Chapter One
Chrysalis Children & Youth Ministry are celebrating 25 years of children’s work this year in 2016. It’s hard to believe that 25 years have gone by since it all began. Many of you have been asking “So, how did it all begin?”
Summer Camps had been running in Drogheda Grammar School since 1979. David and Yvonne Nesbitt gave us good training in making camps very special! In 1987 there was a big change in the Summer Camp Leadership Team and summer camps were held in Bushmills, Co. Antrim for that year. From 1988 to 1990 the Summer Camps were run under the JAM Club (Jesus And Me) and returned to Drogheda Grammar school.
Summer Camps had been running in Drogheda Grammar School since 1979. David and Yvonne Nesbitt gave us good training in making camps very special! In 1987 there was a big change in the Summer Camp Leadership Team and summer camps were held in Bushmills, Co. Antrim for that year. From 1988 to 1990 the Summer Camps were run under the JAM Club (Jesus And Me) and returned to Drogheda Grammar school.
Then in Spring 1991 Margy, Heather & Paul were sitting in No. 2 Ard Easmuinn Dundalk knowing that God wanted the children’s work to continue but in a different direction than it had been up to now. It needed to be more focused on the needs of the individual children & teenagers, and not just as a service to families, groups or churches.
We tried to be clever, we tried to be cool… spending hours talking and discussing the potential vision … going nowhere!
But God had the fuller picture (as He always does!) and Chrysalis Children & Youth Ministry (or CCYM) as it is now known, was born!
We tried to be clever, we tried to be cool… spending hours talking and discussing the potential vision … going nowhere!
But God had the fuller picture (as He always does!) and Chrysalis Children & Youth Ministry (or CCYM) as it is now known, was born!
We sat for two whole nights discussing, debating and deliberating on what the vision for CCYM should be. We had borrowed Vision Statements from other church groups & ministries to use as a guide, but either the documentation was too wordy, too doctrinal or too denominational for us to get any inspiration. We had always believed that the verse in Habakkuk 2:2 was clear in the fact that whoever read this Vision had to be able to “run with it”. In our book, that means the vision has to be clear, practical and doable!
Eventually after a frustrating few hours Paul turned to Margy and asked “Look! What do you see as the vision? After all this is your idea!” and without any hesitation she replied, “I want to see children saved, set-free and walking in HIS love!”. To which Heather immediately responded, “Write that down!”. Twenty five years later, the vision is still the same and our policy and code of practice has been developing every year since 1991.