Mondaymail 9/15 September 15, 2008

Hello one and all!

I’m always so blessed to be pulled into the life of our church and lives of our youth. Thank you all also for being mindful of those parts of my life apart from the church. Thanks to all of you who expressed concern for my hometown, Shoreacres, recently smacked around by Ike. I still don’t know the extent of the hurricane damage to my home, but I will include a snippet in the mondaymail when I find out!

We had a great start to the year yesterday with a great bunch of youth in Sunday school and evening programs! As the Sunday school curriculum on the schedule for the first block is entitled Life Roller Coaster, we spent Sunday school exploring what the metaphor of a roller coaster does when applied to our lives in faith and without faith. The base scripture for the evening groups was the parable of the lost sheep, and we worked out the efforts and joys of finding things and people we’d loved, lost and found.

This weekend promises to be very very busy! We have JOLT on Saturday with the junior high group..  The fun, fabulous stuff we’ll be doing is Scavenger hunt, Rappelling, Orienteering and Waders in the Wetlands.  It should be great both for the sake of the beautiful camp and fun activities but also to give the Chi Rho youth a chance to bond and grow together.  The cost is $20.  We’ll meet at 8 am at the church and be back at 7:30 pm.  For more info, go here. Please RSVP to me here ASAP if your youth would like to come!

The very next day, September 21, we will be going to Cathedral Gardens for a round two of our very popular Bingo Night!!! Thanks so much to Ellen McDowell for organizing the organizers, Tracy, Logan and Preston Klein, and thank you to our organizers as well!! We will depart COTI at 4:45, play some serious Bingo with some good youth-y prizes as well and dine at Cathedral Gardens and then be picked up at Cathedral Gardens.  Senior highers over the age of 16 are encouraged to drive themselves to the Cathedral and meet us there at 5 pm. RSVP to Tracy Klein here if you can go!

Our Ski Trip this year is going to be AWESOMEEEEE!!!! But there is limited space and soon deadlines, so let me know ASAP if you or your youth want to come.  We have about 14 more spaces at present. We’ll be flying American Airlines departing DFW on Dec 26 at 7:20 am and returning to DFW at 9:55 pm on Dec 29.  We’ll be at Beaver Creek staying at Beaver Village in condominiums. The cost will be $800 per person. RSVP to me here.

And those glasses are still in my office from the kickoff, so if you’ve been bumping into things in your blindness, gimme a call!

Much love to all of you!

In His Grip,

Beverly Fonville Steele

Mondaymail 9/8/08 September 8, 2008

Woohoo!!!! We’re still riding high on the overwhelming success of Rally Day yesterday! It was wonderful to see so many of you, particularly those of you I hadn’t seen in a while! Thanks for coming and sharing the day with us!

The thanks are going to continue for a while here! So many people did such wonderful work getting the day off the ground, and I sincerely thank you all. HUGE HUGE HUGE thanks go to Claire Upham, Ellen Welch and Melinda Draper for the fantastic job they did putting last night together! The decorations were amazing and the entertainment sublime! Thank you all so much for everything.

We also had a good number of you guys sign up to be sponsors for various events, and I thank you heartily! Ellen McDowell and Teresa Clarke, our event coordinators, also send their warm thanks! It’s truly only with the help of parents than any of our work here is possible.

On that note, the one place we could still use some help is the providing of meals for Sunday nights. Anne Mackintosh is the point person for that and would LOVE to hear from you if you can sponsor a meal. Sponsoring a meal means either bringing it to the church at 6 pm for about 35 people or paying to have it delivered. I’ll be happy to give you some ideas for things to bring or buy if you’d like!

Now onto the upcoming stuff! This week marks the beginning of our regular EYC and Chi Rho. Chi Rho goes from 5 pm to 6:30 pm, and EYC goes from 6 pm to 7:30 pm. I hope to see everyone there! It’ll be great!

Also, September 20, we have a GREAT opportunity to go to All Saints Camp and participate in their JOLT. For more info, go here. The fun, fabulous stuff we’ll be doing is Scavenger hunt, Rappelling, Orienteering and Waders in the Wetlands. It should be great both for the sake of the beautiful camp and fun activities but also to give the Chi Rho youth a chance to bond and grow together. The cost is $20. We’ll meet at 8 am at the church and be back at 7:30 pm. Please RSVP to me here ASAP if your youth would like to come!

