Rise Up 2009

Hello all blog readers.

Today I am blogging from the Delta Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba, this where C.C.O. (Catholic Christian Outreach) is hosting their Christmas conference called Rise Up. Rise up is an annual week long conference for students and young adults who want to grown in their faith and experience some awesome fellowship, currently their are over 450 people registered and more are coming as time goes by.

A definite highlight for me so far has been the mass of people attended and seeing that they are all catholic and want to grow in relationship with the lord, it's been inspiring to witness. Yesterday we were officially welcomed by the Archbishop of Winnipeg, Most Rev James Weisgerber and the president of C.C.O. Jeff Lockheart. Afterwards we lised to the nights speaker Scott Roy, which was followed by a live performance by a band called Tuesday's Blues.

Well thats all for now, stay tuned tomorrow when I'll bring you another recap of the days events here at Rise Up 2009.

God Bless

Matt Marhand

The Flame in Victoria is still lit!

Happy New Year!
It is such a joy to begin to share with you all the great things God is doing here in Victoria. Since my being here last year as part of NET Team 4 (08/09), the Core Team and the Crew Team here at St. Joseph the Worker Parish did a marvelous job keeping the fire lit; and they proclaimed the gospel message with a level enthusiasm and dedication that can only come from hearts that are deeply in love with our Lord. When I returned in August to serve as the parish’s first youth minister, I was blown away (yet again) by the love and hospitality that the youth, and indeed the entire parish freely offered. In the subsequent 3+ months, we’ve kicked off the EDGE and Life Teen for the year (which we have dubbed as iGNight), had both Crew and Core training retreats, and just recently released a CD entitled “We are called”- the Music of NET featuring iGNight.
But the true ministry, the place where it all counts, is in the hearts of the youth. Sometimes we don’t see the fruits of our labor, and we trust in God’s grace and thank him for the opportunity to serve, but other times God allows us to see the wonderful change he is doing in the lives of the teens. One young man immediately comes to mind. He never really came to iGNight last year when the NET Team was here, but he now comes faithfully to every night he can. I was overjoyed when I learned that he has spoken to Fr. William Hann, our pastor, and has expressed the desire to be baptized. Another moment that touched my heart, where I just had to close my eyes and praise God for his magnificent goodness, was during St. Andrew’s Regional Catholic High School’s grade 12 retreat. After Mass and reconciliation, a girl came up to me to say thank you for the EDGE ministry. She went on to say, through tears, how her brother had all but stopped going to Mass, and had no interest in Church at all. But since attending the EDGE week in and week out, he started going to Mass again. PRAISE GOD!!!!!
Looking at these miracles, I am reminded of a line from the movie “Amazing Grace” Where the character of John Newton says that rather than big storms of change, sometimes God works in gentle drizzle…drip…drip…drip…..
Please pray for the youth of Victoria, and pray for Core and Crew Teams as we continue to spread the love of God to every teen we possibly can. May 2010 be blessed and life changing year for us all!

Conversion

Hey Guys!
This is Matt Marchand, NET Recruiter, blogging from my parents home in Halifax. Usually we fill the blog with updates and glory stories from the teams, but today I wanted to share with you a glory story that I witnessed today.

Today I went to mass at St. Catherines Parish, which is a ten minute walk from my parents house. In fact there are two other parishes that are within ten minutes walking distance of my parents house, which is awesome! Anyways I love going to St. Catherine's because of the great community there.

At St. Catherine's there is an order of Franciscan brothers and sisters. They are awesome because of how outgoing and friendly they are, they are a real blessing to the diocese and to me as well. They are always so welcoming and in doing so they attract so many people to the faith. In fact today they converted an entire family! Today during Mass a mother was baptised and confirmed, and she brought here three children with her! It was so awesome to see the community support this mother and welcome her into the Church.

I also want to share with you how special this Advent season has been for me. Every year as a church we gather durring Advent to witness the birth of Christ, just as the shepards did. This year though my family will gather around my sister because of the new life that is growing inside of her! This new baby has already given new meaning to our family and is a source of hope for us.

At December retreat I told all the Netter's how our life in the womb is like our life in Christ. To an unborn baby all that it's aware of is the life in the womb, for all it knows there is no life outside, birth could very well seem like a death. But when a baby is born it comes to new life, in fact it's senses are overwhelmed. It can't comprehend everything going on, so it cries out. Slowly thought it becomes aware of it's surroundings and the touch of it's mother and is comforted.

Like wise many people are unaware of the life in Christ that exists and many times when people do become aware of the God's presence they are overwelmed and like a bay will cry out. But we know that God is there and I pray that over this advent season you come to know the Lord even more. Many blessing and merry Christmas.

God Bless,

Matthew Marchand

Hey Guys

Check out this awesome video, it has a great message for Advent. Make sure to watch it the whole way through!

