Today, August 6 is the Solemnity of the Transfiguration of the Lord and August 8 is the feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. You can listen to a hymn called ‘God’s Will for Me,’ about St Mary of the Cross HERE: It reminds us that God has a plan for all of us, even if it is not immediately clear. I would like to commend you to the intercession of St Mary of the Cross who reminds us that we can find joy in life when things go well and an equal joy when things go wrong because we can see God’s will in everything and each experience is an opportunity to be closer to God.
You are all welcome to join the local parish for a Livestream mass on Sundays at 5pm from Youtube at ICAST Immaculate Conception & St Therese, Facebook on the St Therese West Wollongong page or the Parish Website. Thanks to Fr Duane for providing this service and for those who are assisting him to help us remain as a community while we are all separated.
Edmund Rice Education Beyond Borders
This week a small group of students including Michael Piela, Mustaqeem Turi, Jack Cesare, Nathanael Shaw, Matthew Armitage, Marcus Stevanovski, William Hall and Stirling Roper had the opportunity to meet the Principal, Br Paul Mendy, and students from St Ambrose Secondary in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as part of the EREBB Global Classrooms project. It was our first meeting in the partnership and we are going to explore what it means to be sustainable in our very different contexts. This is some of what the students had to say:
The video conference with students from St Ambrose in Sierra Leone was significant as it gave us a diverse perspective and understanding of similar sustainability issues which is greatly significant in solving global problems . Through our meeting with Sierra Leone, we learnt about the difference between our cultures and the differences in our learning including the languages we speak and the subjects we learn, as well as the sustainability issues that are most important to both of us. The students from Sierra Leone taught us about the importance of preventing the use of pesticides that damage the environment and let us know about the ways it’s affected their local communities. I’m planning to commit to the various goals we made in discussion with the Sierra Leone school to work towards our common goal of sustainable futures, and we’ll be meeting with them again very soon to report on our progress. (Mustaqeem, Nathanael & Marcus)
Liberating Education Challenge
One way of showing your resilience and determination is to earn your Liberating Education Badge while we are Off-Campus. To meet the requirements for this badge, all you have to do is participate in all of the Challenges. You can get the details on Edmund X and see the progress of students who are participating (I should have a video of the latest trickshots by the end of this week!)
From next Monday – all students who enter any challenge in a particular week will also go into the draw to win a $50 JBHiFi voucher. So – get busy and show us what you’ve been up to!!
There are FIVE aspects – and you can do them in any order. It’s never too late to start!
- Be Active: Using a fitness tracker on your phone, Fitbit or smartwatch OR the form you can find on Edmund X – get 30,000 steps or 3 hours of activity in one week (it can be any week in Term 3!)
- Be Creative: Express yourself in an artistic pursuit or develop a skill: Think Music, Art, Reading, Poetry, Lego, Chess…
- Be Kind: Complete the equivalent of 5 hours of CSL: fundraising, helping out at home, cleaning up your neighbourhood; participating in an advocacy campaign
- Be a Learner: Show up and participate in your classes while we are learning Off-Campus.
- Be a Legend! Trick shots, bottle flips. We will issue the challenge – you will rise up!!
Mrs Hurley
Director of Identity