Picture from Monika Wójcik
Translation from Joanna Magrel
Three months ago, Poland's rovers and wayfarers set off for Lisbon for the World Youth Day. Find out more about this event from the perspective of one of the wayfarers!
Our journey to Lisbon for World Youth Days has started on 20th of July, when we set out by coaches from Poland, at first in the direction of Lourdes in France.
There we began a pilgrimage on the way of Camino de Santiago. Divided into 6 columns, we were roaming for 5 days at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains. Our pilgrimage encompassed all the elements of the scouting journey, which is one of the most fundamental parts of our formation in scouting. When the first column has reached the Spanish town of Roncesvalles, the coaches took us to Santiago de Compostela. There we concluded our pilgrimage by taking part in the international Holy Mass in the cathedral and a ceremonial scouting roll call.
The next destination on our way was Fatima, where we stopped for a short time to pray and offer our service to the Holy Mary.
We reached the camp of the Scouts of Europe in Lisbon in the early morning of the 29th July. In Portugal, we were fulfilling the tasks entrusted to us by the Organisational Committee of the WYD. For example, we were tasked with: guiding the Ministers of the Holy Communion during the central events, preparing breakfast for the pilgrims, distributing food. In our free time we were taking part in catechesis and events dedicated to the pilgrims, exploring Lisbon and getting to know Scouts from different countries.
In total in Lisbon in service there were approx. 220 Scouts of Europe from Poland, and we were a significant percentage of all the volunteers from the Federation of European Scouting (almost 800 people). The trip of the Polish scouts was subsidised by the ORLEN Foundation, whom we thank very much for enabling us to carry out this project!
Thank you all for this great experience!
Gosia Mynett