October / November 2015 - Vol. 82
Kairos Europe Summer Academy
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Kairos Summer Academy in Brussels - July 2015

Each summer Kairos in Europe and the Middle East offers a week-long academic training in living life as a follower of Jesus Christ, reaching others and studying the Bible. Dr. Dan Keating was the main teacher for the Summer 2015 Kairos Academy held in Brussels, Belgium.

Knowing God Is Like Swimming in a Lake.
by Stephen Bick


It had been three years since I last went to Kairos Summer Academy (KSA) but I was still surprised to find, when I arrived at our location outside Brussels, that I had somehow become one of the older people there. My email inbox told the same story: I could no longer be the kind of spiritual tourist I had been at 18, merely attending such events and seeing my friends from other European communities. Now I had jobs to do. That said, it was good to be back.

I study at Cambridge University which presently has no Kairos Outreach chapter, and I had just returned from a month of recording and touring with my college choir, in which I am one of the only Christians. I love being in choir and being a Christian there, but it was enormously refreshing for me to be back in a Kairos  environment, among other students with the same worldview and Christian mission.

All of the teaching was excellent, but especially Dr. Dan Keating’s talks on Christ’s redeeming work. I was already familiar with some of the ideas presented, but the talks were excellent at tying these ideas together into a coherent whole.

One of my jobs at KSA was to present short sketches before each talk, which was great fun and also let me get more familiar with the material. In one of his talks, Dan compared knowing God to swimming in a lake: We can swim down all we want, but we’re not going to be able to reach the bottom. It was good to go in a bit deeper, and it was also good to remember that I’m swimming alongside my brothers and sisters. That’s an encouraging image for me, one that I will treasure during the next academic year.



Roots Away from Home
by Paula Arce

This year I am doing a ‘Brecha’ year of service and mission in Spain, which gave me the opportunity to attend Kairos Summer Academy (KSA) in Europe. This week felt completely new and at the same time familiar. I am from Costa Rica and have been part of many Kairos events before, but never in Europe. I was really excited to get to know some people from this area and to experience the event.

I was asked to serve as a small group leader, and it was awesome. Even though I had done it before at home, the culture, the language and the people were completely different. I knew no one before I got there, but as soon as I did, I felt very welcomed, like I already knew them.  What a blessing it is to be part of such a huge thing called Kairos, that even without knowing each other we can feel at home - not only with the people, but in the way we worship and search for the Lord.

KSA gives young people an opportunity to live a daily pattern of life together for a whole week, with morning and night prayer, deep formation through talks and discussion, and fantastic time to build relationships with people from different countries.

God is working in the youth of Kairos, and being able to see it is amazing. God wants more from us. He is calling us to go into a deeper relationship with him, to give more of our time to serve him, to learn more and stand firm in his truth. We don't live in easy times, and this week definitely gave us tools and motivation to keep going, to stand firm, and to keep living a radical life for God.


> See related Kairos articles and reflections in this issue:

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