Dear Friends,

A parish is more than just a place to worship God on Sundays. It is a community of believers who pray, work, socialize, support, and grow in charity together. In other words, a parish is a way of life that addresses the needs of the total person.

Jesus did not go about from place to place just teaching people how to worship God. He came to heal, to mend relationships, and to engage people in loving concern for others. In short, he came to completely change people's lives.

Therefore, as disciples of the Lord, we are called to this same way of life. In other words, we are called to be a community of love. To do this, we must engage in fellowship and prayer. That is why a parish strives to offer social, educational, cultural, spiritual, and service related events. We also try to have just plain 'ole fun. When we work together, support one another, play together and pray together we build up the body of Christ and become what it is that God wants us to be.

To that end, we are always looking to grow and expand our activities as a parish. In a couple of weeks, we will be offering Vacation Bible School for our parish children. It is not so much a baby-sitting service as it is an opportunity for the children to meet new friends, have a little recreation, and learn about God at the same time. The interaction between the children helps them to learn what it means to follow Christ's command to "love one another."

Another activity that we are working on is some type of parish festival. Ultimately, we want to create an event that helps us to get together as an entire parish family and celebrate our unity and identity as members of the family of God. We are putting together a committee to develop this parish family celebration.

In just a few weeks, we will be celebrating our parish's feast day, the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. The date is June 24th at 6:00 p.m., and we will again have a Mass and Dinner at the church. Save the date so that you can join us!

Recently, we had the parish's first Easter Egg Hunt, and despite the rainy weather, it was a tremendous hit! It was good to see families chatting, laughing and having fun.

Hopefully, we will provide some educational activities for adults as well. We never stop learning about our Faith. God is infinite mystery and therefore we can never say we know everything there is to know about God.

We are always open to new ideas to improve the life of the parish. If you have any ideas, please do not hesitate to bring them up. There are many ways in which we can develop our communal life so that we become more of a loving, caring, praying, and united family of faith! God bless!

 Fr. Paul