Written by Jane Scupham, Principal
It’s a wonderful feeling when you are fortunate enough to see a dream become a reality. That is exactly what happened this past Monday. At one of the diocesan area principals’ meetings, a few of us expressed the need to have a religious event just for our 4th and 5th grade students. The idea of a retreat was thrown around and eventually we decided that this idea not only should happen, but could happen. So on Monday morning, our 4th and 5th grade students had the opportunity to gather together with the 4th and 5th grade students of Nativity and Notre Dame schools in our church for what we, the principals of the schools involved, hope becomes a bi-annual retreat event.
We focused the retreat on the theme of the song, “Never Too Young,” which speaks to the fact that one is never too young to be a disciple of the Lord. We were fortunate to have the Bishop come and celebrate Mass with all of us. The congregation of 4th and 5th graders wore matching bright red t-shirts emblazoned with the “Never Too Young” theme. The sight of all the red t-shirts the day after Pentecost seemed to say that we were all ready to preach the gospel, to bring the Good News to others, to witness to our faith even if most of those gathered were 11 years or younger.
After our opening Mass celebration, the students, all 180 of them, had a snack and then broke out into their 9 groups and went to one of the three assigned sessions of the day. Students participated in a session on trust exercises, a session based on the theme of the Good Samaritan, and a session of guided meditation. We gathered for pizza, veggies and dip, and an ice cream treat at the designated lunch time in the social hall. Our day ended back in the church with a closing prayer service and farewells to newly made friends. As I was cleaning up in the Church after everyone had left, I found a note from a student which read:
“I thought this was an amazing experians (sic). I was so calm and it was so peaceful. I got to talk to Jesus. I was so exsited (sic) to talk to Jesus. I would totally do this again.”
Our retreat would not have been such an amazing experience without the assistance of following hardworking ladies. Thank you to Mrs. Delinsky, Mrs. Schultz, Ms. Spence for helping to serve our lunch, to Mrs. Kepa for organizing our lunch and to Mrs. Funk for preparing our Mass sheets. Many thanks to our teachers, Mrs. Bogan, Mrs. Olson, Mrs. Hernandez, and Mrs. Hrosik for leading one of the sessions for the students.