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Amy Barber Queen of Peace Catholic Community Gainesville FL 32607 352-332-6279 Cell 352-275-1770
 * Middle School Youth Group-Lead by the Spirit and taught through Technology**

In my mind's eye, my well laid plans for a fabulous new year of Pathfinders Middle School Youth Group would incorpate tons of new technology that would help the students I work with grow in knowledge and faith. Youth Group was going to be a Catholic version of all the cool technologies that the students are used to using in their everyday life. We would text prayers and share through our new Ning Pathfinders website. Boy, things were going to very different from last year! And that last part is true...but my well laid plans changed. The Holy Spirit had other plans that never even entered my mind. My prayer for this school year was one I learned from my Pastor, Father McGowan. He ways to always pray that even though I use my words, please let the people I speak to hear the message God needs them to hear.

My prayer was answered!

We started our new school year with my project ideas. I am new to being the middle school youth group leader-and like many new teachers-had very grandiose ideas. We started with Pope John Paul's call to share the good news on the digital continent. So I asked them how they would do that. We blessed their cell phones and computers. The students looked at me like I was crazy. What did I mean, merging the technology of the secular world with the "church" world? To them, I was talking non-sense. Why would you ever combine those two things?

Each week we sent a Constant Contact Message to each family reminding them to come to Youth Group this week as well as a teaser on the week's topic. The kids like the different theme each week and enjoy seeing something a little more polished then a plan e-mail.

Before our meetings started in September, I e-mailed and agreed upon dates to share information with our sister church, Our Lady of Good Success in Brazil. We were going to illustrate to the two youth groups (Queen of Peace and Our Lady of Good Success) how the Catholic Church is Universal. If you went to a country, even if you didn't speak the language, you still could participate in liturgy because you already know what they are saying. Our first introduction to each other was through digital stories, My students made two movies using Animoto and Windows Movie Maker. One made by the 6th graders and the second by the 7th and 8th graders. The students highlighted the things about Queen of Peace that meant the most to them. It was amazing to see the things that they chose to show. They chose music that was created by the musicians from our parish. They focused on the people in the parish, spending time together in both worship and socially. When the kids were ready to share what they created, the movies were posted on YouTube and the URLs shared with OLGS.

Then we waited. The kids were so excited when the students at OLGS sent a movie back. Their movie was about their novena with music, parading through the streets of the town and finally to the church were they had Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. My students didn't recognize what that was. The Holy Spirit was on the move. So as our friends in Brazil did, we did! Father Ligeza (our Parochial Vicar) met us in our chapel two weeks later and explained what we were going to do. He lovingly taught 47 middle schoolers about Exposition and Adoration. We sat in beautiful silence. That, for anyone who deals with Middle School students knows, can be very difficult to achieve. Father then led the children in praying one decade of the rosary. He used the Fifth Luminous Mystery-THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST. That led the kids to ask if the rosary was the same in different countries.Oh the Holy Spirit was hard at work leading the students. So back to YouTube we went to find how many different languages we could find of people saying the Hail Mary. The following meeting we found that the Hail Mary could be said in 12 different languages by our students, teachers and volunteers alone! The teachers made a PowerPoint presentation showing all the different places in the Bible that the prayer "Hail Mary" came from. We were also able to talk about why we pray to Mary and how she can intercede for us. As there is not a large Catholic population in our area, the conversation progressed to how to answer important questions like what do I say to people who aren't Catholic who say they don't pray to anyone but God. So why do Catholics pray to Mary? After the students practiced through role playing they felt more confident and were able to answer that very question. With each passing week our students were forming a strong sense of Catholic Identity.

We used Twitter as the basis for prayer. I asked the students how many times they texted their friends in a day and how many times did they talk to God that same day. We made a "Twitter Feed" from a foam board, blue paper and the Twitter Bird logo downloaded from Google Images. We laminated the boards so we could move things around. Each student received a 3x5 note card to make up a Twitter name and write a short prayer using only 140 characters, just like a Tweet. All the prayers were then posted to the board. We made a second board for people who were ill. We used both boards to help the students focus when they went to Adoration. They have been part of our meetings ever since then. The students have continued to update the boards as people get better or need more prayer. The Holy Spirit stirred their hearts again.

For All Saints Day we sent a Constant Contact message asking each child to Google a saint and tell us one interesting fact about that saint. A lot of students found a saint that shares their name, others searched by what the saint was the patron of. The students who didn't have a saint in mind were able to use our computer or iPad to search for one. After a few student questions, we were searching for all kinds of Patron Saints the children felt they needed. "Who is the patron saint of students?" "Who should I ask for help from when I have a broken bone?" The questions came fast and furious and gratefully so did the answers. We have a Wi-Fi set up in our teen center and a laptop that connects to an overhead projector and theater system so one computer was all we needed. We found paintings and icons of the various saints. They were so excited that they were late being dismissed. They kept saying, "Just one More" and "I really need to know...".

Through all the lesson plans and wonderful teachers- our youth group began to really form a small group of Catholics sharing their experiences. They have bonded by sharing photos and videos on a NIng website that was set up for them. They are sharing thoughts and questions about their faith. We have a new weekly blog set up especially written for middle school students. At first they didn't read it. Slowly the traffic increased and we even have a few posts in response to the blog.

We had several weeks when we were planning to Skype with the students in Brazil but there were some difficulties. The long and short is it never happened. You know sometimes God just has other plans. So when we thought that this would be the week we would be Skyping with the other kids in Brazil and then it didn't happen, you have to always have a back up plan. Another week, we had problems with our systems and the final attempt we were just not able to connect with each other. I don't really know the problem was. In the past, I taught music in a school setting and so always was prepared with a "plan B". I always had a topic of conversation that was based on a current and/or popular technology. One example was we talked about how on Twitter you can "follow" someone. Well, how about how Jesus really wants us to follow Him. How does someone who follows Jesus act" What kind of things do they post? What kind of video games do they play or music do they listen to? The Spirit again led our conversations.

So in the end, I did meet my objectives of the students learning about the Universal Nature of the Church. We have more than the Liturgy in common. The Spirit moved and they participated in Adoration learned about and practiced saying the prayers the Rosary, just as it is done allover the world. They learned and practiced saying the prayers that are changing with the new Roman Missal. We even made t-shirts with the new words to the Nicene Creed in the shape of the Celtic cross on Taxedo. The kids thought that any shirt that has the word "consubstantial" on it can't be all bad. They are becoming Good Digital Disciples by using technology to make the world a better place and share goodness and kindness.