What an exciting few months this has been. I wanted to start this blog earlier to keep Blessed Sacrament up to date about Religious Education. Alas, my crazy schedule as prevented it until now. What have we been doing the past few months? Well let’s see. I was hired as the Director of Religious Education at Blessed Sacrament about mid July. Four Catechists and myself began this journey by training in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at that time.
The first training was the beginning of a conversion for me. I have to say that it was so up lifting and so inspiring I couldn’t wait to go back and get started. The process was going to be a difficult one. Our task was to open Level I, II, and III Atriums in 13 weeks. Of course a few weeks into it I found out this had NEVER been done before. But, in my usual way of taking on more than I can handle and having brief glimpses of actually having control of it, I began with an action plan.
First we were to identify the rooms for the Atrium at Blessed Sacrament. We thought this would be easy. Denver International School had just vacated the old Machbeuf High School building so we had loads of rooms to choose from. We met and agonized over the decision. Which rooms are the right size, which have water, which are closest to the bathrooms. My goodness, we put a lot of thought into this choice. We met no less than 2 times and finally decided on rooms 206, 209, and 211.
Now to prepare the rooms. They were painted all sorts of wild colors. We needed to get them toned down a bit. We had 2 painting days with loads of help from the Catechists, volunteers, and our family members. The paint color choice seemed easy. The night before we met with the Catechists, I had a vision of the rooms in blue. When I mentioned my vision Rica said, “the color of Mary”. That was it. The finished product is EXACTLY how I had seen it.
Now to outfit the rooms. Nicole made a beautiful bulletin board with all of our needs and wants. And we set out to find furniture. We were very blessed to find that Denver Public Schools had many items we needed at their storage warehouse and were willing to donate them all for FREE! Only one catch. WE had to get the furniture to the Atrium. That was a bit of a battle. I rented and drove the 24 ft boxed truck. hilarious! Those poor trees. We had help from our painters and a few others to load and unload the entire truck load. Lucky nobody lost any fingers or toes in the process.
We did get a few donations from Nicole’s board. Prayer cards, a rug, and a few pieces of art. Nicole and I hit up a couple of yard sales in Park Hill. We found some wonderful treasures including a sacristy candle and the maps table. I hit Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, and many other stores to pick up items that we needed for practical life. Between cutting coupons and visiting multiple stores to get a deal, I must have made at least a dozen trips to Hobby Lobby. All of the catechist were also on the lookout for needed items and art supplies. We also spent countless hours searching the internet for our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd materials and trying to piece together the best deal. It was all coming together.
So many people have given so much time and effort to get us here. I want to thank everyone for your help. We still have a long way to go. But, we have our beautiful space and we are prepared to listen to god with the children and serve then with a servant’s heart.
I just watched the DVD on the Atrium for the middle Children and I am re-inspired. I made a little Mary out of clay last night for the children. I hope they love it.
