At the Jesuit center in Issyk-Kul, young Catholics from all corners of the country gathered to spend a few days of leisure and prayer in preparation for Pope Francis’ visit to Kazakhstan on September 13–15.
During his trip, he will attend the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions at Nur-Sultan, the Kazakh capital.
This year’s theme is "The Role of Leaders of World and Traditional Faiths in the Socio-Spiritual Development of Humanity after the Pandemic."
The first Central Asian Catholic Youth Festival was held in Kyrgyzstan in the first ten days of the last month, and they are waiting for Pope Francis’s visit in mid-September.
The first meeting was held in Issyk-Kul with young people from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Siberian Russia.
In the mountains of the "Hot Lake", they have jointly developed six service projects for the elderly and the most abandoned, as well as for children and needy families.
After a two-year hiatus due to coronavirus restrictions, young Catholics started meeting again, and this time 60 of them managed to get together for a joyful and intense sharing experience.
The meeting was mainly devoted to the rediscovery of Christian identity and the sense of belonging to the Church.
The priests and the animators shared their experiences and offered meditation themes, which were then merged into the discussions in small groups and the assembly.
The aim of the festival was the development of a shared program for social and charitable service in the parishes and places of residence of the participants.
Outside the reflections, work, and discussions, the young people had the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the nature of Issyk-Kul, as the Jesuit center is located 100 meters from the shore of the Hot Lake.
An important part of the festival was three days of mountaineering, which for many of the participants was a challenge and an exciting experience, so much so that many asked to repeat it as soon as possible.
The Jesuit priests have been at work in Kyrgyzstan since the 1990s, with a very dynamic community made up of experienced and young missionaries, in constant movement and turnover among the communities of Central Asia and Siberia. - With input from AsiaNews
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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