On 19 November 2017, CRI for young juniors was held in Mary Immaculate School Panjim.The CRI President Fr. Paul Alvares, asked Sr. Agatha if we could organise the one day annual seminar for junior religious in Goa since we are good in dealing with the youngsters. We took up the challenge and organised the programme asking Fr. Bernadino Almeida to speak to the juniors on “The relevance of religious today”. 87 junior sisters and brothers of different Congregations were present for the day of animation.
At 9.am the Eucharist was celebrated by Fr. Paul Alvares and Fr. Bernadino Almeida SDB con-celebrated. Soon after the Eucharist we divided them into different groups based on the symbols of animals in the bible. As they got into the groups, one of the members had to come forward and say any two instances of that particular animal given to the group. After introducing each other in the group, they had first session by Fr. Bernadino. After the tea break they were given few important questions to discuss in groups.
The five of us – Sr. Agatha, Sr. Elizabeth Sr. Teotonia, , Sr. Rebecca and Sr. Shobhna then took over for the afternoon session. We did it in our own Salesian style beginning once again with an action song “I’m Alive, Alert, Awake, Enthusiastic”. They woke up to the afternoon session of Biblical games – guessing the incidents of the Old and New Testament put up on the screen. Each group was up to make sure they guessed right. The guesses on the screen were interspersed with jumbled words given to them, word search, puzzles, picture guesses etc. It was amusing to see them rush to give in their papers first since they had group points put up on the score board.
Sr. Elizabeth was at the microphone giving instructions etc, Sr. Teotonia was busy at the score board while Sr. Rebecca and Sr. Shobhna were busy distributing and collecting papers and finally marking them.The evaluation of the group was very positive and they appreciated all that was done to keep them alive and increase their knowledge of the Scriptures.
We concluded the programme distributing prizes in our own original style – rosaries for those who were first, finger rosaries for the second and key chains for the third group.We wound up at 3.45 p.m. with the CRI President thanking us for the well organised day.