From the WorldICCS Chaplain

Greetings to all myICCS brothers andsisters,

I consider myself trulyblessed and in awe ofthe responsibility ofbeing named world

chaplain for the ICCS. I am happy to servebecause the Church and Scouting have al-ways been an important part of my life. Asthe Church and Scouting have given memuch, I see this as a chance to give back.

As I reflect on the experience of being ascout in my parish’s troop, I am gratefulfor all the wonderful, faith-filled people Icame to know. Scouting helped to form mycharacter. It taught me so much aboutmany things such as nature, teamwork,service, positive values and the goodnessof people. Scouting also encouraged me toacquire skills such as swimming and out-door adventure, activities which still enrichmy life. In some ways Scouting was an ex-tension of my family life.

Scouting also had a beneficial effect on myspiritual formation. I recall fondly the out-door Masses on Sundays and Holy Days atScout camp. Grace before meals and theleader’s words of inspiration at the camp-fire also showed that faith is lived at homeand away. God is in nature too. I try tomake these opportunities possible for thenext generations.

In more recent years, I have become ac-quainted with many of you through our mu-tual involvement in the Church and theScouting Movement. We have worked to-gether on various Church and Scouting pro-grams, projects and events around theworld. Scouts enjoy a special bond in thisgreat brotherhood of Scouting. Those of uswho are also share common faith, are part

of an even greater community, the Body ofChrist. I look forward to meeting many ofyou whom I have not yet met.

We face some challenges. But with a spiritof Christian love and Scouting fraternity, wecan move forward. I hope to make rela-tionships an important emphasis during thenext years. I would like to see the strength-ening of the bonds between all ICCS mem-ber associations, new and old. I willendeavor to strengthen the bonds that knitus together as one great big united Catholicfellowship. I would like us to be a real signto the world of peace and unity. Also wouldit not be wonderful of we gave more youthsa chance to be scouts in a solid program ac-cording to the vision of BP and with a strongconnection with the Church?

May the Great Master of all scouts, watchover us and keep us in His Care.

Rev. Leo A. LeBlanc

Dom Hélder Câmara (1909-1999)Prophet, forerunner and scoutfriend

In 1986 Dom Hélder Câmara, formerBishop of Recife in the North-East of Brazil,was honoured with the membership of the“Brotherhood of Saint George” by the ICCSSteering Committee. One year before, justwhen he had resigned from his bishopric ofRecife, he has been the key note speakerof the ICCS Worldseminar in Benedikt-beuern, Germany, in August 1985. He spentalmost a week with the ICCS participants. Iremember this event intensively: the ap-pealing atmosphere of an old Benedictinemonastery (then a college of the Salesiansof Don Bosco), colourful and elaboratebuildings from the time of Baroque, adreamlike summer and all over the weekmusic. Music by the valuable organ of thebig church when we had our prayers andservices and – more worldly – by the

singing at night under the vaults within thecloister, accompanied by guitars and the ac-cordion of he unforgettable National Chap-lain from Portugal, Fili pe Vieira. And DomHélder Câmara joined us at night singingand playing the guitar also by him self

and having small and intimate dialogueswith many of the participants. He gave us inBenediktbeuren a spiritual based orienta-tion for an option for the poor, expressivelyfor children and youngsters. This helpedICCS to work in its next Worldseminar 1999in Durban / South Africa on a clear platformof social responsibility what then was ex-pressed as a central dimension of ICCScommitment in a new Charter, in theStatutes and actually in a Statement ofIdentity of ICCS.

Dom Hélder who had a high esteem ofscouting and its founder B.P. asked for amore resolute service to the poor childrenand youngsters and not to stay only in themilieu of a bourgeois society.

Catholics all over the world, lay people andpriests, theologians and bishops, responsi-ble persons in politics and society have askedfor the beatification of Dom Hélder Câmara.This process seems to be in progress. DomHélder Câmara, a man with deep cultural in-terest and high talents of art (as actor, writeretc.) has become one of the strongest voicesagainst the inhuman conditions of life of thepoor. His protest came from his deep spiritualand social understanding of the gospel andhis experience by living with the poorest inBrazilians favellas. He became one of mostimportant forerunners of the theology of lib-eration, a prophet for the poor, sick, aban-doned and exploited people. He was afascinating spiritual writer with a great po-etic ability. All his time as priest and bishophe tried to convince people not to fight withviolence against any kind of injustice. Hewarned that violence would always increasein a spiral of violence. Finally it should beknown that he was a great organizer of in-stitutional help in social affaires and a strongpromoter of any kind of education for chil-dren, youngsters and adult people too. Un-fortunately his episcopal successor, narrowminded and of extreme conservative think-ing, destroyed a lot of all that Dom Hélderhad created for the poor.

