Happening in the Diocese of Missouri:

    When Jonelle Joyner, the Happening Coordinator for the Diocese of Missouri, was 15 years old, she made her Happening in the Diocese of Northwest Pennsylvania, where she grew up.  She was then on staff for two later events.  The experiences from those events are a foundation for Jonelle's life and faith.  Now a mother of three and a member of St. Timothy's in Creve Coeur, Jonelle feels very strongly that the youth of Missouri would benefit from experiencing Happening and getting an opportunity to learn more about their relationship with God, their faith and their church.  So, because of that, she has volunteered to head-up the upstart of the program.

    Jonelle has been working with the Happening group in the Diocese of West Missouri to get Happening started here at home.  In order to get our own program started, we need to have a strong group of both youth and adults, all with Happening experience, to staff our event.  So, to do that, the West Missouri group has been generous enough to open up their program up to us.  A group from here attended two of their events, one in March '07 and one in October '07.

    Happening #55 was held on March 9-11, 2007 at Grace Church in Carthage, Missouri.  Jonelle took 4 youth to attend that event.  This was the first group from the Diocese of Missouri to attend Happening and 3 of the youth would go on to be on staff at Happening #56 in October.  Go to Happening #55 page.

    On October 12-14, 2007, a group of 6 adults and 10 youth from around the Diocese of Missouri travelled to the Church of the Good Shepherd in Kansas City, a church in the Diocese of West Missouri, for their Happening #56 weekend.  Go to Happening #56 page.  It was a wonderful experience and we are excited about and looking forward to hosting our first Happening here at home.

    On March 7-8, 2008 at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Creve Coeur, we held Happening #1 and it was a lot of fun and a huge success!  It took a long time to get to this point and a lot of work and prayer went into it, but it was all SO worth it.  We had 10 participants (a wonderful group of youth) from 8 different parishes from around the Diocese - amazing!  We all had a great time getting to know one another, playing games, listening to talks, discussing in small groups, worshiping together, eating wonderful food and being in the presence of God together.

    We are once again at work getting ready for Happening #2.

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E-mail Jonelle about questions or comments about Happening.