The very next day, September 21, we will be going to Cathedral Gardens for a round two of our very popular Bingo Night!!! Thanks so much to Ellen McDowell for organizing the organizers, Tracy, Logan and Preston Klein, and thank you to our organizers as well!! We will depart COTI at 4:45, play some serious Bingo with some good youth-y prizes as well and dine at Cathedral Gardens and then be picked up at Cathedral Gardens. RSVP to Tracy Klein here if you can go!

Our Ski Trip this year is going to be AWESOMEEEEE!!!! But there is limited space and soon deadlines, so let me know ASAP if you or your youth want to come. We’ll be flying American Airlines departing DFW on Dec 26 at 7:20 am and returning to DFW at 9:55 pm on Dec 29. We’ll be at Beaver Creek staying at Beaver Village in condominiums. The cost will be $800 per person. RSVP to me here.

And I hope many if not all of you got our youth ministry bulletin that includes the calendar on the inside. If not, I’ve attached the word document version of the calendar to this email. One very important edit: Patrice Miller is NOT in charge of the Habitat for Humanity workday the first week of November. Ellen McDowell is. So if you wanna go, email Ellen here. It’s a great, great opportunity to be together helping someone achieve the dream of being a homeowner. As it’s the last day, we also get to see the final product, landscaping and all, which is gratifying indeed!

Having mentioned several service opportunities, I want to remind you all that we do an incredible amount as a youth ministry and as a parish to serve our community, and that is one of the principle calls of our faith. So when youth need service hours, they should not despair, they should call me! And hopefully too they will come even when the hours mean nothing to them.

And someone left their glasses at the event last night, so if you’re having trouble seeing today, give me a call!

Okay folks, as I am now going well above my usual word limit, I will leave you be! But I am SO EXCITED to be beginning this year!

In His Grip,

Beverly Fonville Steele

Mondaymail (mild misnomer) Sept Dos September 2, 2008

Dear All You Beloved Folks!

We are truly kicking into gear with the year in swing, and the biggest thing coming our way and the focus of this Mondaymail:

RALLY DAY!!! Great info, fun, fellowship and seeing all the folks you’ve missed and meet the new ones, particularly our new and amazing Betsy and Bishop Burton and his family!

We will be rallying ‘round the rector in the morning, but especially for us youth-centered folk, the evening will be HUGE! Ellen Welch, Melinda Draper and Claire Upham have gone truly above and beyond the call of duty to get an awesome, AWESOME evening underway. We’re still waiting for RSVPs from a lot of you guys, and we really do need to know what sort of attendance we’ll have. There will be great food, inflatable games, a dunking booth (might we dunk Bishop Burton??? I hear a call for that one!). The crazy times start at 5 pm and go until 7:30. The event is for parents and youth alike, so come one and all!

Get this:

We’ll even be raffling off some tickets to such fabulous events as the Great Pumpkin Chase, Ski Trip and Mission trips!

But you have to be there to win!

So please email myself or Ellen to RSVP.

The Sunday following, September 14, is when EYC and Chi Rho as well as Sunday school start up again on the usual schedule.

On September 20, we’ll have a really great opportunity for the Chi Rho youth to go on an outdoors adventure at All Saints Camp. We’ll be rappelling down walls and doing some orienteering and general nature fabulousness with the well-trained guides at our diocesan camp. Tom and Gail Smith will be helping organize the parental troops, and the sooner you RSVP to me, the sooner I’ll have seatbelts for all involved!

Also, this year we snagged an AWESOME deal on ski trip, including FLIGHTS instead of a BUS! But that does mean we need to bump up the sign up to soon. We leave the day AFTER Christmas this year and return on the 29^th, which hopefully gives you plenty of time for family festivities! The cost is $800 per person. Friends are, as always, welcome! Let me know that you’re coming—I intend to learn how to ski this year and will need someone to sit with me when I break my arm again! Just kidding… I hope!

Okay fabulous people, I have to run away and do other work now, but know that you are loved and prayed over!

In His Grip,

Beverly Fonville Steele