Baldur Hermans

Young is only who still has targets for his life

Dom Hélder Câmara died on August 27th 1999.

ICCS - CICS - CICE - IKKP

November 2009

Pioneer trip to Iraq

In June 2009 the Secretary General BaldurHermans and Father Imad Twal (Jordan),appointed member of the World Secre-tariat, visited Iraq, the autonomy region ofKurdistan. They met parish priests andyoungsters in the Chaldean and SyrianCatholic communities in and around Erbil.The mission was to inform priests and laypeople about the educational way of scout-ing and the specific religious and spiritualaspects and elements (pastoral chances)the church can offer through the scoutmovement to young people. There was agreat readiness for starting with scoutingin the communities as soon as possible.

Baldur Hermans and Imad Twal offered al-ready during their stay first study circlesabout scouting. Scout literature in Arabicwas given by Father Imad. Next steps willbe amongst other things leader trainingand practical scout experiences. Our Jor-danian friends offered already their assis-tance and cooperation. Limited by thedifficult security conditions the trip wasmainly concentrated on the Erbil region. Anexcursion was undertaken into the moun-tains to the East, the land of Ur in Chaldeathat Abraham left when he set off to findthe promised land.

New National Chaplain forPalestine

The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Mgr. FouadTwal, has appointed Father Ibrahim Shomalias new National Chaplain of the catholic“Palestinian Scout Association of St.Johnthe Baptist”, member of the national Pales-tinian Scout Movement. He follows FatherFiraz from Aboud. Father Ibrahim Shomaliis well experienced in educational matters,for several years he has in charge for thePriest seminary in Bet Jala / Palestine.

Steering Committee in Prague

The annual meeting of the Steering Com-mittee of ICCS took place from the 17th tothe 21st of September in Prague, hosted bythe Capuchine monks in the LoretoMonastery. The pre-organization was verywell done by our friend and representativeto ICCS, Vojtek Dabrowski.

A full agenda had to be worked off. Mainsubjects: Evaluation of the last WorldCouncil in Rom, finances (budget, fees,Foundation, starting a Fellowship, selling

etc.), projects 2009-2011, World YouthDays and World Jamboree in 2011,website and others.

A very special encounter happened bymeeting Czech scouts who have been inscouting in the fascist and communisttime, precisely then in the underground.The concept of a historical project: a sci-entific qualified book on (catholic) scoutingin the time of Fascism in western and east-ern European countries was presented bythe General Secretary.

The participants could also see the busypreparations for the visit of the Pope to theCzech Republic the week after.

DPSG - Pilgrimage ROMA 2009

160 members of the GermanCatholic Scout associa-tion, DPSG, celebratedthe 80th Anniversaryof their associationthrough a pilgrim-age to Rome. Thiswas the follow upof a tradition of pil-grimages that havebeen done in 1935,1950 and 1962 onspecial occasions, forexample of the Holy Year 1950.

The first pilgrimage of the DPSG has beenorganized when the fascism had alreadycome to power in Germany (and Italy) andgave cause for a lot of troubles to the mostyoung participants by the Nazi authoritiesat the borders and later at home “Christiansare at the first place not people of greatspeaking but of action” was the stimulantfor the participants given by the PrimeAbbot of the Benedictine monks in thebasilica of St. Paul Out of the Walls. Thescouts met the Holy Father in Castelgan-dolfo and with a special attention for thescouts the Pope addressed to them his wishto get ”a deep friendship relation with JesusChrist”.The pilgrimage ended with celebrat-ing the Eucharist in St.Peter. The GermanAuxiliary Bishop Heinz Janssen (Münster /Xanten), a former member of DPSG andnow member of the ICCS “Brotherhood ofSaint George”, who has been all the wayson the pilgrimage with the scouts told at thelast evening of the pilgrimage at a camp-fire his memories about his participation asa young scout in the DPSG pilgrimage1950. Deeply being moved – what spreadto his audience – he told that on this pil-

grimage he gave his scout promise and gota cross as souvenir. This cross is still goingwith him as Bishop.

