In August, seven rovers and scout leaders of the Brazilian Guides and Explorers Association – AG&E (Associação Guias e Exploradores do Brasil – AG&E), had the big joy to participate in Euromoot 2019 of UIGSE-FSE.
Together we formed the Don Bosco Clan and hiked along the Saint Benedict’s path in the High Mountains. We have had a unique twinning experience with three other clans (Italy, Slovakia, and Mexico), and especially with Monsignor Cyril Vasiľ – SJ, who was our spiritual adviser and made the route with us. Impossible to tell the experiences of Euromoot in a few lines: You cannot tell the road, you have to live it! However, we would like to highlight three points that marked us during this very special summer road: the humility of an archbishop, the strength of youth, and the experience of unity.
Some highlights:
- To celebrate the holy mass with rovers from so many other countries
- To learn that hierarchy is not power, but service!
- To walk a whole day under the rain and to see how full of attention and care the rovers had for each other
- To visit the sanctuary of Subiaco and to visit the Monastery of Saint Benedict, guided by Mgr. Cyril Vasil
- To arrive in a camp with more than thousand rovers and senior guides after a hard day of climbing in the mountains
- To be enthusiastically welcomed and greeted by European brothers and sisters who were so happy and surprised to meet scouts from Brazil!
- To have a fantastic campfire with 1200 persons from fifteen countries
- To meet the Holy Father Pope Francis together with 5000 other rovers and senior guides in Rome! How not to get emotional!
We are not yet members of the Federation of European Scouting, but after the Euromoot, we are more than ever convinced that that is what we want! We had several moments of physical exhaustion, but seing our European brothers still singing, smiling, playing games gave us a much deeper understanding of scouting: to become and to be men and women always ready to serve.
Our reality in Brazil is different from Europe. We have spaces of significant material poverty, slums, and outskirts, and we suffer from a lack of security, we have many ultra-urban regions far from any reference of nature, etc. We feel that our mission is to bring our scouting, as a path to a happy and healthy life, to people in all these realities, preparing scouts and guides to undertake this mission. FSE scouting is a a search for a true Christian way of life, a way of sanctifying ourselves: We cannot keep this treasure for ourselves but should seek to share it with as many persons as possible! That’s our wish for scouting here in Brazil and everywhere!
Text: Denis Duarte, President of AG&E
