High School Bible Study Canceled

There will be no bible study on Wednesday, Dec. 10 th due to the Penance Service at church beginning at 7pm.

Helping the Homeless for the Holidays

Catholic Charities has asked us to help with yet another project, which are more than excited to help with. They are collecting toiletry items for the homeless and low income families this advent season. They are hoping to collect trial size, as well as, full size items such as shampoo. toothpaste, etc. If you're willing to help, there is a box in St. Ignatius Hall where you can drop off the items.
Thank you and Happy Advent!

Annual High School Ski Trip

It's that time again! The High School Ski Trip will be Jan. 30- Feb. 1, 2009. We ski at Winterplace in West Virginia. All forms were passed out to every interested student last week. There are more forms in the back of church in the youth ministry box. All deposits are due by the end of November. This is always a huge hit and so much fun! You can check out last years ski trip in a previous post on this blog. If you have any questions, please email me at hjeffcoat1@aol.com

Jr. High Youth Rally Update!

We had a great time at the Jr. High Youth Rally last weekend! The theme was All Access! We learned that we have all access to God all the time. No matter what! Here are some pictures from the day!

Please Pray for Daniel Douglas!

For those of you who have not yet heard, Daniel Douglas, son of Dan and Ann, was involved in a very serious car accident last night. He is at Richland Memorial in very critical condition. Please pray for Daniel's healing, as well as, the family's peace during this time.
We are holding a prayer service tonight (Monday) at 7pm here at Our Lady of the Lake for Daniel. The whole community is welcome. Please spread the word!

Website for updates on Matthew Silvermans condition....

Matthew's parents, Dona & Stu have made a website through http://www.caringbridge.com/ with updates on Matthew. Under website name type in matthewsilverman {no spaces} and you can view their updates, as well as, sign the guestbook. I encourage you all to share your wishes and prayers with them. I know it means so much to them right now!
God Bless you all!

Jr. High Lock In will be RESCHEDULED!

Well, that pesky rain ruined our plans for tonight. I just called the Maize Quest people and they were in the process of calling all their groups to reschedule for tonight. I'm so sorry about that everyone, but it's one of those things that's out of my hands.
We will reschedule for Fri., Nov. 7th {in 2 weeks}. I will keep all forms on file and just change the date/ If your young person is not able to go on the 7th, please email me { hjeffcoat1@aol.com } and let me know and I'll get you a refund.
Again, I'm sorry to everyone. I was looking forward to this, too, but it happens every now and then!
I'll see you all on Sunday night!
Hope

Please Pray!

For those who have not heard, one of our Confirmation youth, 10th grader Matthew Silverman, is at Richland memorial in the Pediatric ICU. He had a seizure Sunday afternoon and continued to seize. They had to put him into a medically induced coma. He's not out of the coma, but he still hasn't woken up. It's critical that we send up prayers for Matthew and his family.
I'm going up to the hospital tonight to see the family and Matthew, so I will update when I hear something new.
Please, pray, pray, pray! And ask the Holy Spirit to be with this family during this time.

Jr. High Lock In

Whew! The Jr. High Lock In is this coming Friday. Wow. It snuck up on me! I can't wait. It's always a fun time! So far we have 43 kids signed up and about 6 or 7 parents to help drive and stay over. Unfortunatly, we don't have any dads who have volunteered to stay over, so we may have to cancel the lock in part of the event and just do the Maize Quest. I'll be making phone calls tonight to try and get a willing, brave dad. He'll certainly earn his place in heaven. :)
I'll be updating with pictures next week. Stay tuned....

Sr. High Youth Ministry Is Helping Our Community!

I got a call from Mary {one of our parishioners} who works at Catholic Charities wanting to know if we'd like to help with a service project for one of their clients. This client has been working with Catholic Charities for 4 years to get her own apartment and they're needing some things to help her set up her new home. I was so excited to tell the high school youth about it, and they had just as much excitement after I got done telling them about it.
We've decided that they would donate some of their own money for the next few weeks and see how much we could come up with. We were asked to get some of the smaller household items for the home, such as, trash bags, dust spray and cloths, silverware tray, alarm clock, hangers, light bulbs, etc. The youth are really excited about this and I'm really excited to see how much money we can raise for this woman who is in need. I'm really proud of how this project has been recieved by the kids.
I'll be updating in a few weeks with how much money we've raised!
God is Good!

Sr. High Youth Ministry

We had about 40 high school youth on Sunday night for Sr. High Youth Ministry. It becomes obvious how much our parish is growing as we try and stuff more teens in St. Ignatius Hall each year. What a wonderful blessing to have so many amazing youth. Sunday night was a good time of fun, fellowship, and getting to know each other. We're all looking forward to what the year has in store for us as a group!

Jr. High Youth Night

120 Jr. High Youth...34 pizzas...16 bottles of soda...6 volunteers to clean up the mess...12 fearless catechists sharing their faith...PRICELESS!

Kick Off Teen Mass

Well, the year has officially begun. The Teen Mass was hosted this month by the Sr. High. They did an outstanding job! Anyone who has never been to a youth mass, really needs to see it for themselves at some point. Our Teen Mass is the second Sunday of every month at 5:00pm {except this month it was the first Sunday because of the kick off}. Fr. Andrew invites all the teens to come up around the altar for the Lord's Prayer. It's so amazing to see all those teens gathered together, worshiping Christ. If you think the church's future is bleak, this will make you think otherwise! The youth ARE the church of today with gifts & talents they can offer now. God is so good and it's 10 times as apparent when you see all those youth up there around the altar!

