Hello again! The new SJV blog will be launching next Monday! I already have several posts lined up, and I'm thinking that it will be 'easy' to update this blog daily (I'm questioning how true that will be once the school year starts rolling...).
If you want to have this blog sent directly to your email inbox, please contact me at sjvyouthministry@gmail.com and I will be sure to include you on my mailing list. Otherwise, add this page to your favorites and visit often!
Official launch date: Monday, September 1st!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Hello! Welcome! Let's get to know one another!
Hello all SJV Youth and anyone else who may be reading this blog!
This is your new youth ministry director, Molly, speaking, and I'm here to start some new forms of communication between youth and the SJV parish!
First, let's begin with some of my hopes for the year: I'm hoping for some great activities, trips, fellowship, service, and growth both spiritually and with the youth ministry program! Angie has set up an amazing program over the past 11 years (11 years!! that's almost unheard of in the youth ministry world!) - and I know I have some big shoes to fill. I'm hoping with your help and support that we can carry on the work that Angie has created/begun and to carry it forward!
This blog will help with coordinating events and getting the word out. I'll be listing dates on an online calendar (website TBD), and I'll be writing about upcoming and past events on this blog! Along with this - I'm hoping on posting some daily and/or weekly reflections on this blog to help us all to continually grow in our faith and beliefs...in this way, even if busy schedules are keeping someone from being able to attend events, he/she will still feel connected!
Now, I'd like to tell you all a bit about myself...
I was born in St. Cloud and moved to Fergus Falls when I was one month old. I was adopted by two amazing parents, and I have one older brother, who is also adopted. I could not have asked for a greater family, and it has really shown me how even through difficult experiences, God makes everything perfect as long as you trust in Him.
This is a picture of my family at Thanksgiving a few years ago...you can see my grandpa in the corner there :) and then left to right is: me, my mother, my brother and his wife, and my dad. As you can see by my dad's pose - he's quite the character. My parents are Pat and Norma, and until recently, we had two dogs - Gem and Shammi. 
Shammi was "my" dog, but unfortunately we had to 
put her to sleep this past summer at the old age of 16 years 11 months (in case you're not a dog person, that is super old, even for a small dog!) I'm more of a dog person, but I can handle most other pets too.
After high school, I went off to college at the University of Saint Thomas (here's a pic of some of the girls on my floor during freshman year). I spent 4 years there getting 3 degrees and one minor. They are: majors in Music-Business, Liturgical Music, and Theology as well as a minor in Electronic Music Production. My semesters were crazy and busy (taking 25 credits my final semester when 16 are the norm). I wish I had taken an extra year in order to space out my classes, but then again, college is expensive, and that last year would have been totally out of pocket (not so feasible). During my college career, I was a part of the Liturgical Choir, and I had so many amazing experiences being a part of that group. I was able to make many wonderful friends and meet several influential 
musicians - such as David Haas, Marty Haugen, and Fr. Michael Joncas (look in the back of a hymnal under the "By Composers Name" section...they all have about 4 times as many songs as the other composers - if not more!). I was also able to be the Liturgical Choir Manager as well as the Social Chair on our student leadership board. This was a great way to take responsibility within the choir as well as a great way to get to work more closely with my director, Rob Strusinski, who has been one of the most influential people in my life! (here's a picture of my choir and the chapel that I spent countless hours in - and that is not Rob directing, it was our interim director - Ann Schrooten)
I graduated in the spring of 2007, and in October 2007 I began working for the Diocese of Saint Cloud as an Office of Development Secretary.
Two months later, I went to Italy for 10 days over Christmas with the UST Liturgical Choir. The trip was absolutely amazing, and I would go back in a heartbeat! (here is a pic from our time in Pisa! sadly, I don't have any good pictures from within churches for a variety of reasons...and did I mention - we sang at the midnight mass with the Pope on Christmas Eve! we were directly behind the alter!! AMAZING!!)
I knew that God wasn't calling me to be a secretary for the church, my gifts were not to be holed up in an office doing data entry, so after a lot of wrestling with God, I put in my apartment notice to move out at the end of August - no job, no idea what God would do in my life, but only the knowledge that God was calling me to move, and I knew it would be quick. As I wrote in my facebook status at the end of June: I was taking a "huge leap of faith, and hoping that a net appears".
Amazingly, three very sturdy nets appeared! Within a week of each other, I had an offer from New Ulm, Fairmont, and a strong prospect of moving to my hometown of Fergus Falls to take over the Religious Ed program and some youth ministry. When you listen to God's will - He delivers! Now I just needed to figure out which position He was calling me to. All along (before I even thought I would) I felt a deep connection with Fairmont, but I wanted to be certain to listen to God's will. After a week and a half of prayer (and after causing a mild heart attack for Fr. Kevin (I'm guessing - after a call to say I was still discerning my decision)) I knew that I would be coming to Fairmont to take over the Youth Ministry program that Angie had developed.
With that - I would like to thank you for checking out the new SJV Youth Ministry BLOG! I hope to see you back here again soon - and please, take some time to stop by my office before September! I'd love to meet as many of you as possible before we begin with the school year activities!! And with a final note: "Yea God" and God Bless!!
This is your new youth ministry director, Molly, speaking, and I'm here to start some new forms of communication between youth and the SJV parish!