ConCordia 2010

For the 10th time there will be organized a“Central European Scout and Guide Jam-boree” from the 2 to 11 August 2010 inSztrilich Pál Scout Park / Budapest in Hun-gary. The organizers have expressed theirinterest for a good co-operation with ICCS(members). As motto for this event hasbeen chosen: “Many hearts, one beat”. Al-though this Jamboree is firstly directed toscouts and guides from the Eastern Euro-pean countries the invitation is open to allscout groups from othe European countries.They are welcome! There will be specialspiritual and religious accents and activitiesin the camp’s program.

For further information and details look onwebsite: www.concordia2010.hu

New leadership of DPSG

The Deutsche Pfadfinderschaft Sankt Georg(DPSG) got a new leadership on nationaltop. New Chief Commissioner as man issince January 2008 Manuel Rottmann. Hesucceeds Tobias Miltenberger. Manuel iscoming from DPSG in the diocese ofEssen. As new female Chief Commis-sioner has been elected Kerstin Fuchscoming from the DPSG in the dioceseof Mainz. She started at the 1st of Oc-tober and succeeds Ute Theissen whoserved as Chief Commissioner for

seven years. Thanks to those whoserved and finished. Good luck and the

Lord’s blessings to the newcomers!

A high decoration for ourSecretary General

Baldur Hermans has been decorated withthe “Cross of the Order of Merit” of the Fed-eral Republic of Germany by the Presidentof State on the 30th of September. Theaward was handed over by the PresidentMinister of the Land North Rhine West-phalia, Jürgen Rüttgers, a former memberof DPSG. Baldur has been awarded for hiscommitment to international scouting, insocial projects and in cultural and educa-tional affaires. Congratulations!

Central European PastoralSeminar 2009

For the 8th time the annual “Central Euro-pean Pastoral Seminar” took place from 1to 4 October in Presow, Slovakia. Therehave been 22 participants, priests and lead-ers on national level, from Slovakia, CzechRepublic, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland andGermany. The participants got to know lifeand the holy liturgy of the Greek CatholicChurch because the seminar happened in

the Greek Catholic Priest Seminar of thediocese of Presow. The topic of the seminarwork was the content and the way of pub-lishing of a “Handbook for Cup Scout lead-ers” on catholic and spiritual education Thebook will be ready in 2010. The participantshave elected a running team for the futurethat includes a representative of all coun-tries. In 2010 the Central European PastoralSeminar will be organized in the south ofPoland. There was a big wish that also othercentral European countries should be in-volved next year – especially those whichhave been already present in the past.

Scout Week in Taizé 16th to 22nd

August 2009

Scout Week in Taizé was a jointimitative between the Taize com-munity and members ofthe ICCS EM Region. TheTaizé Community is anecumenical Christianmonastic order in Taizé,Saône-et- Loire, Burgundy,France. It is comprised of a littleover 100 brothers who come fromCatholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions.Over 100,000 young people from aroundthe world make pilgrimages to Taizé eachyear for prayer, Bible study, sharing, andcommunal work.

The Taize community is an example of‘communal living’ that wants its life to be asign of reconciliation between divided Chris-tians and between separated peoples.Scout Week in Taizé provided an opportu-nity for young Scouters to experience thissimple life shared with others.

The programme of Scout Week in Taize wasdesigned to help young leaders in Scoutingview their daily life in the light of theGospel: pray together three times a day;reflect on the core elements of faith and ex-plore the Promise, the Law, and the Princi-ples of Scouting.

As with all things in Taizé, the programmewas very simple, but also very effective.The aims and objectives were reachedthrough short plenary inputs based on ex-tracts from the Gospel stories with peoplehaving the opportunity to express theirthoughts and feelings in small group. Dur-ing the course of the week participants metto explore specific elements of the ScoutPromise and Law and attend workshops onthe relationship between Scouting and Dutyto God. Opportunities were created for the

exchange of ideas and good practice amongthe associations present.

