De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

The #whereislamennais scarf, designed by our Brothers in Spain, has returned to its spiritual home (See the text on the scarf. Football fans worldwide should see the link with Liverpool FC). Unfortunately, my team the Saints (#saintsfc #southamptonfc) lost to Liverpool, but it was great seeing Keith and Shaun, Sarah and Matthew again. #lamennais #menejoven #TeamWin Sarah Squires and Matthew Sewell, two former Team Win! Educational Project trip + World Youth Day participants whom I bumped into on the train whilst travelling to Anfield.

The article linked at the bottom of this post was written by the bass player of Switchfoot, Tim Foreman (The band are favourites of mine and there was a Switchfoot song on our Indonesia/Japan tour playlist, "Love Alone Is Worth the Fight”). The band are all mad keen surfers. The article recounts a dramatic experience that Tim had while surfing somewhere that Team Win! now know: Bali, Indonesia! The end of the article is as follows: "... life is meant to be lived. And that means taking risks. We come alive when we step beyond the comforts of what we know. And it’s all too easy to just say “no” to the things that scare us. But who knows what’s waiting for you, beyond the safety of your apartment or your mobile device. Like fire in your veins: rebellion, adventure, the unknown." Congrats to Andy (Rolo), James + Harry for being willing to take a giant step outside of their comfort zones and embrace our Far Eastern adventure with all the encounters and experiences that made...

Following on from previous trips to Africa and the 2015 project working with pupils of our Brothers' schools in Haiti, this Easter (leaving on Friday) I will be taking two current Yr. 12 students and a former student now in his mid-twenties (Andrew Rowan) on a De La Mennais Brothers Educational Project trip to Indonesia (9 days) and Japan (4 days). Our objectives are to: • learn about the lives of people from another culture and learn more about ourselves through shared activ ities e.g. workshops, dialogue, recreation, sport, music, etc... many summer camp-style activities from primary school children lead by our young people themselves • open our hearts to respond to the human, spiritual and material needs of others • change our vision of the world • develop skills and help others to develop theirs • learn to look back over our experiences and be able to share them with others. We will be visiting Brothers' schools, working with their primary school children and o...

Day 0 (travel to Paris) of two and a bit weeks in Haiti for 4 16-18 yr. olds + 3 De La  Mennais Brothers, the first half of which will be spent running summer camp-style activities for primary school children in the capital Port-au-Prince, the rest spent visiting 3 other De La Mennais Brothers schools in the country. On the way there, a one night stopover in our community in Paris. Today's adventures included ( for the more adventurous )  mussels in white wine and raw salmon (I can vouch for the 2nd being delicious!), Bro. James temporarily leaving behind his guitar in Paris airport (in shades of World Youth Day 2005, Germany... 10th anniversary?!) and Aaron coming second in the Team Win! International Rubik's Cube competition (modesty forbids me from saying who won ;-) For those wishing to follow our exploits on Facebook look up "Bro Jim Hayes". The content will be roughly the same as on here, though without individual comments on the photos.   Aaron ce...