We have Long Sleeve Oxfords, Short Sleeve Oxfords, and Crewneck Sweatshirts in youth and adult sizes available for sale at half price in the office.  We have a random selection of sizes in white and light blue starting at size 5 up to Adult XL.  See office for details. 

The Giving Tree 2017 for St. Peter Parish

The Giving Tree Committee for St. Peter Parish would like your help again this year as we prepare food and gift baskets for 40 Samaritan Center families for Christmas.

Each student is asked to bring the item listed below by his or her grade to help with this parish community service project:

Preschool: Instant potatoes bag or box

Kindergarten:  Jar of peanut butter (crunchy or creamy is fine)

 1^st grade:  2 boxes of jello or pudding

2^nd grade:  1 or 2 cans of fruit (any kind)

3^rd grade:  Box of stuffing

4^th grade:  Cake or brownie mix

5^th grade:  Box or bag of cereal (any kind)

6^th grade:  1 or 2 cans of corn (any kind)

7^th grade:  1 or 2 cans of green beans

8^th grade:  Snack items for children in the family (fruit roll-ups, granola bars, cheese crackers, etc...)

Thank you for your help and generosity in supporting this very important charity. Please have food items to the classroom by Friday, December 8^th.

If you have any questions or are willing to volunteer with this project, please contact Codi Lauf (573)301-3299 ( [email protected] ) or Jamie Strope (573)301-1313 ( [email protected] ).

Sara Ann Denson is one of St. Peter's two librarians.  Sara Ann grew up in Flora, Illinois; Albion, Concord and Battle Creek, Michigan; and Northport, Alabama.  She graduated high school from Tuscaloosa County High.  She then went on first to Covenant College on Lookout Mountain, Georgia and then to Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana where she graduated with a double major in English and writing. 

During her university years she was heavily involved in the theater department.  She played several small roles in The Boys Next Door, Elaine in Arsenic and Old Lace, Essie in You Can't Take It With You (for which she won best supporting actress), and the lead role of Echo in Eleemosynary.  She also wrote several plays and skits performed by University Players while at IWU and was privileged to be on a writing team which collaborated to write scripts for a soap-opera-esque weekly production.

Sara Ann went on to write for national magazines such as Christian Health and Campus Life, a division of Christianity Today.  She won Alabama's Writers Conclave Award for Best One-Act Play at their state conference of professional writers for her play Leave Me In St. Louis. During her first few years as a professional writer, she wrote plays which were distributed through the Wesleyan denomination, the National Evangelical Association, and the Nazarene denomination including her short play Motherhood.  Ironically, this particular play was written during a time in her life in which she and her husband were considering Catholicism.  Even though it contains overtones to Catholicism, it is still used in protestant services 15 years after initial publication.

Sara Ann married Boyd Denson in 1997 which brought her to Jefferson City and, except for one year away, they have lived here ever since. They have two boys who both graduated from St. Peter. Samuel is a freshman at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  Gideon is a sophomore at Jefferson City High School.

Sara Ann and Boyd had been married nearly six years when they converted to the Catholic Church together. They had endured a series of life altering events and began to really question Christianity, God's love, and suffering. Although Sara Ann had taken a lot of credit hours in theology, she felt that college had not helped her to grow closer to God.  It had only landed her deep in debt, left her with a lot of unanswered questions about the character of God, and made her feel like a failure when tragedy struck rather than feeling God's presence.  "At the time," Sara explains, "it felt like everything we had been taught about Him was just shallow. It didn't fit how life actually played out. It didn't even fit how church played out. A lot of what I had been taught contradicted itself." 

When Sara Ann and Boyd began dealing with these struggles, they turned to lots of friends and family for counsel, but it was her Catholic friends who not only made sense, but drew her into this amazing gift of Catholicism.  Finally, her friend Kimie said, "Sara Ann, I'm bringing over a book for you to read on suffering."  She brought over a stack.  Sara Ann and Boyd read together every night until they made it through the whole stack and asked Kimie for more.  As they read, they couldn't really tell anyone because their protestant families and friends would have been angry.  They didn't want anyone to talk them out of it before they had finished really thinking it over.  However, the emotional healing they began to experience just from the doctrinal studies on suffering and Purgatory began to seep out in their life.  They were still in leadership roles within their Baptist church, but when people came to them for advice, they were giving them decidedly Catholic theology. "It just got to the point where it felt silly that we were still there, but we had so many friends and family who were going to be hurt by the move." 

As they began to read through the doctrines on the Eucharist, the longing to convert became too strong to ignore.  They decided during that spring to stop attending their Baptist church and enter RCIA that fall which meant it was nearly a year more of studying before they could be confirmed.  Not many Catholics can say they were confirmed the same night their children were baptized, but it was a beautiful Easter Vigil that they will never forget. 

Since that time, Sara Ann spent several years as a stay-at-home mom and part-time writer. She continued to write when time allowed and her book Christmas Turtles was published in 2006.  That same year, however, God showed her that the dream of being a traveling book author would take too much away from her family.  "There were too many trips away from home and too many nights I was still online marketing at 2 a.m.," she confessed.  It was also the same year that her oldest son was diagnosed with Asperger's. "It was very emotional.  One minute I would be at school visits performing assemblies and feeling like a rock star or at author signings hanging out with people like Kirby Larson, Tedd Arnold, Alane Ferguson, and Jeanette Oke. I was living the dream. The next moment I was in a lonely hotel room crying on the phone about my son's issues with my husband, the teacher, or the counselor."

Ultimately, she felt that her kids needed her way more than she needed a career in writing. She backed off of publishing and became involved volunteering with the school, later accepting the offer for librarian.  "It's not what I had planned for my life, but God knew what I needed. It gave me a chance to be with my kids as they grew up. Since I didn't grow up Catholic, it also gave me a chance to grow up in my faith in a way few adult converts get to experience. Most surprising, I absolutely did not expect how much I would enjoy working with K-8." 

Sara Ann says she firmly believes there are no bad kids, just kids who haven't learned certain skills yet. "It's really beautiful to see the K-8 progression. I get to see so many moments of growth and achievement." Sara Ann says she loves reading to kids and opening up new worlds. She loves presenting a variety of genres and seeing which kids gravitate to which interests. She also enjoyed working with the play at St. Peter during the years her kids were involved in the department and hopes to be able to do that again in the future.  She always thought that she would go back to writing once her kids graduated, but it's been hard to say goodbye to a school family she loves so much.  "I can't imagine my life without St. Peter so I keep saying yes to the next year.  I guess I'm just waiting to see what God wants me to do next."

When:  Thursday, December 21, 2017

Where:  St. Peter School Cafeteria

Time:  8:00 am - 3:30 pm

Please return registration form by Monday, December 4th to guarantee your spot!