Our First Week!

A new year has officially started folks! Lots of enthusiasm and energy…new relationships to be made. We now have TWO groups meeting simultaneously at 9AM. The former Rite-13 group, now the older j2A group has ‘graduated’ to a new room in the parish hall and our new Rite-13 group is meeting in the middle room (with a great new wall and door! Who needs a doorknob – kidding!) We had a great turnout for our first week…I am looking forward to next week when we really start to get into the meat and potatoes of the program (no, we are not serving meat and potatoes for snacks, at least not until we get into the Hunger Awareness class, which was very eye opening last year for the teens! Actually it was chicken fingers and white rice…)

Next week we will have our j2a teens providing Coffee Hour for the congregation, what better way to get to know them a little better and hear about the what outreach activities we are planning for the upcoming year.  We have a great bunch of teens, really good kids. It was amazing to see them this morning coming into the parish hall, walking into a different meeting room. They REALLY are a “group” now, it makes my heart sing to see how far they have come together over the past year. The leaders for this group will remain the same as the teens move long into the new curriculum. Alicia Lyon led the group today, checking-in with everyone and then working together on writing a prayer. Wait until you see the t-shirts they created last year…Look for them at next week’s coffee hour!

We are very fortunate to have John Davidson and Sarah Emmett joining us to lead the newly created Rite-13 group, our sixth and seventh graders who are starting on the Journey to Adulthood…hard to believe! Where does the time go? I also lead this group and I am so excited to see the growth of these young members of our congregation over the next two years. We need to capture this all in pictures…a digital camera is being requested. Any donations?? Today was a day to use “yes” or “no” questions to learn about the leaders and each other. Lots of great questions, both serious and silly, but we are just at the doorstep of this journey. Next week we will begin to get into some of the basic curriculum.

As the leaders confirm the curriculum for the upcoming weeks, we will post the topic ahead of time whenever possible, being sensitive to the concerns of parents brought forward this year as well as last year. I would ask that before you have your child miss a class due to content, you talk to the leaders of the class about your concern, maybe at coffee hour or email them if that is beter for you? Or you can catch me at coffee hour or email me if you would prefer.

I have an updated contact list coming out for both groups, but here are the email addresses of the leaders:

Carol Mowatt (Coordinator of J2A Program, RIte-13 leader)   cam61@cox.net

Alicia Lyon (j2a leader)      alyon@ccri.edu

Jim Perry (j2a leader)         jpbio@comcast.net

John Davidson (Rite-13 leader)   johndav_1@yahoo.com

Sarah Emmett (Rite-13 leader)    semmett82@yahoo.com

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments. More to come…much more to come!

Peace,

Carol Mowatt