Friday, February 21, 2014

Just 5 months left, but...


Everything's going well and we're staying busy!  The Valdocco's been continuing to grow, we're up to about 15 kids now, the CCD classes are coming together and starting to prepare for the end of the year, and the Feast days of St. John Bosco and St. Francis of Sales all happened this last month.

For the Christmas break the Valdocco put on a little holiday camp.  On the first day we thought it'd be good to introduce the kids to a taste of the United States with an authentically American home-cooked breakfast.  After hunting down the right ingredients and figuring out the measurement conversions, we started cooking!  All-in-all it took us about hour to fix, we included some basic cooking lessons in between, and by the time we were finished we'd made about 20 chocolate chip pancakes, some eggs, sausage, and plenty of bacon.  It turned out great, and we ate just about all of it, ugh..  We also had some "beurre de cacahuète" (peanut butter, not easy to find) and jelly toast.

The feast's over, time for a nap..



















The second day of camp Manu organized an activity that let the kids melt and make their own chocolate candies.  We worked with an assortment of toppings ranging from sprinkles and fruits to leftover peanut butter and jelly; then on top of that a couple of the kids decided to add leftover syrup to theirs, for that unique 5 kinds of sugar taste..  The candies were left in the fridge to harden and give to the kids to take home at the end of the week.


















For the last two days of camp we had some homework-tutoring sessions and built a paper-mache/cardboard version of United States, as a geography lessons.  And on the final day we all went out to a local Christmas market for some ice skating and to see some mountain animals in a wild life show.

















On Christmas Eve the children of the youngest CCD classes, not the ones I help with, put a little skit together for the Christmas Mass.  They acted out the Nativity and did a great job!


After New Year's we were quick to get back to work.  On the first week Manu and I took a two day field trip with a special group of kids from the school that are in need of some mentorship.  The group's called SLAM, or "Systeme Local d'Accompagnement aux Metiers", and it's designed to work with kids who've been struggling with school or other social issues in preparing them socially and professionally for potential careers, or for life after high school.  For a change of scenery we took them out to a local exhibit on the 5 Senses.

Jeff  experimenting
with new hair styles..

..a solid choice!
The exhibit had about 75ish different smelling stations.



Everything was left just as we found it.
Playground equipment can really take a beating.

On the second day we went up to the park for some mountain biking and a picnic.



















Our CCD classes are going great.  Manu's been able to keep the kids interested and coming to class, and about a month ago we added another 3 students to the older group.  Of the 3 CCD classes I help with, the youngest, ages 9-11 meet on Tuesdays during lunch, the middle aged, 11-13 meet on Thursday for lunch, and the oldest, 13-14 come on Friday evenings, with each class having about 7-9 students.  For the two younger groups we've been working on and reviewing the basics of Catholicism (prayer, the gospel, the sacraments and saints) in preparation for confirmation.  And with the older group, and being that they've mostly all already completed confirmation, we try to make it more of a fun and games/something to do on Friday night-type thing, with the last 15-20 minutes of each night spent discuss faith and in prayer.

She found the baby in the King
Cake.  In France they have their
king cakes for the Epiphany
holiday.. makes since.
They're not always happy that I take tons of pics..














One Tuesday last month we were taken on a tour of the Crypt of our church, Notre Dame Auxiliatrice, by one of the older brothers.  He told the kids an incredible story about how during WW2 the church was able to successfully hide 50 Jewish students from the Gestapo.  It was even more impressive being that we could hear the story while seeing how small the crypt (maybe 500 square feet) really is.



It says: In this crypt in 1943, hunted by the Gestapo, Jewish children and adult were put
under the protection of the fathers Michel Blain and Vincent Simeoni.

Tuesday and Thursday night activities with the boarding school are still going strong. They've recently been obsessed with ping-pong, I think in part due the weather being cold and rainy, so we've been hitting the tables pretty hard.  With it getting nicer out I look to restart my push to popularize football soon!

An action pic of the Champ.




The Fetes!

For the Feast of St. Francis of Sales, on the 24 of January, we got together with the Salesian Sisters, who run the Institute of Nazareth, another Salesian school across town, to have a nice dinner. We celebrate the Feast of St. Francis of Sales because it's he who St. John Bosco, the founder of the Salesians, developed his methods of teaching and accompaniment of the young from.  That's also where the name Salesians comes from.

Top: Another volunteer helping to
explain a game for the school's
celebration of St. Don Bosco's Feast day.
Left: The Salesian Community of
Nice on St. Francis's Feast day.
The next Friday, the 31st, was Don Bosco's feast day, and we celebrated for the entire weekend. It all got kicked off with both Salesian schools having a sort of game/fun/adventure day.  A lot of the kids came to school wearing costumes and were ready to play games, dance, and eat all kinds of junk food. 
The next day our Parish had its celebration.  We had about 25 kids show up and we played a variety of different games, ate all kinds of homemade desserts, and then finished with a Mass; the bishop of Nice came to preside. 
On Sunday, the parish came back to watch the Don Bosco movie.  It also happened to be the same day as the Fete of the Chandelles, a celebration of when the Pope fed hungry Roman pilgrims crepes, which in turn has become a Holiday celebrating crepes, so fittingly we ate an assortment of crepes after the film.

The church was packed!
Left: The kids from our parish.


And Finally..

What I'm most proud of doing these last couple months, is getting the opportunity to put together a team of alter servants.  With our aging congregation the church has been without alter servants for a while, and it's generally been rare to even see kids at Mass, so doing this felt like a needed contribution.  The first step took place about a month ago in convincing Father Pascal to teach me how to be alter server, being I'd never done it before.  After that, I practiced for a couple weeks and then we started putting the word out. It didn't take long to find our first two volunteers. We were able to get together last Tuesday for a class, and then last Sunday we helped with our first Mass, and they did great! 

Looking back on it, I think our participation made the whole parish and Mass feel a little different.  It reminded me of how it feels to go to Mass at home, and how the Mass is an event for the whole family (the alter servant's families came to watch), rather than just the elderly.  I think the parish noticed a little difference also; afterwards there were a lot of the loyal elderly ladies who came up to us with big smiles on their faces. They talked about how happy they were to see us and wished us luck in continuing. Hopefully it all works out and were able to keep the team growing.  By the time I leave I think this will be the contribution that I'm most proud of, and if they continue once I'm gone maybe it'll be my sort of small legacy.