Matt Marchand

December Retreat

Hello faithful blog readers!

This is Matthew Marchand, NET recruiter, blogging to you today. You may have noticed a lack of blog entries since last Sunday. That's because since Monday we (the NET staff and all the NET teams,) have been at December retreat. December retreat is a time when we gather as ministry to take time to enjoy the advent season and take some much deserved rest. Today is the last day and we are all getting ready to return to our individual homes for two weeks.

This year's retreat has been located at Camp Iawah near Kingston. The location and the camp staff have been great. He have been enjoying many snow ball fights and time by the fire. I have to say the best part though is seeing all the teams and hearing all of the stories from the road.

A special shout goes out to team five who are in Wetaskawin AB, they were to far away to make it to Kingston, so they had there own retreat.

Camp Iawah has some awesome hills and we took sometime to go sledding. At one point we took all the sleds and inner tubes and pushed off together. It was a hilarious sight as fifteen people tried to stay together as they raced down the hill. Afterwords we had a snow ball fight and the camps staff joined in, they creamed us but in our defense I think they had been practicing before we had gotten there.

Well that's all for now, the teams are taking a much needed break and I'll be going back to my home town of Halifax over the Advent season, so the post won't be daily but check out our video section on the website for a new video which will be a common update in the new year.

Also I will be blogging from the Rise Up conference which will be taking place in Winnepeg, starting on December 28th and going through to the 1st. For more inforamtion about Rise Up or to register go to the CCO website, www.ccocanada.ca/en/news-events/rise-up. Till then have a merry Christmas and a joyful new year!

Massive Worship Team Wrap's it Up!

Did you know that Massive Worship is famous for our epic and profound rap and hip-hop, not to mention our interpretive dance...? Boom-boom chic, ba- boom-boom chic... Well, maybe not. Anyway, that's not the kind of rap I'm talking about, and not even the wrapping of beloved presents from St. Nicholas... And in no way would we ever encourage interpretive dance outside of your living room... But I'm talking about the incredible closing celebration of something tremendously amazing that has happened these past few months: the Massive Worship pilot music ministry team!
After 4 months of forging new ground and encountering territory never before discovered, our Massive Worship band (Jesse, Sean, April, Heather and Suzi) have finalized their Massive Worship adventure and moved onto the next stage in life. This is Mairin by the way, and I will be vulnerable with you now and tell you how much I miss this wonderful team of talented and skilled worshippers, and how proud I am of each one and for their perseverance and great work they accomplished across Ontario, and even Quebec! From Ottawa to Montreal, Metcalfe to Essex, Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay to Fort Frances, to Barrie, this team has done so much in their short stint of intense music ministry. God is so good!
Last week, the 9 of us Massive Worship staff and team took some time to rest, unload, and celebrate this project while taking retreat at the Divine Mercy Centre in Lanark, ON. It was great to spend time togther as Massive Worshippers, and to thank God for all that he's done in us and through us, and to look forward to what he has instore for us individualy and for Massive Worship as a whole.
On Saturday last week, we had our final closing mass and celebration with all our NET staff, friends, family, and supporters of Massive Worship. Thanks to Fr. Joe and Fr. Terry for celebrating with us! It was great, and so full of hope. This semester was a pilot project, but the response across Ontario has been so positive and receptive, and we have so much demand for Massive Worship across the country that we are pretty sure that we will do this again, and hopefully for a full 9 months. Thank you for all your prayers and support! Praise God!

One of my Greatest Joys...

I am so proud of our missionaries this year! God has been doing so many great things through them... And it`s only been 3 months of ministry so far!

They have been stirring things up and making things happen by the grace of God.

Thousands of young people have prayed, gone to confession and discovered that God loves them! Schools, parishes and communities are changing! Families are praying together! Teenagers are coming to know Christ!

One of the greatest joys of my job as the Development Assistant for NET Ministries of Canada is reading X-Sheets (Encounter Experience Sheets). Ever week or so a large envelope full of feedback from retreatants appears on my desk and I get to be the first to read about the great things that God is doing.

These are just a few examples of the thousands of X-Sheets that come into our office:

"I learned that love is a choice not just an emotion."
14 Year old Female
Tignish, PE

"My favourite part was the prayer time in the church. I felt very peaceful when my leader prayer for me."
13 Year old Female
Tignish, ON

"I really thought this was a great day. I learned that no matter what happens God will always be with me to help me. I am going to change how I treat God. I am going to try and connect with Him more than I do. I really appreciate the NET team helping us with our Confirmation Prep. Everything they did was awesome! And I really liked the small groups a lot."
13 Year old Female
Tecumseh, ON

"I want to share that after that day with the NET team I have been closer to God and I have been praying more."
13 Year old Male
Tecumseh, ON

"During the drama that they did in the church, people could really see that Jesus did not fight against giving up His life. He gave himself. He died for us!"
11 Year old Female
Zurich, ON

I am so thankful for our missionaries and the work of evangelization they are doing this year. They are helping to bring hope to so many people across the country. Including me!

