World Youth Day

Lizzie & Grace's World Youth Day Diary

Thursday 18th - Arrival and welcome in Petropolis

Saturday 20th - Our work in the Mission

Monday 22nd - Moving on to Rio

Tuesday 23rd - Rain in Rio

See also: BCYS group Blog on Archdiocese Website

Thursday 18^th July 11.30 pm (7.30 pm Rio time) 

Flights were good. Experienced fog on arrival in Rio and had to circle for nearly an hour. Some Dioceses had to be re-routed to another airport. Birmingham pilgrims were fortunate to be able to land in Rio.

On arrival at the Mission in Petropolis, the coach received a great welcome with balloons, banners and dancing 

Despite language barriers, the first sessions with the young people in the Mission have gone well. The Birmingham pilgrims have shared their experiences of their home towns; taking symbols such as: pottery from Stoke, Marmite from Burton & Worcester sauce from…. Worcester! 

So far the food has been great. Lunch consisted of meat balls & salad, and dinner was spaghetti bolognaise. 

All of us are well, and we're just about to go to Mass, and on Friday  (19^th) we will be starting the practical work in the Mission, including decorating & gardening!

Please pray for us and the success of the trip.

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Saturday 20^th 11.15am (7.15am local time)  

Message received from Maria Bracken,
BCYS group leader

What an incredible adventure

Yesterday was amazing !!!! Our young people are such a credit to our diocese! They are giving their absolute all to this mission, making a difference practically and on so many other levels.

The children here are heartbreakers from 2-16. They are loving all the activities especially bead bracelet making and cricket! Football is crazy here so we are teaching new sports and games. The children are helping us with gardening in their bare feet!

Our Masses and prayer times are beautiful and uplifting and we are so grateful for such dedicated priests walking this journey with us.

It's 7am here and we are about to have morning prayer and breakfast and then a day of river clearing and painting!!  

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Monday 22nd July 6.00 pm ( 2.00 pm Local time)

Lizzie and Grace sent the following message:

We have just finished the mission part of our trip and have now arrived at our hotel in Rio;  it's awesome!

The journey here was long and very tiring but definitely worth it as the days here so far have been incredible.

We stayed in a beautiful mountain city called Petropolis about an hour away from Rio. The locals made us feel very welcome, especially the young people who were our translators. The centre we stayed in is run by a group of people who have taken vows to dedicate their lives to God and it seems to be the centre of a close knit community.

Everyday we travel down the mountain to a small village whose name translates as 'the middle of the mountain' as it is exactly half way between Rio and Petropolis. Whilst there we have been painting, gardening, river clearing and teaching the children sports, art and music. The days have been packed and exhausting but we really feel we have made a positive impact on this small community. The leader of our pilgrimage, Julio, says that the people are happy despite their poverty and they don't have the drive to change their situation so Julio hopes that the work we have started will lead by example and will be continued once we are gone.

Lizzie has been in charge of bracelet making which was a very popular activity with some kids finishing the afternoon with 6 or 7 bracelets! A group of boys taught the children cricket which was surprisingly popular and the also challenged the locals to a football game. I'm sure you can guess who the winner was! We also spent an afternoon teaching the children English songs such as the hokey cokey and they would also teach us some songs they liked to sing as well.

One thing that has really stood out to us both is the friendliness and the laid back culture that we have been surrounded by this week. Everyone we passed in the street would smile at us or wave. One evening a local samba band came to play for us in the centre and the locals were grabbing our hands and making us dance along.

It has been a once in a lifetime experience and we can't wait to share it with everyone once we get back. None of us wanted to leave but the next part of our trip is about to start.

The weather has been fab so far

Missing everyone back home!

Love Lizzie & Grace

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Tuesday 23rd July 6.00 pm (2.00 pm Local time)

Maria Brachen sent this short message and video footage:

Amazing !! Rio rainy but wicked, just been to see Christ the Redeemer statue, and pilgrims are now all at a steak house, then off to Copacabana. Viva papa!!!

Grace supplied this short addition to today's bulletin:

Everything is going really well even though the weather is more miserable than I hoped. Opening Mass was last night and the whole of Copacabana (13km long) and Impanema beaches were full so meeting up as a whole group afterwards was chaos! The Mass was said by the Archbishop of Rio so was all in Portuguese but a guy from Brazil gave me and Liam (another Hagley RC student) his phone to listen to the English translation on, which really helped in the homily.

The atmosphere everywhere is amazing and random groups keep running up to us to have a picture with us. I was talking to a girl from Argentina yesterday who loves London and was really disappointed to hear I didn't like tea!

It's been a chilled out day today but hopefully going to explore Rio a bit this afternoon. Seeing the Pope for the first time tomorrow though so it should be good. There's a lot of excitement around here because he is the first South American Pope.

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BCYS group Blog on Archdiocese Website