Hill Street Presbyterian Church

Summer Outreach

King's Club

On July 6th Peter Wright headed off to Jerusalem for six days, as part of a team from Lurgan YMCA. Leading up to this Peter had been part of a cross community group of young people from the town working together on the ‘Over the Wall’ project run by the YMCA. The project involved young people from both sides of the town meeting with each other, going away on trips and working on building a website together.

The climax of the project was a trip to Jerusalem to visit Jews and Palestinians in Israel to explore further, issues relating to conflict situations and resolution.

“It was great being able to meet with the Jews and Palestinians. We visited one YMCA on either side of the divide. Both groups didn’t talk to each other and it was interesting to note that the Palestinians seemed to be a lot worse off than their Jewish neighbours”, commented Peter.

Peter went on to explain that the trip gave him the opportunity to hear both sides of the argument and that perhaps some of the issues faced by the Jews and Palestinians are much greater that the difficulties we face here in Northern Ireland.

Peter was also fortunate enough to go to Albania from 13th to 21st August with Drop In Ministries, Richill. It was Richard Preston, Youth Pastor at Lurgan Elim, who got Peter involved with the trip.

“It was a sports camp that we went to help out with. The weather was brilliant. I spent most of my time helping out with the football and volleyball. There was also other activities, including drama, to help us evangelise to the kids.”

“I had the opportunity one evening to give my testimony. A lot of the kids couldn’t speak English so I had to talk to them through an interpreter – which was interesting! Sometimes the interpreter seemed to be saying a lot more than what I had said”, joked Peter.

Not forgetting his home town, Peter also was involved in ‘gLo’, which saw young Christians from the different churches in Lurgan come together to do outreach work within the Mourneview housing estate and also in the area around our own church.

Peter helped with the football and was enthused to point out the great opportunity this gave him and the other young Christians to mix with the local young people, have fun together and share with them their faith and the Good News of the Gospel.

Concluding our interview Peter noted, “It has been an unbelievable summer for me. My faith has been challenged and I feel that through all the different experiences I have had my relationship with God has been further developed and strengthened.”

Interviewed by Tim Doak, 4 September 2005.

Rachael McCullough

Peter Wright