Way to go Teams!

Claire Cavanagh
Development Assistant
NET Ministries of Canada

Edge Retreat and SNOW!

Hello Everyone! This week has been awesome for team 5. From an Edge crew retreat to the first snow it was amazing.

That's right, I said we had an Edge crew retreat. Our team now has a group of nine teens who are fully trained now to help out with edge when we come back from Christmas break (that's them on the right). That weekend was so full of energy, and the Holy Spirit. The first day we had a couple of talks, played many games...which reminds me. Pull Up and Screaming Yellow Zonkers are the most loved games out here. If you get a group of young people who love to be ridiculous then those are the games to play! Now back to the retreat. That night we also had Adoration for the youth for the first time. I don't think there was a dry eye. Especially after we gave the teens affirmation letters from their parents, but that wasn't the best part. I played 'The Stand' as a song for the teens to surrender themselves; to start over and give themselves to Christ. By the end of the song every person was standing and singing. That sight made my heart feel really happy. When we got back into the hall after adoration, we gave each other affirmations on big bristol boards. It was nice.

I cannot stress the enthusiasm this group of teens have for the ministry. The next day involved learning how to lead games, how to write testimonies and other things. When they began leading the games, they were so amazing and really into it. They've all got a natural talent for awesomeness. Their testimonies were also super powerful. I almost teared up in women's session with the testimonies that the girls gave. All of us on Team Five felt how much the teens put their hearts into their testimonies, and in the weekend in general.

That night we just had a bunch of fun. The men honored the girls with supper, then we had snacks and set up a movie: Ice Age 3. The best part though was when the teens honored our team. They had an AAME (after after meal entertainment) called 'Name that Netter'. Was it ever funny! There is a video and I believe it's on our ministry facebook. We had so much fun that weekend. The teens are awesome!

On Wednesday we had a snow day. It snowed so much that we couldn't get to the office safely so we spent our day in the host home. It was great because it gave us some time to run and play in the snow. Another cool thing that happened this week was that our team bought a real tree and decorated it. Yup it was fun and it looks beautiful! That's it in the picture to the bottom left.

This week was great. We just had a blast with everything that has happened. Now we can't wait for Christmas! So before we go we just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years!

Jesus is the reason for the season!

God Bless,

Shayla

Team High-Five

Tobogganing and The Truth

SO,

Tobogganing is painful, I mean it's bucket loads of fun, but I never knew that you had to climb back up the mountain after! It took a while but it was well worth it!

THERE IS SO MUCH SNOW IN WATASKAWIN, it's just silly, it was minus 27 yesterday! The snow is hard to walk in let me tell you, but is also absolutely gorgeous, and praise God for creating it.

Apart from the snow, Team 4 are doing great, Kickin' it old school today, but let me tell you about our past week of ministry. Crew training is officially finished! Woohoo, and after our Core retreat this weekend, the Core will be trained up as well!

Our December mission went really well, our theme was "Even While I'm Waiting" and our theme scripture was the prodigal son. We concentrated on the Father who waited for his Son to return home, who had faith that he would one day come back.

On Monday night, we had a "Exalt" which was a night of Adoration, with Praise and Worship music, and a talk that was given by Fr Marc. We also had an opportunity to place photos of Friends and Family members on the alter before the blessed sacrament of those who you would like to bring closer to Christ, it was very powerful and the parishioners were quite touched.

Last night, we had a penitential service, a chance for people to receive the sacrament of reconciliation as well as to pray and watch a drama.

Yes indeed we have been a busy bunch of Netters, only one more week before we go on our break for Christmas, EXCITING!

This morning I recorded a song, I played drums, guitar and sang, all in one morning. I was surprised at how fast it went by, but it sounds really great, so great that the guy who recorded me wants to put it on a praise and worship CD that he is thinking about making next year!

Here, have a listen and tell me what ya think!

God Bless!

Stay Frosty,

Emma,

Team 4

SNOW!!

Well, as you might have figured out by the straight-forward title of my blog entry for the week, Team 3’s surroundings are finally starting to look a lot like Christmas, we have had our first real snowfall just yesterday. This is Kevin Prada, once more, your goofy blogger from Équipe 3, in this, our last week of ministry before our returning home for the Christmas holidays.