The original planning team were ChristophKubina, Annette Westerwalbesloh, XandiFischhold and Gerry Glynn. The on siteteam in Taizé were: Christoph, Annette, Fr.Wolfgang and Fr. Luc. A total of 56 partici-pants attended (young adults and leadersbetween 16 and 30 years) from 8 countries(Egypt, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary,Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain). Interestin attending was also expressed from Ire-land and Jordan but practical difficultiesprevented participation.

Living conditions were simple - participantshad a choice of either indoor, small dormi-tory accommodation or sleeping in tentsprovided by Taizé – meal time was also acommunal activity, with participants taking

turns serving their fellow pilgrims thesimple but nourishing menue whichTaizé provides for the pilgrims.

The team were pleased to extend awarm welcome to 6 Scouts who were al-

ready attending Taize, 4 from DPSG – Ger-many and 2 from CNE – Portugal. Therewere quiet a number of Scout Groups at-tending Taizé who expressed surprise whenthey met the participants of ‘Scout Week’,saying they would have applied to partici-pate but were not informed by their nationalassociation of the event! During the weekthe Regional Secretary (Gerry Glynn) hadthe opportunity of visiting the brothers ofTaizé and meeting with the participants.

So as to gain the most from the activities itwas agreed that participants should be ableto communicate in English and French –however, as some participants were unableto speak either language it was possible toprovide simultaneous translation in a num-ber of languages and at times it was as ifthe Holy Spirit was present, assisting withthe ‘speaking in tongues’.

An evaluation of the event was carried outat the end of the activity and the findingsindicate that 96 % of the participants wouldwish to have another Scout Week. It ishoped that the planning team for 2010 willconsist of participants from 2009.

A full report and presentation was made ofScout Week in Taizé, at the Annual Semi-nar-Council meeting of the EuropeanMediterranean Region, held in Celje, Slove-nia in November 2009.

(Further information on this Seminar-Coun-cil, in the next Circular Letter).

Gerry Glynn

World Youth Day 2011 – Madrid

World Youth Day (WYD) 2011 will be held inMadrid, Spain from 15th to 21st August. Thisis the second time the international cele-bration for Catholic Youth has taken place inSpain. In 1989, World Youth Day took placein Santiago de Compostela, NorthwesternSpain, which, according to tradition, is theburial place of St James the Apostle.

World Youth Day is a youth-oriented RomanCatholic Church event that is open to allyoung people irrespective of their individ-ual faith and belief.

In previous years, (1997 Paris, 2000 Romeand 2006 Köln), Catholic Scouting throughthe efforts of: SdeF, AGESCI and DPSGplayed a significant role in providing partic-ipants who were also Scouts with a supple-mentary programme during the event. Andso it will be in 2011 in Madrid – MSC(Movimiento Scout Católico) together withtheir brother Scouts in Minyons Escoltes IGuies St. Jordi de Catalunya have formed aplanning team whose task will be to organ-ise the ‘Scout Zone’.

In the past, young people attending WYDdid so as part of a parish contingent, how-ever, the host committee are seeking directregistration for Scout groups and if this be-comes possible it will be the first time thatScouts will be recognised by the Church aspilgrims, in their own right.

2011 may seem a long way away, but plan-ning has already begun. Earlier this year, inJune, a preliminary planning meeting washeld in Madrid – the purpose of this meet-ing was to evaluate the experiences of

DPSG and their hosting of the Scout ‘zone’in WYD 2006 in Köln.

ICCS World and the EM Region are com-mitted to supporting the Madrid hosts in thestaffing of an Information Centre/MeetingPoint, this will be similar to the one in theJamboree Village at the World Jamboree2008 in the UK. ICCS will also facilitate oneday forum topics such as: Catholics inScouting; Evangelisation; Peace Education;Peace and Justice; Racism, Equality, Immi-gration; etc.

The planning team is currently consideringsuch matters as: the management of directregistration for Scout participants, the in-frastructure design of the Scout village, therecruitment and selection of the IST (Inter-national Service Team), etc., etc. Thebiggest challenge facing the team is the ef-fects of the World Scout Jamboree in Swe-den – this event finishes one week beforeWorld Youth Day in Madrid begins.

