Sons and Daughters Encounter (SADE)
The aim of the FIRES Sons and Daughters Encounter programme is to provide an opportunity for participants – young people in their teens and twenties – to build better relationships with themselves, with their family members and with God.
Topics include:
– Self-Determination v.s. Outside Influence
– Self-Knowledge
– Review of Relationships within the Family
– Values
– Vocation
– Love
– Faith
– Relationship with God
Sons and Daughters Encounter participants are invited to listen to talks by youth team members, who honestly share their lived experiences. The team presentations are followed by periods of quiet reflection and sharing about handout questions. The two-day programme also includes Holy Mass and prayers led by a Catholic priest.
The programme brings about deep changes in the hearts of most participants: it helps them deepen their self knowledge, it encourages them to be honest in communication and sharing, it helps them see the worth of positive thinking and living, it makes them feel how much one needs God in his life.
Started and conducted within the Catholic Church, FIRES Sons and Daughters Encounter is open to non-Catholic or non-Christian youth as well. It is an unforgettable positive experience for both believers and non-believers.
As a possible follow-up of the programme, participants are offered Dialogues for Sons and Daughters, a guidebook by Fr Gabriel Calvo. This booklet contains outlines for fifteen meetings. Young people who want to repeat the experience of group sharing during the Sons and Daughters Encounter by using Dialogues for Sons and Daughters have fifteen great opportunities to listen to each other, to communicate and understand themselves and each other better and, therefore, to grow individually and as a community (see Publications).