In the spring of 2005,  a Friendship Group was formed to provide faith and fellowship for individuals with special needs.   With the hope of having at least 10 Friends gather together, we ended up with 14 Friends from surrounding communities joining us at the start. Presently, we now have 23 Friends that join together for music, bible time and crafts!  This has become a big hit and is always an evening of excitement!!  Believe me, if your energy level happens to be on the low side when the evening starts, it is definitely on the high side when you leave!!!

We run our sessions at 8-10 week intervals, one being in the spring and the other for the fall session, carrying us into Christmas season.  This spring, we  introduced puppets into our program and that in itself has been a great asset. We are hoping to involve the puppets more into our program as time goes on.  Our friends really relate to the puppets and ask for them on a weekly basis. 

We are presently working on our third Christmas Pageant and that is an extremely exciting time for all our Friends who come.  Our Friends really don’t care if they have something to actually say in the program, just that they get to be part of it and dress in a costume of an Angel, Shepherd, Wise Man, etc.  They hold their heads proudly and sing as loud as they can!!  The best response to the pageant I heard was from a parent who told me that they never thought there would come a day that they would be able to see their child, who has special needs, be in a Christmas Pageant and couldn’t be more prouder!  Our Christmas Pageant is open to the public and last year we had over 100 people attend our program, even though it was storming!  I couldn’t imagine how many would of attended if it wasn’t storming!  In fact, people are talking about coming earlier this year to get a good seat before they run out!

Friendship Group is held out of the basement of our church, Grace St. John’s in Carman, MB.  Even though this program started out as a personal mission, it was welcomed with open arms from our church and is now an Outreach Program.

If you would like more info on our group or would like to attend our Christmas Pageant, please contact me, but be prepared for an invitation to come and join us for an evening!

BLESSINGS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES ON THIS WONDERFUL AND JOYFUL CHRISTMAS SEASON!

Val Olson                               A Journey to Bethlehem
Co-ordinator                          Monday, Dec. 10th
(204) 745.2101                       7:30 p.m. @ Grace St. John’s
                                                Church, Carman, MB