A presentation was made of progress todate at the Annual Seminar-Council meet-ing of the European Mediterranean Region,November 2009

Gerry Glynn

Inter America Region – The newRegional Chaplain

My dear friends, Greet-ings in the Lord ! As you are aware, withthe completion of histerm as “World Chap-lain” and subsequentordination and installa-tion as Bishop ofCharleston, South Car-olina (USA) our belovedand esteemed “Father

Bob” left a significant vacancy for ICCS. Iwas personally thrilled – but not entirely sur-prised – that Fr. Leo La Blanc was ap-pointed to this critical position. Weare blessed to have Fr. Leo as our“World Chaplain” and the addedadvantage to his followingBishop Bob is a clear continu-ity for ICCS and its mission. Subsequent to the abovechanges, an opening for Eccle-siastical Assistant for the Inter-America Region occurred. Fr. Leocontacted me and asked if I would beinterested and willing to serve in this ca-pacity and informed me that he was alsoasking other possible candidates. Needlessto say, I was humbled that I would be con-sidered, but informed Fr. Leo that if offeredand approved I would be happy to serve.Imagine my surprise when he informed mein Galveston, Texas (USA) at the annualNCCS meeting that I had been approvedand would officially assume this position ef-fective 1 July 2009. So, who am I and what recommends me asChaplain for the region ? Allow me to sharea few bits of information and perhaps a fewinsights. I am 59 years old and have been ordaineda priest for 31 years (27 May 1978). I havebeen a member of the Scouting movementfor 51 years (52 come November) since Ijoined as a Cub Scout. I am what we call a“Lifer” ! Scouting meant a great deal to meas I was growing up and I credit CatholicScouting and many of the priest-chaplainsand other adult leaders as a major sourceof support for my own vocation to thepriesthood. In Scouting I have been blessedwith a variety of volunteer positions includ-ing Den Leader, Scoutmaster and Commis-sioner among others. I received my EagleScout in early 1965 and also my religiousemblems as a youth. I have also received anumber of recognitions on the Adult level in-cluding several from the NCCS (includingthe Silver Saint George) and even the Sho-far award from the National Jewish Com-mittee on Scouting. I have served sinceordination as a chaplain on various levels in-cluding National Chaplain for the NCCS. Ihave served on 4 National (USA) Jamboreestaffs (it was in 1981 that Fr. Leo and I firstworked together) and was also the CatholicChaplain (BSA) for the World Jamboree inEngland for the 100th anniversary of themovement. I have also been a chaplain at

the BSA’s National High Adventure Base &Training Center – Philmont Scout Ranch - inthe mountains of northeast New Mexico forover 20 years. (My favorite “job” by far !!!) Obviously, Scouting in general and CatholicScouting in particular are a significant partof my life and story and I am humbled andgrateful for the opportunities that the move-ment – and the outstanding people whomake it come alive – have afforded me. Inthe past my contacts with ICCS were lim-ited to the gathering in Tunisia and hostingsome international Scouters at Philmontover the years. I began this new phase ofmy ministry on 1 July 2009 and began my“learning curve” quickly with a RegionalSeminar in Asuncion, Paraguay in late July

into early August and it is invigorat-ing to meet Catholic Scouters

from many different countries,cultures and challenges thatshare the same vision andsense of deep commitment toyouth through Scouting in theCatholic Church.

As I begin this new ministry, Irespectfully ask that you pray for

me and all in the Inter-Americas Re-gion that we may be worthy Servant-Lead-ers to His Scouts and Scouters and continueto build the Kingdom here on earth. May the Lord richly bless all of you as youminister to His children – especially in theScouting Program – and may He caress youtenderly in the Palm of His Love.

Father Don Rev. Donald K. Hummel, D.Min., FAPA

Ecclesiastical Assistant (Chaplain) Inter-America Region - ICCS-CICS-CICE

ICCS African Sub-RegionalWorkshop in Uganda

An ICCS Workshop for the English speak-ing African countries was successfully heldfrom 14th to 18th October in Namugongo,Kampala (Uganda). Participants camemainly from Uganda and Tanzania. The pro-

gram contents were presented by Msgr.David Kyeyune (about African Synod), Mr.Ronald Kamara (AIDS/HIV), Fr. Pierre Bacca(Youth Pastoral), and Baldur Hermans andJosé A. Warletta, from ICCS Secretariat. Fr.Caesar Matovu and the Ugandan Scouts as-sured the coordination and support.