We’ve been keeping quite busy lately, our days, as always, being filled with joy. Earlier, I was asking the team what I should mention this week in the blog, and by far, one of the biggest things that stood out was “AWESOME HOST FAMILIES!” It’s amazing! For those who don’t know, on the road, our teams don’t stay in hotels or youth hostels, but we have the privilege of staying with families, everywhere we go, who volunteer to take us in for a few days, share food, a nice cozy bed, and lots of love. They are so good to us, and to be honest, they spoil us! It’s so amazing to be welcomed into these homes as perfect strangers, and to be accepted as part of their family. The generosity that would have to possess someone to take a perfect stranger like this into their home is amazing! We are so thankful to all the homes that have taken us in through the course of this year; your generosity has truly inspired us!
Did I mention…WE HAVE SNOW! That wonderful white, pure, fluffy goodness that blankets these formerly green grounds, announcing the quick approach of the season of Christ. Wow, there goes my poetic vibe for the day. Anyways, let me tell you, we have been enjoying it a lot more than the random snowstorm we encountered in our first week of ministry back in October. And we were able to sneak in the casual snowball fight and snow angel.

This snow is also announcing the eventual end of the first half of our ministry. I can’t even put into words how thankful I am for every grace we received from the Lord, in the form of those who surround us. Time and time again, we have learned and received so much from the retreatants we minister to; the host families, as I mentioned, have been amazing; and the generosity of all of you back home supporting us makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!
Now, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to write again before Christmas, so I’m taking this opportunity to wish you and all of your loved ones a very merry and blessed Christmas, as well as a new year full of joy, love, and continuous blessings. May the Lord bring you closer to the beauty found in the birth of Jesus here on earth, through this amazing feast of the Christmas.

Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

God bless you all, see you once more in 2010.
Kevin Prada

P.S. Above is a picture, from right to left , of Evan, Christiana, Kevin and Marise enjoying time together as a team, following our retreat Monday in Orillia, Ontario; on the bottom is Marise and Christiana enjoying our last snowball fight.

Team Two Sees Santa, Does Their First Family Encounter Day and Tim Tam Slams all in One Weekend!

Light the second Advent candle! The Christ is his way! This is Lauren Krol reporting from Team Two in Edmonton, Alberta!

This past week brought us back into the city of Edmonton from Tuesday to Friday, with a couple of Encounter Days for grades five and six students. This is a bit of a younger crowd for our Team to be working with, but overall we had pretty great reception. There was one group that was very touched by the prayer ministry portion of the Encounter Day, which gave our team a real boost for continuing to spread the Gospel for one last week before we head back to Ottawa for our December retreat with the other teams.

Friday morning we found ourselves driving through much snow, which continued to fall all day long. That evening we drove out to Mayerthorpe, AB, where we would be holding our first Family Encounter Day. The drive took a little longer than planned, but we got there safely, and just in time for the Santa Claus Parade! We spent a portion of the evening watching the parade, and checking out all the other little festivities going on down the main street. They actually close it off and build a big fire in the middle of the street! They also have wagon rides! We of course warmed up by the fire, then took a little ride with the horses!

Our two nights in Mayerthorpe taught us that it was a small town with a big heart! All the families we were billeted to came to the Encounter Day on Saturday, which gave us a great opportunity to get to know who we would be working with. The Family Encounter Day went really well; it was such a great witness to see a group of devout families coming together, building a stronger unity with God, with each other, and as a community.

Sunday evening brought us back into Edmonton, to the home of our lovely Diocesan Contact Person and NET alumnus, Lydia, for dinner. It was an evening filled with great conversation among the team, as well as an opportunity to talk to a possible new NET recruit! Finally, we completed the evening with Tim Tams (a popular Australian cookie), and a few of us doing Tim Tam Slams. (The "Tim Tam Slam" is the practice of biting off the opposing corners of a Tim Tam, and using the modified biscuit as a 'straw' to suck up a hot or cold beverage [Thanks, Wikipedia!].) In my opinion, it's the only way to eat a Tim Tam.

Well, I hope the Advent Season is treating you well, and that you're all keeping warm - it's getting cold out here!

God Bless,

Lauren M. Krol

Team 2

When the Women of NET Canada Staff collide....

...who KNOWS what will happen!!

Last Thursday, the staff women of NET Ministries of Canada had a women's session. As a whole, there are rare times when the office staff and the program staff can get together and bond...so a few of the women decided that we should all get together and do just that-bond-for a few hours.

First of all, we all met at Mass (which we do as a staff every Thursday morning), then the women walked over to "Casa Kibeho" where Claire, Mairin, Jocelyne, Tara, and Sarah all live. **Sidenote: the house was named after Our Lady of Kibeho. We brought all kinds of breakfast-y foods to prepare and eat while we discussed our families' Christmas & Thanksgiving traditions (seeing as we were meeting on the day of American Thanksgiving). I toasted & buttered an entire loaf of delicious white bread...oh how I miss thee, white bread... while Joce Potvin masterfully handled the scrambled eggs and about a million pieces of bacon. ...with Melo's help. There were also croissants, Nutella, assorted fruit & yogurt, peanut butter, coffee, and orange juice. Delicious!

