Parables & Books is pleased to have the support of Ramona Malki for our Educ8 subdivision. Mrs. Malki, a Sunday School teacher, presented at the Archdiocesan Executive Committee meeting Saturday February 18, 2012 on behalf of the curriculum we are currently developing. Below is an excerpt of the history and development of the Sunday School Program for the Syriac Orthodox Church as told by Ramona.

I am a parishioner and Sunday School teacher at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Under the leadership of superintendents Linda Khoury from the Church of the Virgin Mary in Paramus, NJ and Evlin Gelin of St. Mark’s in Teaneck, the Syriac Orthodox Sunday School began taking shape in the 1980’s. While it was doing well in the early years, it lacked any Syriac specific material. Linda and Evlin worked together to pull whatever material they could find from various sermons, liturgy books, other curriculums from the Protestant Church and whatever else was available on the market. In the 90’s, the Archdiocese Unified Sunday School Committee was formed under the leadership of his Eminence Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim. He saw the need for all of our churches to be using a uniform Sunday school calendar and material. A Sunday school website was also created. Teachers from churches throughout the diocese were selected to collaborate and create a unified Sunday School Curriculum and three levels were created.

Keep in mind, most Sunday School teachers are not licensed public school teachers but inexperienced, volunteers and creating a curriculum is no small accomplishment since nothing like it had ever been attempted. But we did the best we could with the resources that we had at the time. We cut and pasted from external material and incorporated our prayers and church history and tradition the best we could.

After having these lessons reviewed and approved by our clergy, we posted them on our Sunday School website so that all of our churches could have access to them. Of course they had to be password protected as we had used other group’s materials without any permission. And this is what we have been using until this day.

After over a decade, this material became outdated, redundant and inadequate. There is a clear void, a gap if you may.

Under the guidance of our beloved Bishop, we commissioned Parables and Books to create for us a professionally written and uniquely designed and uniform Sunday School Curriculum.

Under the current agreement, Parables and books will create for us eight levels (K-7) with eight student workbooks, eight corresponding teacher manuals, one craft book (K-2) and one coloring/activity book (K-2) bringing our total to 18 unique books. Each level will consist of 40 lessons, broken down into units with four lessons and then one unit review.

My esteemed colleges, we speak of how important our youth is to us, going as far as wanting to hire a youth minister and build a youth center. Let us look at the generation before that – the children of our church. Like most of you in this room, I am a parent. Some of you are grandparents, aunts and uncles and we all have an invested interest in the continuation of our church.

If our children don’t have a strong, healthy foundation about who we are, what we believe in and what our traditions are, then how do we expect them to want to be a part of our future? We have a gap that is being filled by a forward thinking bishop who is a true visionary and understands the needs of our children. I ask that each and every one of you do what is right in supporting this project for our future, the future of our children and grandchildren. Provide the teachers with the tools and resources we need to lay a strong and stable foundation for our children to thrive and grow in their Syriac Faith.