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As lower sixths (seventeen year olds), you may be mistaken for assuming we are all a mis-mash of angst-ridden teens, happiest in our beds. Perhaps that is true(!), but this month I'd like to tell you about an exciting little project some of my friends and I have embarked upon.
Last month during RE class, our teacher mentioned a programme called 'Faith Friends' that she would be running for six weeks during Lent, and instructed us to rustle up any of our peers who may be interested. Naturally, the prospect of escaping from school down to the local primary school in Carnlough for an hour every Thursday appealed to many of us, and word travelled quickly through the year-group - as someone reported to me, to join up as a 'friend for Mrs Haughey'! A Brave group of fifteen or so of us thereby trooped along to our preliminary meeting with Fr Fitzsimmons, and discovered we knew little of what we had really let ourselves in for! We sat nervously at the back of the lecture theatre awaiting the arrival of the P.7's whom we were told we would be 'befriending in faith', helping them to work towards their Confirmation. As the children filtered in I couldn't help reminiscing about myself in P.7, and how daunting the transition from primary school to 'big school' had been! An ice-breaker exercise soon put everyone at ease. We were told that each sixth former was to 'befriend' two P.7's-but we would have to work out our groups for ourselves! Everyone was handed a word relating to confirmation, and it was up to us to travel around the lecture theatre, chatting to the pupils to find out who held the corresponding words. Amidst shrieks of "It's wonder and AWE Matthew!' we found our faith friends-and were then given just five minutes to find out three unusual facts about each other. Soon everyone in the circle knew that Sinead was petrified of spiders, and that not even Ciara's mum could tell the difference between her and her twin sister sometimes! Fully acquainted, we moved on to the real focus of the programme; beginning to prepare these students for their confirmation. As the teacher explained, she remembered exactly what she wore and what she ate at her confirmation, but could recall nothing of the preparatory work with her class. She thereby wanted to make the next few months very special for her students, and was delighted that we had volunteered to give up an hour a week to help the children understand their faith on a more personal level. Each child had brought along a scrapbook. As this week marked the beginning of Lent, they had designed a page of unique little Lenten promises. Not your usual 'giving up sweets' stuff I might add. I was really touched to see my two faith friends had thought hard about the sacrifices they would make. I too, had to add a promise to my faith friends' pages, and I actually felt very honoured. For me, my faith is immensely important. I only hope my friends and I can help these children understand that, at 'big school', you will have so many opportunities to develop your faith. Confirmation is such an important stage in a child's life-I pray that I can help make it a very fulfilling and exciting experience for my faith friends. Bring on next week! Amy Mulvenna March 2006 |
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