An invitation for teenagers to always strive and orient their gaze upwards, towards God. Read here the testimony of the organisers.

We are Harry and Ling-Ling from Indonesia. We have four daughters, Rachel, 13,  Regine, 12, Raylene, 11, and Rhea, 4 and we are members of the Emmanuel Community.

We had the desire to do something for our teenage daughters and other teens because many of them need to deepen their faith. The challenge now is how to present this catechism in an interesting way. We prayed specially for this intention and asked the Lord to give us a sign and open ways for us.

We had an idea to have a catechism and hiking at the same time. Around the town, we have plenty of plantations and the weather is cool, which make it ideal for hiking. A recent trend too is that, parents want their children to go back to nature, away from their gadgets. Through this mission, we would also be able to meet the parents of these teenagers  as well.  I praised the Lord for He was showing us a way.

We shared this desire to the brothers and sisters of the Community and the Fraternity of Jesus, asking for their prayer support.

During the Fraternity retreat in Indonesia last August, we carreid the desire of this mission and our limitation of our city, for we are small in number. During the retreat, we received confirmations through the Bible passages, the different charisms and the teachings.  The burning fire for mission of our brothers and sisters encouraged us as well. The whole experience was very simple, but the flame of fraternal love was strongly felt.

Inspired by Blessed Pierre Giorgio’s Verso l’Alto, we named this hiking-catechism mission “Let’s Go Up”.  It’s an invitation for the teenagers to always strive and orient their gaze upwards, towards God.

Many brothers and sisters from other cities as well as young people from outside of the Community, came to help us during the mission. Throughout the mission, we experienced great JOY and fraternal love among us. We also received great responses from the teenagers and their parents. Praise the Lord!

Here are some fruits of this teen mission:

In a conversation with one of the teens, and I asked him, “Who is your idol?” Full of faith, this teen answered, “Jesus!”  I asked him again, “Why Jesus?” And he replied, “because Jesus has given me life!”   This struck my heart deeply. This boy knows what it means to be saved, knowing that he almost died when he was a baby.

Another fruit is: a teen decided to delete  games on his phone which had bound him all these times, his father has also promised to spend more quality time with him to do meaningful activities with him.

Thanks be to God, praise Him for all His works! We continue entrusting this mission into your prayers and included in it: Send the workers, O Lord! Amen.