Book Translated and Produced By Archangel and St Bishoy Coptic Orthodox Church, Sydney Australia

With the Blessings of His Grace , Bishop of the Diocese of Sydney and Afiliated Regions.

For more information please contact Tasony Sara, St Marks Festival Cup [email protected] Application Book

Year 1 and Year 2 APPLICATION FORM

Name

Church

Diocese

Phone

Servant Name

ACTIVITY FORM Name Church Diocese Phone Servant Name Sport

Activity All Stages Studies & Scouts: Special Needs Competition:

HG Bishop Research Moussa Competition: H E Metropolitan Bakhomios HG Bishop Macarios

HG BishopPaula Rafael Church HG Bishop HG BishopBettors and Coptic Tunes HymnsLanguage

Competition : competition:

HG

Daoud HG Bishop Tawadros Primary and Infant studies Under the Guidance of his Holiness Pope Shenouda III Visual &

HG Bishop

Daniel Performing Arts

Abram Abram Competition: HG Bishop Bishop HG HG Bishop HG Bishop Armia Bimen

competition: HG Bishop Morcos HG Bishop Cultural and sports sports and Cultural Martyros

Activities:

Church & Ecclesiastical competition: IT & Electronics Electronics & IT

Media and Engineering Introduction competition:

The Central Committee Introduction

We thank God for the eagerness of our children in joining us in the St Mark Festival Cup. This is due to God’s grace and the encouragement and support from H.H. Pope Shenouda the third, who especially rejoices with children’s services, in that it is the church of the future, “The church of the day after tomorrow”. Also on the keen supervision from fellow , each within his diocese and the blessed church fathers and servants in all their services.

The competition this year educates our children in spiritual, ecclesiastical and familial faithfulness, faithfulness in investing their gifts and success in relationships. This is evident in the children’s and the servant’s books utilising suitable stories, inventive teaching methods and practical applications. Through the supervision of His Grace Bishop Tawadrous and the committees preparing for this stage. May the Lord bless the works in his church with the prayers of our beloved father, Pope Shenouda the third.

God’s grace be with us all.

Anba Moussa General Bishop Children’s Vision

The Children’s Committee of the Festival Cup in the youth bish- opric presented its latest services in the competition, the ‘Chil- dren’s Vision’. Through presentation of artistic events at the 2009 Festival Cup for different childhood stages by staging puppet shows illustrating five stories for each stage.

1. A story of love - on God’s love to us through the annunciation, nativity, salvation and resurrection.

2. A story of prayer - Our Father, Holy, Holy, Holy, Introduction to The Creed and The Creed.

3. A story of invention - T.V., Computer, Internet, Mobile phone.

4. A story of service - The services of the sick, the widows, the orphans and the elderly.

5. A story of success - Nehemiah, Archdeacon Habib Girgis, Ibrahim El-Gouhary and St Shora the child.

This event was attended by almost 20,000 children from Cairo and Giza, over several performances, approximately 1000 child attended every session three times a day over six days. Also in the hall at the St Rewis Cathedral, three daily sessions in the form of various stage productions such as puppet shows, black stage presentations, plays and screening television productions were presented in a way that made the children overjoyed as they had participated in all the performances with the servants.

This service was fulfilled by many groups of servants from vary- ing places in .

We ask for your prayers that the Lord may help us in repeat- ing this vision once more with stories for every childhood stage through more amazing stage productions. A Word For The First Form of Faithfulness Your Ear

1. It is not just necessary to explain what “Faithfulness” is as such, but to memorise and under- stand it gradually through repetition from the stories so as to grasp its meaning. 2. The word ‘Molly’ is taken from the word moly, which means ‘candle’ in the Coptic language. 3. It is possible to explain to the children what a lantern is. It is a means of providing light at night, which was used at the time of our grandfathers. It resembles the oil lanterns used in church today, full of oil and placed in front of icons of .

Faithfulness of My Heart 1. The aim of this chapter is to have them pray on their own. We try and train the child to con- tinually pray for the sake of others in different places and situations that the child might be in, for instance: • The House – For my brothers and sisters, father, mother and all members of my family • Church: Pope, bishop, the priest of my church, the servants of my church, my friends and colleagues in church • My School: The teachers, students and cleaner • Outside: My neighbours and garbage man.

2. Beware not to promote to the child that what they pray for will happen. Rather concentrate on their prayer being from their hearts in all faithfulness. Therefore, God will certainly listen to his/her prayers and that is more important. Also stress on the necessity to continue praying and pleading to God.