So, we ate brunch while we chatted, then cleaned up, and Tara and Melo brought out... get this... GINGERBREAD VILLAGES!!! Granted, the buildings themselves were pretty small, but they were so much FUN! There were 2 sets - each with a little chapel, a lodge, a chalet, a cottage, and a "snowboard suite". I decorated one of the chalets...it was quite entertaining.

After we ran out of time for the villages, we cleaned up again, took a lot of pictures, and then made a little video all about the village itself...which I've attached for your entertainment. When the laughter died down after we watched the video, it was time for some sharing. Generally, as women, we like to talk. It was really good to hear how all the women on staff are doing lately; to hear their struggles and cry with them, but to also hear about their latest joys and successes and to rejoice in those as well. For all of us to know that we have each other - that we can rely on any of the women for prayers, for a listening ear, and for constant support and love, is always a healing thought. Especially laughter...we know how to make each other laugh.

Anyway, that's pretty much it! I hope you all have an amazing Christmas holiday, full of God's blessings and joys, and a prosperous new year! I'm leaving for Australia next week, but am looking forward to seeing the netters again in January!

God bless,
+Jocelyn Arnott
NET Staff - "Office Superstar"

PS - an intro to our video: I'm recording, and Lizanne is the tour guide of our multiply-named village.

The Advent Conspiracy!

The Advent Conspiracy is a Christian movement aimed at getting people to spend less money at Christmas time and instead put that money towards a worth while cause; Getting clean drinking water for everyone. In the process it is the movements hope that people will rediscover the true meaning of Christmas, Christ! Visit their website for more information,

Team Five is BUSY!

HELLO! Shayla from Team Five is here blogging.

This week has been extremely busy in the office in Smiths Falls. So much has been going on; we had an awesome Life Night on Advent, went to the school to play some music for the Advent mass, Some of us got our H1N1 shots, went to the school for our lunch program 'MERGE', and finally spent most of our time planning for the Edge Crew training retreat.

The Life Night was so much fun. All the teens had to dress up, and we didn't tell them why. Basically it was a New Years party for the Advent season, but after playing games and socializing for about a half hour, the life Night went on with a talk that I gave, and some prayer time. The party part was so much fun, especially with 35 teens! We began it with a game of Pull-Up. That game is so awesome. It's one of those games that never gets old because you can always make up new moves. It is also a way to just loosen up and have a lot of laughs. When we got into the meat of the Life Night, I gave my talk on Advent and it went really well. I felt like the teens gave me their attention so that was encouraging. This Life Night was just so much fun not only because the teens were so great but also because a few of my sisters came to visit me. That made my day. We have awesome pictures of all the teens that came. The picture in the top left is of Rebecca and I with one of our teens. The picture in the bottom right is of Tom with two more of our teens.

On Wednesday we went to St. John's CHS for 'MERGE' and played a remake of the game Evolution. Basically the theme was Christmas tree. You would go from seed, to sapling, to Charlie Brown, to Christmas tree. The thing that was different wiht this version was that if you won rock, paper, scissors, you went up, but if you lost you went down a level. We were trying to drive home the point that life is a rollercoaster and when you fall, you should still try to get back up. We ended the lunch program with a powerful testimony by Tom. He had the attention of the teens the whole time!

The rest of the week was spent doing some crazy planning for our Edge Crew retreat which is starting tomorrow afternoon and ending Sunday afternoon. We're all hard at work working on talks, skits, adoration, and many other little things that have to be prepared for this weekend. We're all prepared though to have a blast, not to mention it will be our first weekend retreat! So exciting.

Team Five is signing out until next week. We are praying for all the other teams out there. We have one request from everyone that reads this. Please pray for our retreat this weekend, and ask the Holy Spirit to work through us and in the teens. Thank you.

God Bless,

Shayla
Team Five

HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY HANNAH BOUWMAN!

Greetings!

Team 4 has had a fantastic week indeed. Our Edge night on the 10 commandments went really well, we made the commandments each correspond with a colour (e.g. honour thy father and mother is grey because lets face it, they're getting on in age) and Marissa taught us girls how to make friendship bracelets so we made some for each of the teens, and they're still wearing them! It was great for us as well, I never knew the commandments off by heart, let alone be able to recite them in order, but now I can!

This past Saturday was a rather special day as well, as it was Hannah's Unbirthday!

We totally, TOTALLY surprised her! After team prayer, I asked the team if I could share a song with them I had written the previous night; little did Hannah know it was actually a "Happy Unbirthday Hannah Bouwman" song. There was much squealing and running around = Mission Accomplished! We made her a scrapbook, got her some of her favorite tea, took her horseback riding, had an AMAZING American Thanksgiving meal and finished up the night by all going to the movies to see New Moon, she loved it; so in turn, the team loved it!

