CHRISTMAS PLAY — Christ Church, Cranbrook's Sunday school class entertained the congregation with their play, "A Christmas Carolling."

Christ Church, Cranbrook's Sunday school class entertained the congregation with their play, "A Christmas Carolling." The story involves a group of Christmas carolers trying to find the true spirit of Christmas while raising money for the homeless. The carolers knock on beautifully decorated doors, thinking that they represent the Christmas spirit only to have the doors slammed in their faces. Feeling frustrated and downcast, they are visited by angels who explain that the Christmas spirit isn't found in decorations or snow or even presents, and steer them to a plain undecorated door. A jolly priest who is caring for a group of orphans answers this door, and he helps them to understand that they carry the Christmas spirit within them.

The church's youth group (the "Triple C Kids") provided the story line and ideas. During several youth group meetings, they improvised the play to fine-tune it. Those ideas were fashioned into a script, and the Triple C Kids and Sunday school spent a number of weeks rehearsing lines, painting doors, and fashioning elaborate wreaths to decorate those doors. They also cut out dozens of paper snowflakes so that the angels could create the miracle of a snowfall to the delight of the congregation.

For costumes, the cast wore toques and scarves made for them by members of the congregation. After the pageant, the kids modeled them for the congregation. They were auctioned off after the service. Over $200.00 was raised to fill the church's emergency food cupboard, which serves needy members of the community. This too, was the brainchild of the youth group.

What wonderful things happen when we allow the imagination of our young people to take wing!

Parish of St. Saviour's, Nelson
photo beth woodbridge

Parish of St. Margaret's, Peachland
photo frank warburton

Young Sojourners' Weekend at Sorrento Centre
May 8-10, 2009 — Danger Zone!

by Melissa Green

Want to experience what happens when youth join together for a weekend at Sorrento Centre? Want to experience a unique level of community? Want to have fun and enjoy each other's company? Well, we hope you will join us May 8-10th, 2009 for the Young Sojourners' Weekend, an experience you will remember for years! It's a weekend for youth and young adults aged 14 to 25, a weekend to join together for challenge, work, music, and play.

You will not only join a large group of youth and young adults but also join Rev. Dan Hines and the British Columbia and Yukon Anglican Youth Movement's Leadership Team. We'll put on our hard hats and work boots and complete a few work projects around the site. We will need our safety gear for the work projects we complete and also as we enter one of the most dangerous places together, a place where we are at serious risk. That place is the gospels and the presence of Jesus! As C. S. Lewis said when he wrote about Jesus being safe: "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."

We will get to know one another through many games, worship and prayer, and conversation. As we experienced last year, even the work is fun, "the group I was in moved logs. I've never moved that many logs and never thought it could be so much fun!" Who knows what we'll get to do this year.

This weekend is by donation; we will stay in the cabanas on the Sorrento Centre site and enjoy lots of fabulous food. We hope you will come and experience this fabulous weekend with us.

For a registration form, or for more information, please contact Sorrento Centre at: 1-866-694-2409 or info@sorrento-centre.bc.ca.