Belvedere Sunday School Workshop

November 7, 2021

This past Sunday, Belvedere Sunday School had the privilege of hosting our first In-Person Sunday School Workshop at the Training Center. We invited children and parents from across the Tri-State Area, gathering 60+ participants and staff for a day full of activities, songs, dancing, and skits. This was very much a collaborative effort with a core team composed of parents from Belvedere (NY), Clifton (NJ) and Connecticut, with a special thank you to Pastor Mika the Pastor of the Connecticut family church and D1 Pastor.

The overall theme for the workshop was “True Love”, which coincided with True Children’s Day that was celebrated earlier that week. In order to involve the spirit of True Children’s Day, the Sunday School children, ages 11+, helped in creating our own offering table. Filled with fruits, snacks, and all types of yummy goodies!

We started off with an orientation led by Pastor Justin of the Belvedere Family Community. You could really feel the mixture of excitement and maybe some nervousness of the kids and the gratitude of the parents in the air.

Afterwards we had some time for crafts for the younger kids while the older ones helped to decorate the offering table.

After craft time the kids had a chance to learn a dance routine taught by our amazing instructor Eli Izumi! They also had plenty of outdoor play time. The bouncy castle was definitely a hit!

As noon approached the kids (and parents) started to get hungry. Luckily we had an amazing kitchen staff who worked hard preparing our delicious lunch.

After getting their physical food it was time to get some spiritual food through story time with Pastor Justin. He read to the kids the classic book the Giving Tree. After reading the kids were asked questions like who does the tree represent? They yelled out “God! Mom! True Parents!” It was really great to hear these kids think about love.

We were really lucky to have Pastor Mika there to lead us in our children’s day pledge service. The kids were so excited to get the snacks from the offering table. To give some internal guidance she read God’s Dream. And of course no holy day is complete without Og Mansei!

It was an incredible feeling being able to reconnect with old faces, as well as, offer an opportunity for young families to meet new families in a beautiful environment.

We ended the workshop with Sunday Service where Pastor Justin gave a sermon on the culture of heart and the kids showed an example of the culture of heart through their dance performance. 

The 7 – 10 year olds presented a fun dance filled with laughter and joy, and the 11+ year olds created a beautiful skit of the book “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. The cuteness of the children and their hard work really warmed the hearts of everyone in the audience. Overall it was a resounding success for our first full-day workshop.

As always, thank you for all of the community’s support and heart in our Belvedere Sunday School!

Click on photos below to see larger images in the gallery !

Don’t forget to check out the video on our sermon page [belvederefamily.com/sermons] (You can scroll to the end to see the kids perform!)