This Sunday we had our first session of Core and Crew training with the teens in the Parish that want to help out at our Edge and lifenights. There were 7 crew members and 5 Core who attended the training, which was more than we expected! They are a great bunch of people with great attitudes and a passion for Jesus, they are all perfect for this ministry...

This coming weekend, our team has been asked to be involved in the December mission. The December mission is a 4-day program involving Mass, Adoration, confession and several teachings; it is focused on Advent and is intended to reach out the the whole community in Wetaskiwin - young and old. Marissa and I have both been asked to tell the story of how we come to know God at both weekend Masses which makes us EXCITED! There are a lot of parents with young children who don't go to Mass or who don't believe in God, so this is a great opportunity to give them hope and encouragement to continue their prayers as well as to share the experience with other parishioners.

Tomorrow, Hannah and I are traveling to Ponoka, which is half an hour drive outside of Wetaskiwin, to play at a school mass with the whole school attending! Last Thursday we taught the Grade 9s the songs so that they can sing with us. It's so great to be able to minister to surrounding schools, and music is my favorite way to do it!

It snowed like CRAZY yesterday so I'm trying to convince the team to join me in my first snowball fight, I think I might just have to go propose my offer to them, I leave you now with the words of Hannah's Unbirthday song...

Happy Unbirthday Hannah Bouwman

We love it how you laugh like an old man

We love it how you organize and Pre-plan

We know it's not the 3rd of June

but we thought we'd surprise you 7 months too soon

(tonight we're gunna see New Moon)

Happy Unbirthday Hannah Bouwman...

Stay Frosty,

Emma,

Team 4

Team 3: sure keepin' busy!

A great big Team 3 hello to everyone out there! This is Kevin Prada, your spirited blogger, reporting this time from Whitby, just south of the great big Toronto. Life with Team 3 has sure been great, and very busy since I last checked in. Last Friday, we made our way from the Toronto area to the town of Rockland, just outside of Ottawa, to facilitate our only french-language retreat for the month.

This was a weekend retreat, starting on Friday, and finishing off Sunday afternoon, after Mass and a great brunch. Over thirty youth attended; did I mention this E-Day was AWESOME?! Seriously, these overnight E-Days are a gift to us on NET. Sure, day-long E-Days are great, but when you get to spend an entire weekend with the youth, the bonds that are built are so much stronger, and you are able to get through to them in such a profound way. This E-Day contained all the regular events: talks, testimonies, dramas, small groups, and most of all, prayer. But on top of these, given the time we had to work with, we were able to fit in a talent night, and Saturday night. Massive Worship, a ministry created by NET working to evangelize through music, held a concert to raise money for the school's humanitarian trip to the Dominican Republic. And may I tell you, this concert was absolutely awesome! I knew this team, having spent most of our training with them prior to our going out on the road, but I had never actually had the chance to see them in action. It was awesome, and I must say that even after doing ministry day in and day out, they still were able to touch me, and all the members of my team for that matter. There is no doubt in my mind that God has performed miracles in many hearts across Ontario through this ministry.

And to top it all off, last Friday, before our departure for Rockland, we were just in time to catch Team 1, in Midland, before they started their retreat for the day. It was GREAT being able to re-connect with this team as well! We are seriously looking forward to getting back together with all the other teams in just under two weeks at our December retreat, closing our first half of ministry, before we go home for Christmas.

As we have just entered into the season of Advent, I'm taking this opportunity to wish you all a safe and happy festive season. Once again, we as a team are praying for you, and specially that you and your loved ones may rediscover the person of Jesus this season of Advent!



'Till once more!!
Kevin Prada:)

P.S. On the top left hand corner is a picture of Deneige and I ready in action to present the Vaseline skit last week-end; on the bottom, the girls of both our team and Team 1 last Friday in Midland, what a grand ol' time reuniting.

Team 2 still in Edmonton! :)

Hello and Happy Advent from Team 2!

This is Riane McCallum, writing to you from Edmonton, Alberta!
I have stolen the blog from Claire for the week, and would like to tell you about our recent adventures!

We have been in the Edmonton area for the past week, traveling in between Edmonton, Sherwood Park, and Fort Saskatchewan. Just a personal side note- I have loved being back in Alberta! Give me flat land anytime, anywhere! Our week was filled with Encounter Days, and they were so much fun. It is hard to believe that we only have six more left until Christmas break! During one Encounter Day, the school had arranged a catered meal for us and all of the students. It was so cool! We were in a fancy hall, and had a delicious meal served to us. We all felt like we were at a wedding!

