The first time we met
each other was on the 29th of July 2012 in the preparation camp in Holthausen
(close to Paderborn, Germany). (Actually Callum arrived one week later.) In
Holthausen everything started. Crazy if you think about it: You are supposed to
live with these other 8 people, which you have never seen before, in an
apartment in Beirut for 10 MONTHS!
After we were welcomed
by Valerie Magnis, the manager of CARAVAN, and Phillip and Vicky Fürstenberg,
our hosts, we were introduced to a very essential part of our project: Spirituality.
In this case spirituality came across with Holy Mass. For those of us, who came
with their parents, it was time to say goodbye to them after it. During the
following three weeks of preparation camp we came in touch with spirituality 2
times a day: Morning prayer/Lauds was at 8:45 am, evening prayer/compline was
at 9 pm. At Sundays we additionally celebrated the holy mass.
As education is also
very important in CARAVAN, many people came to Holthausen to teach us in a
diversity of things: We learned in detail about the whole CARAVAN project and
what is awaiting us in Lebanon. We learned about the Arabic culture and the
Middle East. In a communication workshop with an actor we learned how to give
speeches, how to give feedback, about status games, etc. We learned about the Holy
Bible, Jesus, love and responsibility, the Holy Sacraments, confession, the
Holy Spirit. We learned about the service we were going to do to the handicapped
in the homes in Beirut. We actually visited a home for handicapped close to
Holthausen, as well as we visited a workplace of handicapped people. We had a
first aid course, we learned our first Arabic words. We discovered how disabled
people must feel like by attaching sticks to our legs or by seeing the world
trough Vaseline covered skiing glasses for example. These lectures ended at
about 5 in the afternoon.
Totally exhausted and
tired, in the evening always the physical part of the program started. We did
sports such as fitness training, playing "ultimate frisbee" (this
frisbee game is actually very exciting), football, going for a run and yoga. Sometimes
we did singing lessons in company of a piano or Charlottes guitar. In the
evenings we regularly had barbecues. Sitting at the bonfire, we heard great
stories about our "Guests", the disabled, who were awaiting us in
Lebanon. These stories were told by Valerie of course, but also by Tabea,
Suzanne and Maxi, who were team members of the previous CARAVAN and who helped
us out a lot! On the 17th of August we celebrated the birthday of Valerie and
Julius. The next day we took our flight from Düsseldorf to Beirut. After 3
weeks of preparation camp and after all the funny and sad stories, we heard
about the handicapped, we could not wait to finally arrive in Lebanon. We slept
one night in our apartment in Beirut and the next morning we headed off to
Chabrouh, where the "summer camps" would start.
by Julius
by Julius
