All you wanted to know but afraid to ask

Hi all,

Have you ever wondered what your parents did or talk about when they attend the CANOPY meetings (or was it called the NOSEY meetings). Let me share some light on what we (yes, we, I am involved too!) discussed and talked about.

By the way, CANOPY is an acroymn for Communing And Neighbouring Of Parents with Youths. It is more that we as parents are often not very good at being one. We need some practical help or tips or encouragement to enable us to relate ourselves and befriend you better in a parent-teenager relationship. These CANOPY meetings are for us to talk about our failures as parents, our shortcomings, our desires to be better parents, our yearnings to mentor you in the ways of the Lord, and seeking wisdom from others in the community who may have journeyed that path of our shortcomings before. We shall primarily be talking about ourselves, our relationship with the Lord, our relationship that ought to be with our spouses, our parenting skills (or the lack of it), and our praying together as a community of God's people.

We give you the assurance that YOU will not feature as a subject of our discussions. In rare occasions that we do, rest assure that we will definitely obtain your permission first. Failing to obtain your permission, we have no right to discuss you. We will not embarrass you nor will we disclose anything personal about you. We will also not be nosey!

We are meeting as a group because of the desire for us to form a community with like mindedness people. We hope to neigbour with one another as God desires us to be in a community. Some communities in Africa, requires that an entire community be entrusted to help raise up children, children not only from one's own family but children from others' families.

At the end of the day, YOU are precious to us and hence we shall demonstrate a decorum of taking your interests in our hearts. We want to do all we can with the Lord's help , to encourage that both our (you and I) characters may be characters that is a testament to being like Christ in all that we do.your lives. Not just now, but the rest of our lives.

Thank you.

Love,
U Gan (on behalf of all CANOPYers)

p/s I would certainly like to hear from you on what do you think you would like us to discuss in our CANOPY meetings? Specific topics are welcome too!