Alive In You - Mission Trip to Louisiana!!!

AAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!

We're BACK!!!
For those in the know, you'll recognize this Cajun yell. St. Benedict's youth group just recently got back from Lake Charles, Louisiana and got first hand exposure to the energy & faith of the cajun spirit. It was an amazing experience to see, even after almost a whole year, how Katrina and Rita affected everyone living in the Jennings and Lake Charles area. Our group did an outstanding job working on an old middle school that is being converted into a housing facility for volunteers coming in to help in the devastated area.

I'd like to thank everyone who came with us especially Lynn and David, Kitty's parents who used their own vacation time to be wonderful examples of the faith through action. All of our teens, college students and adults had to put up with sleeping on an elementary school floor and sweating buckets in Louisiana's killer humidity. As you'll see from all of our pictures they did it with a smile.

I've finally gotten all the pictures we have loaded up on Kodak Gallery, all 635 of them!!!!!! I split them up into 3 sets of albums each covering a few days of the mission trip. Here's the link to all three (Click Here).

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and I'll post pictures in a couple weeks of all the fun we have on our whitewater trip down the Ocoee!!!

God Bless,

Eric

WHITEWATER RAFTING TRIP CHANGE!

The time has come to head up to the mountains of Tennesse and ride the waves of the Ocoee River! For those of you that are up for the challenge, we will be heaing up to the High Adventure Camp in Duckville Tennesse on Friday August 4th and will return on Sunday August 6th. Here are some of the adventures we will be doing:

• The Middle Ocoee River (the Olympic section - class 3 and 4) TWICE!
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• The Upper Ocoee once.
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• A bonfire big enough to signal the man on the moon.

• A slip and slide down the side of a small mountain.
• Mass at a small chapel located on the state lines of three states.
• And a couple more surprises along the way!

All of this for $180 (plus some money for a couple fast food stops, ice cream, and souvenirs)

The form is attached below, so please fill it out and return it to me via email at cassi@stbenedict.net or drop it off sometime this week if you can. Spot are available on a first come first serve basis.

Hope we see you there!!!

Peace,

Cassi

Whitewater Form Download

Bake Sale Success!!!

Just a quick post thanking everyone for such a successful bake sale! We had so much delicious food, I gained 2 pounds just smelling it. I'm not sure what the final tally was on how much we ended up making, but I know it will help out greatly on our mission trip next week in Louisiana.

mmmm....brownies....cookies....cupcakes.....mmmmm

I'm a sucker for sweets.

God Bless!
Eric

SPLASH 2006 - Soak up the Son!

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Holiness
2006!!!

Yes, that's right we had our yearly rising 9th grade retreat to introduce those who will be joining us for the first time next year! This is an introduction to not only the youth group and high school, but an introduction to learning about Christ, our Church and our Faith in a whole new way. You'll be challenged to live every facet of your life all for the greater glory of God.

We had a blast up at the Cohutta Lodge with everything from river canoeing, morning mountain climbs, looking emo, bouncing off the blob and Mass with our favorite motorcycle priest Father Stephen. We have so many pictures that I've decided to split them up into three different albums.

1 - SPLASH 2006

2 - SPLASH 2006 Emo

3 - SPLASH 2006 Blob

These aren't ALL the pictures. There are still a number that I need to get downloaded from Tim so there will be more pictures added later on. Also I will be putting together all the video that we took and upload it to youtube.com which I'll post on here once I'm finished with that.

I think everyone had a great time and I can't wait for this upcoming year to get to know all of you better!

God Bless!

Eric

Peer Ministry Retreat 2006

My apologies go out to everyone about the delay of some very important postings. The first of these is --
THE PEER MINISTRY RETREAT!!!

Way back in early June (yes that was over a month ago) we took a group of peer ministers up to Chatsworth and had a retreat on leadership, planning and how to minister to the rest of the youth group. Many thanks go out to our college core (Brad & Nikki) and soon to be college core (Fadi & Kimi) who helped lead the retreat. We look forward to next year and seeing all of our peer ministers step up and set the best examples they can of how to live AMDG style.

Here are some pictures from the retreat.

God Bless!
Eric