3. The story of St Peter and the prayer of the congregation for his sake (Acts 1:12-17). - Also mention the first church (The Upper Room) - Herod Agripas, try to point out that he is a different Herod from the one we know in the days of our Lord Jesus. - James – brother of John son of Zebedee, who was the first to be martyred. - Guarded with four rows of four guards – illustrate to the child how fearful King Herod was of St Peter. This shows the importance of St Peter and the worry of King Herod. - Explain how St Peter after being thrown in jail, went into a deep sleep and didn’t awake until an angel poked his side (shows the inner peace and complete confidence in God, of the great St Peter).

The term diligently needs to be explained and illustrated to the child, as in it is continuous fervent prayer that comes from the heart.

4. Activity in Childrens Book: Organise a weekly program for the school holidays whereby you and the children you serve, pray everyday each week for a certain character from the stickers in their Festival Cup book. The child writes the date and marks if he/she has prayed for that character. The child with the most marks is given a prize.

1 Prayer From Practical Application: Prepare four candles of varying lengths A Young Age and light them in front of 1 the children.

Each candle defines a group of people. The first (longest) candle resembles the person who has been praying to the Lord Jesus since their childhood. So he has had plenty of time enjoying living with the Lord Jesus. The last (shortest) candle resembles someone of old age who remembered to pray to God at the end of their life, when they haven’t had as much time to enjoy life with the Lord as a child would ultimately enjoy it. And so on with the other candles.

Image of candles with different lengths

Youth Child Elder

Mature

Pope Shenouda requests from us as servants: “I want from every servant to ask him/herself three things”- FOR THE 1. The spirituality of his/her children in the service. SERVANTS 2. The spirituality of his/her own life. 3. The spirituality of his/her service.

2 Activity: Enlarge and print these images and The Most hand out to children so they can join in acting Gifted Artist out the story of St Peter and the congregation who prayed for him. 2

One of the Peter Disciples

Uncle Sirago

Rhoda

The Angel

The children in this stage want to know the reason behind the strength of the disciples and their authority in performing miracles. Help them to understand that the source of the power and the authority is the Lord Jesus Christ. “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, FOR to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of THE SERVANTS disease. Matthew 10:1”. The children will appreciate the meaning of the miracle and it’s mean- ing as proof of God’s glory and strength, and that the source of all good things in us is the Lord Jesus.

3 Assemble this cube and encourage the child The Cube to put it together. This would allow him/her to hang it near them so as to remind them of Stories of the story of St Peter and the congregation praying for him. 3

Memory Verses: “but constant

……………………………

………………………..”

Children of this stage enjoy learning from the Holy Bible, so do not add or delete any information from the script of the Bible... FOR THE SERVANTS

4 Our church teaches us prayer on behalf of oth- Pray For Me ers, as we have litanies of the sick, the travel- lers, the offerings and the meetings. Come with our church and let us pray 4 for one another. Enlarge this page and have the children colour in the characters whom are our brethren and need our prayers. They would then stick the verses, which Bend to show us the urgency and importance of prayer. They would then place the the back and final product in front of them so they can remember the urgency and impor- attach together. tance of prayer for others. 2 Thess 3: 1-5

Prayerfor the Bend sick Prayer this Prayer for the seg- travel- ment for lers under those the last who seg- ment and give their stick them money to together so as God to have 4 seg- ments only

1.Bend 2.Bend 3.Bend to the back to the back to the back and attach to- and attach and attach to- gether. John 15:7 together. Matthew gether. Matthew 7:7 21:22

This stage is fundamental in getting the child used to learning and achievement, and gaining self confidence that he is successful... Therefore get them used to taking on responsibilities and succeeding, with proper encouragement. FOR THE SERVANTS

5 Make two enlarged copies of this puzzle. Jig-Saw Puzzle Divide the class into two groups and have a competition between them. The group that puts the puzzle together first wins. 5

but con

tant prayer was offered to God by the church. for him Acts 12:5

In this stage the questions the children have increases dramatically and the child always needs to obtain clear answers. So when they ask, “why does God per FOR form miracles?” The best answer is that miracles declare the glory of God. THE SERVANTS

6 A Word For The Second Form of Your Ear Faithfulness

Faithfulness In My Church.

