In July 2026, 37 children and 10 leaders gathered in Bondy for a week focused on the Bible. Through games, creative activities and many moments of sharing, everyone entered into the story of the Patriarchs of Israel.
This Bible Camp was a time of discovery, not only for the children but also for the leaders. In accompanying the little ones in their encounter with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the team certainly deepened the Word of God, but also tasted the joy of fraternity and the beauty of interiority. Here are five lessons drawn from this experience.
At the Bible Camp, the Word is not learned: it is inhabited. Jeanne noticed how drawing, crafts and large games became natural bridges to the invisible. For the children, these activities are not entertainment to pass the time, but a way to let a story they have heard resonate and to "develop a real relationship with God and his Word."
"Beneath the pencil stroke, a personal meditation is revealed," Brother Cyril shares with us. This passage through gesture makes it possible to move from passive listening to a heartfelt appropriation, each at their own pace. In this way, "the Bible Camp is like a discipline of freedom: taking one's time, choosing one's gesture, inhabiting the moment."
The secret of the Bible Camp's success did not lie in a complex organisation chart, but in the invisible thread of co-responsibility. Constance and Sister Pauline testify to a beautiful "fraternity and conviviality" and to a desire for collaboration in which, despite the differences in age and experience between veteran and new leaders, no power struggle arose.
This horizontal structure was no accident: it was forged during the three days of pre-camp, a crucial time of preparation in which the team learned to become one body. By entrusting each person with a real part of the project, everyone was placed at the service of the common mission and could give "the best of themselves."
For Sister Gwladys, the Camp was not a mere transmission of the biblical texts to the children: in preparing the games and workshops, she herself set out on the way with the Patriarchs. This experience taught her that "the Word unsettles us and is not prior to us: it addresses each person and is meditated upon according to one's context, one's emotional and psychological situation."
Jeanne and Sister Pauline confirm this shift: the Bible leaves the realm of the purely theological to become a heartfelt experience that comes alive in the present. It is no longer an object of study, but a nourishment that adapts to the uniqueness of each person. It speaks here and now, proving that these texts have lost none of their power to transform when they are lived rather than merely read.
The human adventure of the Bible Camp required of each person a shift, as Ana-Claire and Brother Cyril confide. Each one was called to the unknown, to step out of "their comfort zone" in order to "grow familiar with one another in our differences." This authentic encounter played out in the simplest of details: Sister Gwladys's new passion for making scoubidous (lanyards), Ana-Claire's enthusiasm for sweeping the main hall, or the kindness of parents bringing croissants in the morning.
The mixing of social backgrounds and generations, at the great shared table on Saturday evening, allowed all the families to taste this importance of encounter. The warmth of welcome is essential at the Bible Camp: it is by creating a space where everyone feels loved for who they are that true encounter can take place.
Finally, the camp acted as a spiritual mirror for the leaders. Sarah recounts how the song "Dans le ciel d'Abraham" ("In the sky of Abraham"), taken up throughout the Camp, became a true life lesson. The pure, unfiltered and immediate joy of the youngest reminded the leaders of the essence of their own vocation: "to be like a child before God: joyful, open and ready to set off on discovery!" For children do not make long speeches about faith: they live it through their attachment and their sincerity. In this way they formed the grown-ups, inviting them to simplify their relationship with God so as to recover the spontaneity of the heart.
The Bible Camp 2026 leaves behind a certainty: the joy of fraternity, openness to differences and the strength of co-responsibility were the roots that enabled each person to set out, in all simplicity, to meet God and one another. Accompanied by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the children and the leaders immersed themselves in the Word of God and came away more fulfilled and more attuned to the voice of God within them.