Community Life

Over the many years that we have been running training courses we have found that the experience of living in community is one of the most valuable things we can offer students. 

Consistently students have discovered a richness of life in community living, which among other things encourages the development of strong friendships between students of many different nationalities, backgrounds and ages.  In many cases these relationships continue long beyond the end of the training course - giving each student a lifelong supporting network of friends around the world.  E-mail and Skype now make it easier than ever to keep in contact and to pray in an informed way with and for others. 

The experience of having shared those initial weeks and months together is something special that most people remember for many years.

Community living involves the sharing of catering and cleaning duties on a rota basis.  This gives the opportunity to serve others and learn some important practical skills.  Each student is a member of a duties team and is expected to make a full contribution to the work assigned to that team.  This gives the opportunity to learn valuable teamwork skills.  It also gives first-hand experience of working alongside students of different cultures and learning about cross-cultural relationships in a very practical way.  This provides excellent preparation for life as part of a World Horizons’ team anywhere in the world.

As well as being a residential centre used regularly for WH training programmes, the Llanelli Centre serves many other purposes as well.  Numerous offices and meeting rooms are in constant use by WH staff from all over the world, who come to spend anything from a few hours to several years at the base.  Other activities including Outdoor Pursuits work, Youth Camps and Next Step Weekends are also regularly held at the centre.  This diversity provides a wonderful opportunity for students to meet workers of different nationalities involved in all kinds of ministries around the world, and gives the chance to learn first-hand, about areas of ministry that may be of interest.  

Students also join the Llanelli based team for many of their regular times of prayer and discussion, in doing so they learn about the many different WH ministries, and the joys and difficulties experienced by workers around the world.  All this helps students to become integrated into the body of World Horizons and feel part of the WH global family, which is one of the main overall aims of the initial training.