In this unit we talk about the mass and the faithfulness and zeal of the child in atten- dance in the following manner:

• Stress on the importance of waking up early to attend the mass. Also during the journey to church the child should recite the psalm “I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord”. • Do not go into details about the sections of the mass, the liturgy of the believers and catechumens. It is sufficient that the child understands that the mass begins at Vespers and therefore has to prepare for the mass from the day prior to it by: o Having peace with anyone upset from me o Sleeping early o Waking up early o Fasting from midnight (12am)

• We do not go into the segments of the mass, but we go through the proceedings and what our responsibilities and actions/responses we have during the mass. The aim is not just for knowledge, but in knowing how to live out these spiritual moments practically. • Concentrate on the mass starting from Vespers and matins. Preparing for the mass through these whilst praying and interceding for God’s blessing of the mass. Also mention to them the hymn of “Efnoty nay nan” and the reading of the gospels in each. • The candle and lighting it during the mass resembles to us that the Lord Christ is the light of the world. • Lighting the candle during the choosing of the Holy Body at the beginning of the mass, signifies the glory, beauty and the majesty of the sacrifice of the New Testa- ment, and this demonstrates to us that it is the light of our Lord Jesus that shines to us through the sacrifice. • Clarify to the child that the moment of the coming down of the Holy Spirit on the body and blood is one of the most important moments in the mass. • Stress the importance of silence during com- munion and what is the proper approach to take when going to communion. • Talk about the censor and incense and its im- portance in the mass and how everyone should respond when the priest is raising incense around the church.

7 Let the child write under each im- Faithfulness Is Not By Words, But By Action age how to be faithful in the pres- ence of these particular sections of the mass. 1

The children are in dire need to watch what is happening during the mass, as this helps to draw their attention till the end of prayers.Therefore try to seat them at the front of the church. FOR THE SERVANTS

8 My Behaviour During Enlarge these pictures and get Communion the child to colour them in and place them in correct order. 2

Reading Prayer before communion Receiving Receiving The Blood The Body

going to church early

Standing quietly

Making up with my friends before having communion

Placing Reading sheet on Praryer mouth Standing after after The in mass Communion Body

“The spiritual servant is spirit and not just a mind... not just a teacher, not just a bearer of informa- tion transferring it to others... but an immense spirit who has conversed with God, and experi enced life with Him and tasted how sweet the Lord is…. and wants to convey FOR this life to others...” (Pope Shenouda III) THE SERVANTS

9 On top of each picture there’s a The Incense In My Church sentence with parts of it being Is Important incorrect. Can you find and correct the sentence? 3

Abouna presents the incense in front Abouna presents the incense in the of the icons so the aroma of the whole altar and that’s because the deacons place is that of incense. are present in the altar.

Abouna presents the incense during the reading of the Agbia, in respect of it.

The child needs to feel loved and wanted from others surrounding him/her. Love is the child’s nour- ishment, provides him with confidence in himself. To satisfy this need there must be unconditional love to the child. Love for his/her person, not associated to his academic per FOR formance, behaviour, appearance or the extent of collaboration with THE others. This love should not stop no matter what he does. SERVANTS

10 Making The Enlarge and copy this image Censor of Incense twice for your child to make a censor. 4

Get the child to colour in the censor. Gather the bottom part which represents the stomach of the censor, then gather the top part and place a small cross on top as in the image. Both parts can be connected by four pieces of thread.

Final Image

We are not born outstanding servants, nor do we have a factory which produces outstanding servants. We are teachers who are learning to be better and FOR the best starting point is teaching what we have learnt....because he who THE SERVANTS lacks something cannot provide it.

11 A Word For The Third Form Your Ear of Faithfulness

Faithfulness In My Talents

1. In this unit we speak of faithfulness in talents, and since ‘talents’ is not a com- prehensible concept to a child at this stage Therefore we have to explain what a talent is by saying, “A talent is something God has given everyone of us , and we are very good at it, and God asks us to use it as best as we can and increase it so that it would grow. We can also use it for our benefit and for the benefit of serving others.

2. The child of this stage does not know his/her own talents or gifts, and they need your help to discover it. Talents are not just acting, drawing, music, but also sports and academic excellence, obeying parents, calligraphy and others.

3. Try to discover each child in your classes’ talent. Record it in your book next to his/her name and try to invest it and improve it so that they may be successful youth in the future.