Namugongo is the place where a group ofChristians were martyred in 1886. Today amodern Shrine, close to the place of ourworkshop, remembers these facts.

World Scout InterreligiousSymposium - Kampala, Uganda

The 3rd World Scout Inter-religious Sympo-sium was held from 21st to 25th October inKampala, Uganda. This event was organ-ised by the World Scout Inter-religiousForum (WSIF), an informal network of re-ligious groups/organisations in Scouting,and hosted by the International Union ofMuslim Scouts (IUMS) and The UgandaScouts Association. From ICCS were pres-ent the Secretary General, Baldur Hermans(who is also the chairman of the WSIF), Fr.Leo LeBlanc, World Chaplain, and José A.Warletta, as well as some Associationsmembers of ICCS: DPSG (Germany), SGF(France) and CNE (Portugal).

Inter-American Sub-RegionalSeminar – Luque, Paraguay 2009

The Sub-Regional Catholic Seminar of theICCS Inter-American Region for Youth andAdult Catholic Resources was held at EM-MAUS Retreat House in Luque, near Asun-ción, Paraguay, from July 31th – August 2nd.The event brought together 33 participantsfrom 7 countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and U.S.A.), rep-resenting their own NSOs at the event.

The theme of the Forum was ‘With theStrength in Christ, Today and AlwaysCatholic’ and the focus was on assisting Na-tional Scout Associations in improving anddeveloping their Spiritual Programme intheir own countries, thus increasing theforce of work done on a national level. Theparticipants shared their own knowledgeand experiences and worked together tofurther enhance the methods and toolsused in their own associations.

The event was a series of training sessions,workshops, moments for reflex ion andbrief and interesting Masses. For the work-shops, small groups were formed to explore

related topics and de-velop useful toolsthat can be usedby associations.In the event wehad also sometime where in

groups, we cre-ated new REME Ed-

ucational Activities.Some of the Sessions topics

were: The Role of Chaplains in the Scoutmovement and the Role of the Spiritual As-sistant, the relation between the Youth peo-ple and the Catholic Church, Currentproblems of the youth people, Ecumenismand inter-religious, new resources for thecommunication and broadcasting of thecatholic scouting.

Saturday and Sunday, we profited thecharm chapel to celebrate two masses,hosted by the world and regional ICCSChaplains respectively, helped by all the Fa-thers from the different NSO. The eventalso includes a City-Tour, around Luque andAsuncion (Paraguay’s Capital), an outdoorbarbeque and the Regional Council was in-terviewed by a local newspaper, by the waythe participants visited Asuncion’s Cathe-dral and the Beautiful Church in Luque.

We are grateful, to the National Scout As-sociation of Paraguay, which hosted thisevent, with a nice warm reception to all theparticipants and with a careful organization,to the Chilean participants for their joy andenthusiastic behavior, to the Brazilian,Ecuadorian and Bolivian, scouts for theirinteresting comments and their commit-ment participation, and we have to stressthe benefit and amazing participation andcollaboration of the Argentinean Scouts,who give the catholic taste at every mo-ment onto this event.

Throughout the event the participantsgained an insight into better practices andlearned how other associations work, aswell as making new friends and contactsfrom around the Americas.

Accra - ICCS Africa Region Meeting

Met in the fringe of the 14th Africa ScoutConference that took place in Accra, Ghana,from the 9th to the 14th November 2009some scout officials, Chief Commissioners,National Commissioners, InternationalChief Administrator and orther officials,whose associations are full members or ob-servers members of Africa ICCS Region,met on the 11/10/2009 and 11/11/2009 to

the Centre Physician an Surgens College ofAccra. The meetings were chaired by TheRegional Coordinator, Mr. Hubert Douampo,and Father Victor Adjamagbo, Regional Ec-clesiastic Assistant.

Participants made a good use of the twomeetings to set down a new view in orderto make the Africa ICCS Region more dy-namic and touched on as follow:

• The problems that jam the fluid function-ing of the ICCS Africa Region.

• There is not any regular Regional Councilheld because of the lack of quorum torenew the structures.

• The lack of informations between themembers associations, the regional secre-tary office and general secretary of ICCS.