On Saturday, we had an opportunity to work on our ministry. This was a great chance to practice dramas, talks, skits, and prepare for our first family retreat that is coming up! We were also excited to be able to stay the night as a team in the local high school. Later that night, after a great team prayer, the men on our team honored all of the ladies! We found our sleeping bags laid out, couches set up, delicious treats, and the movie Elf, ready for us to watch! Needless to say, we were so excited and had a wonderful movie night!

The next day, we attended Sunday Mass at the local parish, and when it was over it was revealed to me that we were celebrating my un-birthday!! For those of you who don't know, an un-birthday is for those whose birthday does not fall during the NET year, and it is a day to honor them instead of on their real birthday. I was completely shocked, and SO EXCITED! I am pretty sure that I jumped up and down and screamed! For my surprise, the team took me out to see the movie "New Moon." It was great...I loved it soo much! After that, I was treated to my favourite food in the whole world...ice cream! The day was so wonderful - it couldn't have been any better! I'm thankful for such an amazing team.

We have one week of ministry left and cannot believe it! I have to say that I absolutely love putting on Encounter Days, and I know that I'll miss it over Christmas break. We have met so many incredible people so far, and I'm excited for what lies ahead in the new year!

I hope you are all enjoying this busy season of Christmas preparations!

Until next week, God Bless!

Riane McCallum

Team 2

Hello!

Sean Milan here, updading you on recent Team 1 activity.

So, we have been in Nova Scotia for the past two weeks, and let me tell you, it has been fun, fun, fun, fun, that’s one more fun than the Beach Boys! We spent the majority of our time in Halifax and Dartmouth, we crossed the toll bridge about ten times, digging into our stipends each trip! We traveled down to Yarmouth, or as we liked to call it, Yarrrrrrrrrmouth. We also went to the city of Truro, but the majority of our Encounter Days were held in the Halifax area. We are enjoying the lovely weather, some days we wear shorts and t-shirts - well at least Dominique does! But really, we have been sooooo blessed, God has gifted us with the ability to avoid snow and freezing cold weather.

On a side note, I failed to mention that we had a supervisor visit a couple weeks ago. To say the least, it was awesome; Pat and Caitlyn are the two best "supes" I have ever had (only had). We had so much fun with them. For our team day we went bowling and bought beaver tails, but the majority of our time was with their watching us on retreats, and chatting with us in the vans. We can't wait until they come again.

In other news our team traveled out to Peggy's Cove! Peggy's Cove is a lighthouse, surrounded by rocks and big waves; you may have seen it already on a post card. I was hit by a wave, within only five minutes of being there, so I was soaked the whole time we were there. We all enjoyed it so much, we ate lunch there with several Net Alumni from Nova Scotia, fed seagulls and bought souvenirs.

Stay tuned next week when we will be in Toronto Ontario. Hopefully we will meet up with the French team!

God Speed

Sean Milan

Team 1

Team Five is Alive!

A BIG hello from Team Five-Alive!

This past Sunday was a really busy day for our team. We had to get up at 7:00 am to start our day because it was so busy. It started with environment set up for our life night, then a pancake breakfast with the Knights of Columbus, we were on a float in the Smiths Falls Christmas parade, then went for dinner at a previous host family’s house, and then finally ended our day with the life night.

While the day may have been busy, it was so much fun. The pancake breakfast was amazing, and filling! The Knights were so welcoming, giving us all big hugs, and then giving us freshly made pancakes with breakfast sausages, and there were homemade beans too. Here’s a funny story. Last week, our team went to a prayer group with one of our past host homes, and there was this Knight there, and he picked on Rebecca for not wearing any socks. So, at the breakfast he approached Rebecca while we were eating and gave her a pair of socks!

After being stuffed with pancakes, and goodness, we headed to the arena in Smiths Falls to see the float that we’ll be on. It was the Knights of Columbus float, and get this, we won ‘Most Religious Float’. As we were waiting to start the parade, it was nice to look around at other floats, and the one in front of us was playing some Christian music. One of the songs was ‘Days of Elijah’. It was so loud and catchy that our team couldn’t help but dance to it and do the actions. I was thinking, “Yeah, that’s right, cheer for Jesus!” The rest of the parade went really well, and the rest of Sunday.

On Thursday we had a retreat for the Gr. 9’s at St. Luke’s CHS. They came to our Parish at St. Francis de Sales to have mass then after mass, our retreat began. Danica and I were the ones leading the games, some of the students weren't that into it but by the end those same people shouting out how they loved it. The whole retreat was full of surprises like that. It really made my day.

Well that’s it for Team Five-Alive this week. We’re praying for all you other teams out there on the road.

God Bless,

Shayla

Team 5 – Smiths Falls/Perth

50!

G’day, G’day to all!

Well this past week has been super busy and super awesome, let me tell you why. We had our first ‘Exalt’ night in the parish on Tuesday, where we had an evening of Adoration, praise and worship and a talk on Fidelity. A large group of people attended and they loved it so much, we’re gunna do it monthly, Woohoo!