First, let's begin with some of my hopes for the year: I'm hoping for some great activities, trips, fellowship, service, and growth both spiritually and with the youth ministry program! Angie has set up an amazing program over the past 11 years (11 years!! that's almost unheard of in the youth ministry world!) - and I know I have some big shoes to fill. I'm hoping with your help and support that we can carry on the work that Angie has created/begun and to carry it forward!
This blog will help with coordinating events and getting the word out. I'll be listing dates on an online calendar (website TBD), and I'll be writing about upcoming and past events on this blog! Along with this - I'm hoping on posting some daily and/or weekly reflections on this blog to help us all to continually grow in our faith and beliefs...in this way, even if busy schedules are keeping someone from being able to attend events, he/she will still feel connected!
Now, I'd like to tell you all a bit about myself...
I was born in St. Cloud and moved to Fergus Falls when I was one month old. I was adopted by two amazing parents, and I have one older brother, who is also adopted. I could not have asked for a greater family, and it has really shown me how even through difficult experiences, God makes everything perfect as long as you trust in Him.
This is a picture of my family at Thanksgiving a few years ago...you can see my grandpa in the corner there :) and then left to right is: me, my mother, my brother and his wife, and my dad. As you can see by my dad's pose - he's quite the character. My parents are Pat and Norma, and until recently, we had two dogs - Gem and Shammi. 
Shammi was "my" dog, but unfortunately we had to 
put her to sleep this past summer at the old age of 16 years 11 months (in case you're not a dog person, that is super old, even for a small dog!) I'm more of a dog person, but I can handle most other pets too.
During high school, I participated in tons of extracurriculars - band, choir, tennis, pep band, marching band, youth group, speech, NHS, softball manager, and some more I'm sure I'm already forgetting at this 'young' age (I'm sure some of you will say I'm "old"). I kept busy, and I even held a part-time job at Target (can I just say how sad I am that I need to drive an hour from Fairmont to get my Target fix?). I had a ton of fun in high school, and those are the years that my faith really developed and became my own faith and not the one that my parent's and teacher's had taught me. God became real in my life and not just an obligation I had on Sundays...and that is when I began to really consider working for the church. Besides this, I was able to experience numerous
trips - mission trips to Chicago, sailing trips to the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, ski trips to Duluth and Lutsen Mountain, a national youth convention in Florida, and more. These trips really challenged and grew my faith as well as my own personal "boundaries" (what I thought I could handle compared to what I could actually handle). ((the top pic is from my senior year tennis banquet - that's the three captains - left to right: me, Leslie, and Kristina; and the next pic is my youth group attempting to make a pyramid while on a mission trip to Chicago)
After high school, I went off to college at the University of Saint Thomas (here's a pic of some of the girls on my floor during freshman year). I spent 4 years there getting 3 degrees and one minor. They are: majors in Music-Business, Liturgical Music, and Theology as well as a minor in Electronic Music Production. My semesters were crazy and busy (taking 25 credits my final semester when 16 are the norm). I wish I had taken an extra year in order to space out my classes, but then again, college is expensive, and that last year would have been totally out of pocket (not so feasible). During my college career, I was a part of the Liturgical Choir, and I had so many amazing experiences being a part of that group. I was able to make many wonderful friends and meet several influential 
musicians - such as David Haas, Marty Haugen, and Fr. Michael Joncas (look in the back of a hymnal under the "By Composers Name" section...they all have about 4 times as many songs as the other composers - if not more!). I was also able to be the Liturgical Choir Manager as well as the Social Chair on our student leadership board. This was a great way to take responsibility within the choir as well as a great way to get to work more closely with my director, Rob Strusinski, who has been one of the most influential people in my life! (here's a picture of my choir and the chapel that I spent countless hours in - and that is not Rob directing, it was our interim director - Ann Schrooten)
I graduated in the spring of 2007, and in October 2007 I began working for the Diocese of Saint Cloud as an Office of Development Secretary. Two months later, I went to Italy for 10 days over Christmas with the UST Liturgical Choir. The trip was absolutely amazing, and I would go back in a heartbeat! (here is a pic from our time in Pisa! sadly, I don't have any good pictures from within churches for a variety of reasons...and did I mention - we sang at the midnight mass with the Pope on Christmas Eve! we were directly behind the alter!! AMAZING!!)
I knew that God wasn't calling me to be a secretary for the church, my gifts were not to be holed up in an office doing data entry, so after a lot of wrestling with God, I put in my apartment notice to move out at the end of August - no job, no idea what God would do in my life, but only the knowledge that God was calling me to move, and I knew it would be quick. As I wrote in my facebook status at the end of June: I was taking a "huge leap of faith, and hoping that a net appears".
Amazingly, three very sturdy nets appeared! Within a week of each other, I had an offer from New Ulm, Fairmont, and a strong prospect of moving to my hometown of Fergus Falls to take over the Religious Ed program and some youth ministry. When you listen to God's will - He delivers! Now I just needed to figure out which position He was calling me to. All along (before I even thought I would) I felt a deep connection with Fairmont, but I wanted to be certain to listen to God's will. After a week and a half of prayer (and after causing a mild heart attack for Fr. Kevin (I'm guessing - after a call to say I was still discerning my decision)) I knew that I would be coming to Fairmont to take over the Youth Ministry program that Angie had developed.With that - I would like to thank you for checking out the new SJV Youth Ministry BLOG! I hope to see you back here again soon - and please, take some time to stop by my office before September! I'd love to meet as many of you as possible before we begin with the school year activities!! And with a final note: "Yea God" and God Bless!!