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Success Story

Dylan started with Youth Encounter February 2017 at 13 years old and was disengaged with the education system. He initially was referred through the Te Puke Alternative Education to our Dirt Bike Encounter therapy programme and completed our Arotika ki te Kaupapa (Getting on Track) course.  Dylan then went on to receive one on one mentoring sessions and has attended three of our teen camps and our parent child camp with his mum.  He is still actively involved with Youth Encounter, cont...

Mary’s revelations and insights

I believe every person can encounter their God-given potential for greatness when they believe in their value, that they are enough. When we don’t believe we are good enough, we operate from this place. It is not that we are there yet or encountered all our potential, but when we can identify as being good enough as our staring point, our potential is unleashed and released to the freedom we have to imagine and create much more incredible things.  It is not often that someone has a baby a...

Mary’s revelations & insights

Youth Encounter (community, therapy, mentoring, camps) is not focused on behaviour modification, but rather heart transformation because your heart is the wellspring of life and our behaviours flow from this place. Just like on your phone, to change how it operates on the outside, you go into the settings app and make the changes on the inside.  Our behaviours flow out of the settings in our heart, and when there has been lack of connection/love, neglect, abuse, trauma etc, it sets us up in...

Encounter Volunteers

What an awesome weekend with the incredible volunteer staff who give their time, expertise and passion to making Youth Encounter possible. The hours from our 40+ volunteers equals to 3 full time staff hours which is an incredible gift to the organisation so we wanted to give something back to these wonderful people....

Send it Spring Newsletter

Read our latest newsletter to learn about the exciting goings on at Youth Encounter and what we have coming up over the next few months....

Quarterly Newsletter May18

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Quarterly Newsletter March 18

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Celebrations for another incredible year

Volunteers are essential to Youth Encounters vision and mission of unleashing and releasing the potential in young people to encounter the real them who God incredibly created them to be. We are truely blessed to have such a variety of skills and expertise amongst our volunteers staff who dedicate so much to the organisation. It was awesome to celebrate another successful year together with some gokart racing thanks to Ian Chew at Off Road NZ in Rotorua. ...

Encounter Quarterly Newsletter

Take a look at what the Encounter team have been up to over the last few months, the camps, the race team, dirt bike therapy and our new social enterprise, Encounter Success now up and running.   Each newsletter will profile one of our volunteers and this time round we have the one and only Andy Mac, very photogenic and an incredible person to have on the team! Our newsletter finishes off with a calendar of events we are involved with over the next few months.  Give us a call or d...

Mary's revelations & insights

Do you ever worry about what people think of you? I’ve become aware that I unconsciously make up stories in my mind about what other people think of me. Do you ever do that? Then, I argue my case against their accusations (that they didn’t make but I’m convinced that they thought). Where did these ideas about what other people think of me come from? Why would I assume their thoughts about me are negative? This has become my M.O. and it’s absolutely not God’s intention for my life! I’...

Spring has arrived with the festivities of Encounter Camps

Encounter Camps Sprig Fest 17 was once again full of a vibrant spring atmosphere. The seven day residential camp experience was all about discovering more of life and connecting with others along with riding our dirt bikes. The learning topic was one that relates to youth and is very important at their age and stage of life. The objective was to understand and learn how God created us for meaningful friendship with Himself and other people. One of our core values at Youth Encounter is to nurture...

Kawerau fly high at Dirt Bike Encounter

A crew of six students and one tutor from Kawerau's AE (alternative education course) embarked on a journey of learning new skills and powerful thinking over term 3 with Youth Encounters 'Dirt Bike Encounter' process. Dirt Bike Encounter aims to empower marginalised rangatahi youth through dirt bike riding as a therapeutic process. "Dirt Bike Encounter has helped me go to course more and have a better attitude" said one participant, and another commented how it had made him think about "staying...

Mary's revelations & insights

What stops us from trusting someone? When we don't believe they are trustworthy. What makes someone untrustworthy? Usually we would say it's because they have broken our trust or have not gained our trust but I think there's more to it. Trust is a choice because we are all untrustworthy as none of us are perfect. The people in your life who bring you the greatest joy will most probably bring you the greatest headache. If your trust is dependant on how someone makes you feel you will never trust ...

Mary's revelations & insights

We live in a culture of scarcity that says we never have enough which leads us to believing we need more. This is called coveting. Coveting says we are not good enough, we are not secure enough, we are not perfect enough, we are not confident enough, we are not significant enough and we are need to be extraordinary to belong. Ordinary has become not good enough and we are being told purpose is found in being extraordinary. ...

Mary's revelations & insights

God sees our passions and desires. In fact He put them in us and He wants to empower us to fulfil them because that's the potential He created us with. He didn't create us to imagine and dream just to see us fall short of our passions and desires. So why are people less happy than ever before if God really wants us to encounter our potential?  I believe our unmet desires are the reason for our suffering of unhappiness. God created us with desires because He wants us to reach our full potent...

Encounter Campers take on the cool crisp winter conditions

Another awesome Encounter Camps of craziness and memories made. A huge thanks to all involved #EncounterCamps #livelifewideopen ...