4. Focus that by the end of the lesson, that every child has attempted every as- pect of life in all faithfulness to discover their own talent. He/she has a role to play at home, a role to play at school a role to play at church and a role to play in his/ her country. By knowing the role to be played in every situation in faithfulness, he/ she will be able to know what their talent which God has given them is.

5. We have taken the examples on the importance of the child undertaking all roles in faithfulness and that we all complete each other, “the story of the building of the ark of covenant and how each person had a role to play in making it”

6. The aim of the story is not that the child memorises it or learns how the ark of covenant was made but the concentra- tion should be completely on the fact that everyone had a different role to play and they all did it faithfully, therefore the work was completed.

7. Explain that playing sports is important and, but it has its time and place.

12 To discover your child’s talent in drawing, train him/ her to firstly copy some images that are divided into The Gifted Artist squares just like the image below, so as to copy the image exactly the same. Then train them to draw incidents from their own lives. 1

Discover your child’s talents and what they like (drawing, music, sports, reading, hymns etc...). Then facilitate him/her to exercise these talents by competing in FOR activities (Choir, learning hymns, craft etc…). Also provide them with the THE materials they need and offer a positive reaction regardless how simple SERVANTS the drawing is.

13 The Talent of Try to work out this code which Memorising will give you a verse. 2

Children of this age excel in that they love playing games that involve connecting num bers and words. Therefore prepare games out of the Holy Bible FOR which use words and numbers. THE SERVANTS

14 Divide your class into two teams, then Know Your Talent choose one team and ask them to choose the name of a talent from a list you have. 3

Then let each group ask a quoetion where the answer is either ‘yes’ or ‘no‘. If they anas- wer ‘no’ the other group has 10 points de- ducted from 100 points they began with. The winning group is the one with th emost points at the end. This way the children will get to identify different talents.

The importance of playing for a child- • process of growing • process compensation method • process of expressing • process of learning FOR • process of discovery THE Therefore the servant carrying out the activities needs to be SERVANTS • convinced and enthusiastic • inventive • reaching towards a goal • a good planner • a good leader • responsible

15 You Are Special And Distribute a rectangular paper, as in the Have A Role To Play image below, to each child in the class. 4

Let all the children write their name on it and anything they feel they are particularly good in (whether a special talent, having a role to play at home, school or church or in his/her neighbour- hood). They can draw or cut and paste images of that special talent. Then let them to write “The Lord made me special in....” and complete this sentence, then collect the papers and stick them on a large board so they always remember they are special and have a role to play.

Mina Anthony

Mariam

Mark Michael

George

Marina

Children of this stage love activities that are non-competitive. Therefore avoid winner-loser activities. FOR THE SERVANTS

16 A Word For The Fourth Form Your Ear Of Faithfulness

Faithfulness With My Family

1. The purpose of this unit is the child’s faithfulness with his/her family. Reinforce in the children how they should be active members within their family through role plays or stories of recurring situations within the family, (e.g. obeying parents, visiting family and relatives consistently, looking after the elderly within the family and grandpa and grandma too and the relationship between siblings...etc…)

2. The faithfulness Ruth had in her love for her mother in law is a good example of the faithfulness in the family.

3. Do not go into detail of the beginning of the story, as it is sad for the children (the death of Elimelech and then his two sons). Concen- trate on the details of the rest of the story on what Ruth did for her mother in law and the rewards she received for caring for her. Con- nect this to everyone who provides love and faithfulness within their family or to anyone.

4. Do not mention the relation between Boaz and Ruth (that he was her second husband); it is sufficient to tell the children that they were related.

5. You can give some facts about barley and how we make food from it through milling it and making it into bread. They may also know that the barley may be used just like wheat in making bread.

17 Enlarge this page and have the child bend it at the lines to make the family’s house. Figures can be A Model of my house made for mum, dad, brothers and sisters by mak- ing paper faces and bodies on an ice-cream stick, as in the image below. 1

Paste this part on the base

Paste Paste this this part part

Paste Paste this this part part Paste this part Paste this part

Paste this part Paste this part

Paste this part on the base Paste this part on the base Paste this part on the base

One of the most important elements in growing the zeal to help others in children is “en- couragement” which is considered the biggest driving force for doing any form of work. Some words of encouragement and praise drive the children to do more work whether personal or academic leading to a deep joy, which fills their heart, FOR especially if the praise is in front of family members or friends. THE SERVANTS From the beginning, it is strongly advised that family members avoid revealing the faults in the child’s performance, as consequently this will cause the child to cease all work and lean towards laziness.

