefore do not always clip themselves in leaving them at risk of falling. He compared this to people who prefer to live life the way they want without God.
During another training sessions we had to walk with another course participant and tell each other about one thing that you want to work on in your faith. A Romanian and I walked together and he felt he should share Psalm 42:1 with me in German. Interestingly, that verse had been stuck in my head in German from the moment we arrived in Austrian nature; ‘As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after You’.
A few days later we were left in solitude on top of a mountain for three hours and were encouraged to have undisturbed time with God without looking on our phones. I sat on a bench right beside a via ferrata and several people went up and down it. I decided to read the rest of Psalm 42, which resonated with me a lot. At one point an Austrian climber walked by and asked if I was writing a diary. I told him I was part of the training group, and we were thinking about life. He said: ‘I never think’. Then he started climbing the via ferrata without clipping himself in, whilst there being a drop of hundreds of meters below him. To me he had just demonstrated that he was neither physically nor spiritually clipped in. Going through life without thinking.
At the end of the course Paul and I created a wood carving session using the principles of outdoor storytelling we had been taught. After a brainstorming session with the whole Alltnacriche team we hope to apply some of the methods we learned to Alltnacriche’s outdoor instruction and environmental education sessions, which could prove to be very exciting!