• The ICCS doesn’t support the member as-sociations to develop and sustain spiritual-ity into their association.

Participant Associations reaffirmed togethertheir will to meet regularly and participateto the activities of the ICCS. Aware of stir-ring up the ICCS Africa Region, the Associ-ations present at that meeting of Accradecided about an Ordinary General Councilof ICCS Africa Region to take place from Fri-day 16th April 2010 to Sunday 18th April2010.

Two countries proposed themselves to hostthis meeting: RCD and Gabon. The scoutofficials of RDC and Gabon should proposeto the coordination team the available cen-ters and especially the costs.

Palestinian Holy Family scoutgroup

With Christian and Palestinian greetings, wewould like to begin our brief letter to thankall of the people that were glad to contactwith us (the Holy Family scout group) andhelp us through our independent and Chris-tian path to help our country and parish;the holy family church and parish in Ram-mallah Palestine.

Since the holy family group scout is the onlyChristian scout in Ramallah Palestine we tryto increase the Christianity in each soul ofour members by applying God words andcommandments, by trying to live the Chris-tian life humbly.

As a brief explanation of our scout group; itwas established in 1996 through the helpof father Louis Fabro (the head of thechurch and parish at that time). It is thefirst independent Christian group in Ramal-lah till this day. The active body of thisscout is made of 130 Christian scouts;they’re the sons and daughters of theseParish families.

These members are categorized into 5groups according to there age and gender;The Rangers (boys from the age 15-19), theGirl Guides (girls, 13–18), the scouts (boys,13-15), the Parade (boys, 6-12), the flow-ers (girls, 6-12). Each group is observed byan adult leader that is assigned by the headcommander of the scout group and council.

The name of the group has a lot of conno-tations that increase the importance and

The Secretary General with the Patriarchof Jerusalem, Msgr. Fuad Twal

Visit of the Pope to Jordan

May 2009

value of the group. Firstly, it’s the name ofour Parish and church. Secondly, one of thescout fundamental goals is to construct aroof that gather and bond all the Christianyouth under, through all the circumstancesand situations they pass through, to createa wide Christian family with the scout mem-bers filled with love , care, respect, respon-sibility and forgiveness.

Therefore the name of our scout groupsymbolize our basic and fundamental goalto gather all the Christian and Palestinianyouth under the roof of a healthy, edu-cated, religious, loving, caring and respecthouse. Since we’re living in a bad situationdue to a lot of reasons such as; the Israelioccupation that limit our paths and buildsa lot of borders and obstacles to hamperour Christian scout path. Nevertheless,there is an internal conflict between the po-litical parties which may lead to huge civilwar. Furthermore the fact that we’re theminority in a Muslim society doesn’t makeour task easier. Nevertheless we should notforget the lack of financial budget that the

scout face through the year which freezesthe scout activities (such as the camp) anddoesn't help in the maintenance of the mu-sical instruments that we use in the cere-monies and scout parades.

Furthermore the scout believe in some per-spectives that help the scout to reach thefulfillment of the basic goal, such as; reli-gious perspectives (the scout weekly meet-ings begin with a small prayer to clarifiesour souls and to increase Christianity in our

scout members souls) and other social per-spectives too, because we are trying to cre-ate fully respected generation that canhandle any responsibility, and can helpJesus to carry the cross through the tortureand sacrifice path. Nevertheless we are will-ing to create a healthy community thatbond youth through rang of different activ-ities. The major activity that each scoutmember waits for is the summer campingthat we do at different places in Palestineto increase and deepen the scout spirit inout scout member.

Nevertheless the scout organize a lot of ac-tivities rather than the scout spirited onessuch as artistic activities, sports, socialworkshops that relate to a lot of major is-sues and phenomena in our lives (drugs,sex, early marriages, mixed marriagessmoking).

Through this humble and brief letter ofrecognition we will be glad to bond with all ofthe Christian scouts in the world through allof the communication ways that the worldprovide to reunite the Christian spirit.

ICCS

Headquarters in Rome:

Mrs. Francesca De Laura

Secretary

Piazza Pasquale Paoli, 18

I – 00186 Roma

Tel: +39.06.68.65.270

Fax: +39.06.68.65.211

cics-iccs@cics.org