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger!

Confirmation Retreat

The day went well. The Confirmation students were great. Thanks to all the high school youth who helped out with this retreat {Jen, Sarah, Amanda, Courtney, Nick, Chris, Cody, Paul and Nehemiah}. You all went above and beyond as usual!

Upcoming Jr. High Event!

We have a very exciting event coming up for all youth in grades 6th-8th. The 12th Annual Diocesan Jr. High Youth Rally will take place on Saturday, November 1st from 10:30am-6:00pm at White Oak Conference Center just outside of Winnsboro. This year's theme is "All Access!"

Come experience great stories and high octane presentation by the lead speaker, Jesse Manibusan {http://www.jessemanibusan.com/}, Mass with Fr. Kirby from St. Mary's in Aiken, and the music crowd favorite of the band Wannabe Steven; along with games, small groups, zany skits, and powerful dramas from the Diocesan Youth Evangelization Team.

The Living Gospel of Jesus Christ says everyone is invited! That we all have total access to His eternal love! We are created special and have a distinct purpose for our lives! While the world suggests that we have to have this; or act this way; or have to be part of this group to have value or self worth. It is through Jesus Christ dying on the cross and overcoming death that gives us "All Access" to His love and grace. In Gospel of John 10:10 it says "...I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly!" Christ comes to give you access to a real and lasting abundant life!

Come join over 700 youth from around the Diocese as we answer the question of "How much of your life does Jesus Christ have access?" Come experience what it means to have full access to the Risen Lord! This is one day that will change your life!

Registration forms will be available September 14th or you can click this link and print out the form {http://www.catholic-doc.org/ym/frm/JH%20Rally%202008%20PR%20Form.pdf}. The deadline for registration is Sunday, October 5th. The cost for the day is $35.00 per person {by October 5th} and $45.00 per person {after October 5th}.

If you have any questions, please contact Hope at hjeffcoat1@aol.com

Congrats to our very own Katie Devine!

One of our youth from Our Lady of the Lake, 20 year old Katie Devine, has just taken the position of youth minister at St. Peter's Catholic Church in downtown Columbia. She's the daughter of Brian & T Devine. I'm so excited for her and I know she's going to do an amazing job. Congrats Katie!

First Night of Religious Ed. & Youth Ministry

I'm really excited about the first night of classes and youth ministry. There is SOOOO much going on that whole day, but it will be great to see everyone again and get back in the swing of things.

First of all, we have the Confirmation Retreat beginning at noon. The 10th-12th graders will be facilitating the retreat for the 9th graders. Chris Johnson {the newest addition to our staff has come on to take over the position of Confirmation Coordinator}, myself, T Devine and some of the Confirmation teachers will be there to lead as well. It should be a really good day for everyone! Please pray for the Confirmation students and their year that's ahead of them. We will end the day with the 5:00 pm Teen Mass.

The Teen Mass will be hosted by the high schoolers this month. It's always so amazing to see all the teens up around the altar holding hands for the Our Father. We are so blessed at Our Lady of the Lake to have such wonderful teens with so many gifts and talents.

Then we move on to the PIZZA! Yes, we'll be having pizza and soda for the Jr. Highers downstairs in the Family Life Center. And pizza and soda for the 9th - 12th graders will be in St. Ignatius Hall. The 9th graders are invited to stay and participate in the youth ministry activity that night and their first official night of classes will begin Sept. 14th.

All the days events will end at 7:30pm. Whew. I'm tired already! :)

Have a safe and happy week and I'll see you on Sunday.

Blessings!

Ski Trip 2008

We had such a great time this past January when we took the Sr. High up to West Virginia to Winterplace Ski Resort for a ski weekend. This annual ski trip is always open to other Catholic churches in the Midlands Deanery. This was my second year to organize the trip and I think I'm finally learning how to iron out all the kinks.

We stay in a hotel close to the resort and there is an amazing parish in West Virginia with some great priests who open up their church for us on Saturday night and say Mass for us. I say Saturday night, not evening, because we literally don't have Mass until 10-11pm at night. We're very blessed to have this offered to us and we appreciate it more than you know.

It's always so amazing to be out in nature, especially in the stillness of a snowy mountain, and really feel God's presence. He truly is all around us all the time and sometimes it takes a weekend getaway from all the craziness of school, work, or sports to really feel that.

The majority of the pictures are taken inside, if you'll notice. This is because I was 4 months pregnant with baby #3, so I didn't get outside much....doctors {and husbands} orders.

I can't wait for our 2009 ski adventure.

In the Beginning

Well, here it is. Our very first Youth Ministry Blog. Are you excited? Me too.
This will be a great way to get information, updates, and announcements to all of you regarding Jr. High & Sr. High Youth Ministry, as well as, Jr. High Religious Ed. I'll also post upcoming events, recaps from events we've participated in and pictures to document all the crazy times we'll have along the way! If you'd like for me to post something on the blog such as prayer requests, information, etc., just email me at hjeffcoat1@aol.com and I'll be sure to get that up on the blog for you.
God Bless!
And we're off....