18 Together let’s make an imitation of a family tree. Enlarge this page and get the child to stick on it the The Family Tree names of his/her family members. Then the child can place it near to remind him/her of them and their role towards them. 2

Name:

Date of Birth:

Place of Birth:

Names of Siblings:

Likes:

Interesting story about your family:

The first steps for the child in assisting his/her family may start at age six. This may come about by learning to make their own beds, pack their books, toys and clean the plate that they used etc... FOR There’s no need to mock or make fun of them, by comparing the duties THE SERVANTS of boys and girls. Your role is to encourage them to help their mother around the house.

19 Place The Pictures Enlarge this page and get the child to put the images in order In Order to complete the story of Ruth. 3

In this stage, the child may be proud of themselves or exaggerate. Accept what they say but gently explain to them that they are exaggerating and praise FOR their good behaviour. THE SERVANTS

20 The Faithful Person Enlarge this game. You will need dice and game chips to move around with. Start at Is Always A Winner the beginning and follow the instructions as you go. 4

17 Threw my food Advance Play 16 Go back 3 Spaces 1 with my 4 spaces friend 15 Advance 3 Spaces 18 Helped Mum 14 2 Visited sick people 19

13 Advance 3 2 Spaces 20

12 4 Talking on the I did phone for 1 hr tricks 21 Go back 4 Spaces on my friends 11 Go back 5 5 Spaces 22 10 6 23 9 7 8 TV too Loud Studying Advance Go Back 2 Spaces 3 Spaces

Do not expect the child to sit without moving around, for it is unrealistic and against their nature. But we have to teach them, to reduce their movements and noise level as our Lord Jesus is present with us and wants to hear our prayers. This will en- FOR sure lower noise levels and movements and they will get used to that, THE and gradually that will decrease. SERVANTS

21 A Word For The Fifth Form Of Your Ear Faithfulness

Faithfulness To Those Who Are Different From Me

1. The purpose of this unit is to teach the children how to behave with those who are different to them in any way (white, black, taller, shorter, on crutches, in a wheelchair, missing a limb/s etc…)

2. Avoid the use of the word “disabled” but rather “specially gifted”.

3. Children at this stage do not know how to react to people in this catego- ry and tend to avoid playing with them or befriending them. Try to explain to the children that the other specially gifted children are very much loved by our Lord as they are His creation. Therefore we must love them and help them if they need our help and must consider them like us and involve them in all that we do without fear in dealing with them.

4. Consider the story of and Mephibosheth as it is the most ideal example to serve this purpose. Consider the feelings in the story of Mephi- bosheth, how he watched his friends play and he was unable to play like them. And his feelings when David gave him a lot.

5. Notice that David did not do this because Mephibosheth was crippled, but as a form of faithfulness in his love to his friend Jonathan and his fam- ily, but we take that example from the Holy Bible to teach the kids that we should treat those who are different as normally as possible.

22 Make a copy of this image and allow the Make It Yourself child to stick it together to create a car. They would then present it to a friend with special needs if possible. 1

Final Image

Children of this stage love to play with others. Try to organise activities in which they can do this together. FOR THE SERVANTS

23 Help David find his way through Maze the maze to get to our friend Me- phibosheth so he can help him. 2

Children of this stage want to become older. For this reason, avoid using the term “little” but replace it with other descriptions such as clever, well-be FOR haved...etc. THE SERVANTS

24 Enlarge and display it to the children. Allow them to Who Does identify each character in them (e.g. thin, tall etc…). They can then stick a photo of themselves or write their Jesus Love? name on it, then ask them: “If the Lord Jesus loves these people, how would you react if you were with them?” 3

tall runs

short white black can’t run

Your Photo

Old Can’t Can See See

Baby

Children of this stage love non-competitive activities, therefore avoid win/lose activities and because FOR they tend to be selfish, teach them to think of others. THE SERVANTS

25 Get your child to match up the words and place Colour In and Learn The them in the correct order starting with the A col- umn and then the B column and so on. They do Verse of The Lesson this until they have completed the verse, written it , coloured it in and memorised it. 4

B A

(Luke 16:10) He who

also in in what

faithful is faithful

much in least is

Children of this stage have a very good memory, therefore teach them Biblical verses so as to utilise their memory in learning verses from the Holy Bible. Furthermore, you should always keep promises you have made to them as they FOR don’t forget these promises. THE SERVANTS

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