On Easter Monday I was packing once again for a 6 day residential at the wonderful Abernethy Barcaple near Dumfries. With a great volunteer team and 24 very energetic 11-14 year olds I knew I was going to be in for a lively week!

There are so many things that I could write about; stories about all the activities and the great achievements of the young people, all that we learned from the Small Groups and looking at Psalm 23 in the evening sessions, and yet several weeks on my main reflections are on the great experience of really living together in community.

With a real mixed bag of young teenagers and team, there could easily have been many fractious moments, bad feelings and irritations. Add to this a tablespoon of tiredness, a pinch of homesickness and you have a recipe for lots of grumpy people!

However, it is great to see and experience the positive results of a group of people living in such close proximity when everyone makes the effort to value other people. From watching young people who didn’t know each other very well to becoming firm friends, to those who thought they had nothing in common learning to enjoy each others company – there are a great deal of lessons for us all.

In terms of a residential much of this having to get along with everyone is because the alternatives in a confined environment are not worth thinking about, but perhaps also as we learn other peoples strengths we can recognize our own weaknesses. From something as practical as sharing out your excess of socks that had been packed for Barcaple, to realizing later that day that you need to borrow something in return from the person you thought had forgotten everything and been irritated with because of it. To the main day of Barcaple of the activities of tree climbing, archery, mountain biking etc. where we allow ourselves to be pushed physically and emotionally, perhaps it is in allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and accepting the support, encouragement and help of others that helps us to see them, and ourselves, in a more genuine way.

Looking for the good in people, positively tolerating the things that irritate us in others, easily accepting our own faults, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable changes the situation from a group of individuals doing the same thing at the same to a community who share the highs and lows of life together, in a real and caring way.

As the photo says, this enabled all 32 of us to say ‘We are Barcaple 2010’, rather than ‘I went to Barcaple 2010 – and so did these other people.’