St. John the Baptist Romanian Orthodox Church has a new auxiliary organization. Our new youth group, established in 2001, just a few weeks before the consecration of our new church, was accepted in August 2002 in Cleveland Ohio as part of our national youth organization, under guidance of our Romanian Orthodox Episcopate, called AZ-ROY.

       The new orthodox group here in Arizona is trying to promote the unity among the youth in the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate and also to support the priest and the parish council in the religious and cultural activities around the church.

       The church intends to help them grow together into orthodoxy and friendship and to look into the future with a positive attitude and with our Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts.

Sunday School

     When parents brought their children and tiny babies to Jesus to touch them, His disciples try to stop them but Jesus called for them saying: "Let the little children come to me. Don't stop them. The Kingdom of God belongs to people like these children." He took the children in His arms and blessed them emphasizing the importance of introducing the children to the Life of Church and Church's Christian teaching.

     In today's society there are a lot of books giving parents advises on how to raise their children, how to maximize their intelligence, creativity and how to improve their self-esteem, but not enough books to improve children spiritual development in their way to become good Orthodox Christians.

     Our church by supporting and organizing Sunday School is trying to give guidance, preserve some of Romanian traditions from old country, teach children prayers and some basics of Orthodox religion.

     We are trying to pass our faith tradition on to younger people but there is a lot of need to teach parents how to practice their beliefs so that their children can follow in their footsteps.

     All of us are still remembering the bad story from California a few years ago when Mendes Brothers killed their own parents to take their money and their expensive cars. Another bad story happened last year in Littleton, Colorado when 2 young students killed a large number of classmates and one teacher. Those brutal killings could been prevented?? The answer is YES. Their parents and their social group failed to teach them the 10 COMMANDMENTS, the great word of LOVE which should be in the heart of every Christian and they paid a high price for their failure. 

     Many parents are indifferent to the moral and religious training of their children. St. John Chrisostom writes: "Do you complain that your son is unmanageable? You could easily have corrected him while he was yet a child; you could have accustomed him to order, to study, to consistency in his duties, you could have treated the weaknesses of his soul. When the ground of his heart was still suitable for cultivation, you should have uprooted the thorns, before they were firmly rooted. Because of your negligence, your child's passions will now be very difficult to overcome?"

     In today's society children are having easy access to a lot of information via TV, computer, Internet, etc. Their lives is affected by the high speed information society and part of their personality is shaped by their robotic-electronic daily touch. Some are positive but a lot of electronics games are promoting violence and other negative habits. Church and the Sunday School are becoming more important today to counterbalance with positive teaching, with love and forgiveness, with faith and love, with discipline and hard work and with all Christian teachings that is making a child to become real well balanced person.

     Compiled by Rev. Fr. Virgil Suciu

SUNDAY SCHOOL AND AZ-ROY REPORT

      The year 2001 was a good one for our Romanian Orthodox Community in Arizona. With GOD help we built a nice new Church, which was consecrated in August by His Eminence Archbishop Nathaniel.

     In the same year we were able to establish first Orthodox Youth group called AZ-ROY.

     The number of children attending church services and Sunday School increased considerable. Santa Claus was generous this year thanks to Mr. John Matei who sponsored financially our youth.

     Between new born and the age of 25 we have more than 90 teenagers and children. The number is great, but our hard work is to keep them around our church in the future and provide them with their spiritual needs.

The Apostle Paul reminds us that our citizenship is in the heaven (Philippians 3:20), but the fact remains that in this corrupt world we must spend all the days of our mortal lives, and here we must raise our children (i Corinthians 5:10). There is no denying that steering youngsters safely through adolescence and into a Orthodox Christian adulthood is more difficult than in the past. The corrupting influence of movies, television and entertainment industry is very visible.

To be able to achieve this goal our entire church attention and priority should be focused on our children. All 3 priests, preoteasa and every single member of parish council should focused their energy in keeping these children around our church. Do you want that this new and beautiful church to be only for yourselves or do you want your children and your children’s children to enjoy and have a spiritual life in the same church? If your answer is positive, then, besides the priests, all council members need to get involved and to do some adjustments now, that will affect the future of our church 10-20 years down the road. A 30% in English in every services will be appropriate to make them feel comfortable, in my opinion.

     Promoting our cultural traditions, like dance practices, are important for our children, but promoting their spiritual grows is the more important than anything else, and our attention and parents attention should be focused in that direction.

     We need teachers to be able to select and divide them according to their age and give them proper religious education. There is a possibility to start with them a future church choir.

    Yours in Christ,
    Rev. Fr. Virgil Suciu
    Sunday School Director,
    Phoenix, AZ, February 2002.

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