Our weekend away at The Vine Church, Odiham was the highlight of our year! We spent the weekend looking at 1 Peter 1:1 – 3:16 through talks, discussion groups, and workshops centred around ‘What is the Gospel?’, ‘Living Out the Gospel’, and ‘Sharing the Gospel.’ We had speakers from our local churches, UCCF, as well as VCF’s very own Rob Lawrence, pictured below left, come join us for parts of the weekend. After the weekend’s discussions, Timothy, a first year BSc student said “I used to treat my faith and veterinary practice as two separate objects, but after going to the retreat I understood really down to earth ways of combining both of them that includes remembering all skills we have are given by God. I was inspired by it and would recommend everyone going to the weekend away next year.”
Along with great spiritual discussions, the weekend was filled with food, fun, and fellowship. Everyone pitched in to cook masterpieces like s’mores brownies and we played games together into the early hours of both mornings. Third year BVetMed Anna commented “The CU weekend away was an excellent opportunity to connect with other Christians and help solidify the RVC CU community. Having two campuses, it can be difficult for organisations at RVC to bridge the gap between pre-clinical and clinical years. I can’t wait to see more of the Camden campus students in the years to come!”
The RVC CU is so unbelievably grateful for the financial support provided by VCF which allowed us to pay for the food for the weekend as well as Rob spending his Saturday with us giving us insights to the overlaps between a veterinary career and our faith. The Vine Church’s generosity astounded us as well as we not only were able to use their building free of charge for the weekend, but they very kindly treated us to breakfast and lunch on the Sunday we spent worshipping with them. And although we originally came to Odiham just because it was a free place for a bunch of crazy vet students to stay for a couple of nights, we were shocked to find out that the RVC had some historic links to the local pub! We hope to be back next year to put on another weekend away in Odiham.