Today is our eagerly awaited departure date for our Pilgrimage to Taizé!  Allons-y! This is the first time the Archbishop of York Youth Trust has coordinated a trip to Taizé for Young Leaders. We hope that this pilgrimage will strengthen and encourage the Young Leaders, who have already completed some amazing work with the Young Leaders Award.

On the coach with Archbishop Sentamu and me are Year 10 Young Leaders from Holy Trinity Barnsley, and Year 10 and 11s from Archbishop Holgate’s School with support staff. Everyone is really excited and looking forward to the week.  What a fantastic opportunity to meet with young people from across the world and discover more about how they live out their faith in very different circumstances, and how they try to ‘be the change that they want to see’ where they are.

As I write this, we are on route to Dover to check in for our ferry at 7.15pm.  The forecast for the crossing looks pretty good, and will be able to watch most of the Euro2016 football match with others on the boat. We will arrive at 10.55pm local time.  We have a planned comfort stop at Sommesous Services and will be arriving at Taizé in time for croissants and coffee! Our coach driver, has offered an additional comfort stop at L'Archedrome if we want to stretch our legs too.

Having read a little about the history of the Taizé community I’m inspired by the story of faith, service, and reconciliation and I hope that this week will give us all the opportunity to reflect and explore faith more deeply. I have my Pilgrimage Prayer beads with me, a couple of books to read for the journey and a giant packet of sweets to share out for the long long drive ahead! Thanks to all the gathered parents, grandparents, siblings and friends at both schools who gave us such a fantastic send off and we look forward to updating you more in the days ahead.

Dan Finn

Director of the Archbishop of York Youth Trust