Then on Wednesday night, a couple of more people came out to band jam, and we even had our first teen play with us at mass on Saturday, he's a drummer and he did fantastic! And we can’t wait to teach him more and more songs!

On Friday night we had a record 50 TEENS show up to our night on crazy Olympics, 50! It was crazy amounts of fun; everyone had a blast, congratulations to Team Sunshine who took over in the end. We’re hoping the same amount will turn up this Friday for our night on the Ten Commandments!

On Saturday we got to spend our day with Team 2! This was epic amounts of fun also, we started the day with prayer and spent the majority of the afternoon playing Mafia, ending the day with a mass at Sacred Heart Church, it was sad to say goodbye again, but our time with them was filled with fun, laughter and reminiscing.

On Monday night, however, a lovely host dad of ours named George (Tato) shouted Marissa and I to go see an OILERS GAME! This was pretty much one of the greatest things I have ever experienced!Our seats were in a great position and we got to see people moving so fast and there was fighting, and the Oilers ended up winning 4 – 0, sweet huh? I have never been so intrigued at a sport in my life!

This coming week is the beginning of Core and Crew training. Core and Crew are the people who live in the parish who help out with our Edge and Lifenights. Crew are usually in grades 10 – 12 and Core are people who have graduated High School. So over the next 2 weekends Team 4 will be training them up on how to lead nights, small groups, games and all of the things an Edge or Lifenight will entail. We are so excited to get to know these people better and spend more time with them.

Anyway, a quick blog this week, hope you fellow readers are doing well, thanks again for your prayers/support.

God Bless ya,
Emma,
Team 4, Wetaskiwin

Team 2 bids farewell to beautiful British Columbia

Hello All! Team 2 has had a pretty exciting week! On a personal note, I experienced my first hockey game on Wednesday. Lauren and I attended a Kelowna Rockets game with our host family and I thoroughly enjoyed it. They were playing Portland, Oregon; no, I did not cheer for the American team!

On Thursday we experienced a slightly different type of ministry. We did a retreat called Freedom for young adults and high school students. We were a little nervous about it, because it was so different than our usual routine and because some of us were giving talks for the first time. It ended up being a very powerful evening. Most of the time was spent in prayer and reconciliation; our team could really feel the presence of Jesus in the church. Afterwards, we had an open mic time and several people expressed how they had been moved.

On Friday we left the mountains of British Columbia and traveled to Edmonton, Alberta. We experienced a good bit of snow in the mountains, as you can see from our picture. It was a long day; it took us nearly 14 hours to get there!

We were very excited to be able to spend Saturday with the Wetaskawin team! It was great to see them and exchange ministry stories. We prayed with them, then spent the afternoon playing games. In the evening, we attended their youth Mass; it was awesome to see their minstry in action.

Now, for the best part of all, on Sunday we had a day off! Most of us spent the afternoon at the West Edmonton mall. I was amazed at just how huge it is! Katie, Meghan, and I experienced the rollercoaster called the Mindbender, which gave us quite an adrenaline rush! It was so intense that Katie lost one of her earrings! I lost my courage as soon as I got on and closed my eyes the entire time. Katie was also very excited to see all the Christmas displays in the mall.

Well, that is our week in a nutshell. We have another busy week, and we are all starting to get excited for Christmas! We head back to Ottawa in about two weeks!




Until next week, God Bless!

Signing off,

Claire Labish

Team 2

Winnie the Pooh, Christmas ties, and team 3 spunk

Howdy y'all, it's Kevin, your spirited blogger from équipe 3, presently sitting in the home of one of our teammates, Christianna. We're currently staying in Etobicoke (as I quickly learned, this is one of the many exceptions in the English language, where the "k" it silent... who would have thunk?). Right now the women are staying together with Christianna's family, and the men with her grandmother and her friend. It's been great.

To date, on the road, we've been able to meet nearly all our teammates families. It's funny all the resemblances that can be found from parent to child, and sometimes even funnier between siblings. Christiana has a particularly spunky family of five, who welcomed us with open arms into their home. And it just so happens that this community was home, last year, to one of NET's parish-based teams. The "Nativity of Our Lord" parish, where Connor's team was based, also Christiana's home parish, is where we spent some of our time, attending the Lifeteen mass last week-end. Christiana and Connor got the opportunity to catch up with old friends. It was great. And to finish off our entire stay here with the Hennessy's, the men were given Christmas-themed ties. As you can see in the picture included, they are pretty awesome.

On a NET team, as we travel so much, we get to see some pretty interesting things along the way. The world's largest this, the world's only that.On our way to Ontario a few weeks back, we crossed the town of White River, home of Winnie the Pooh (although I'm proud to say that his name derives from my hometown, Winnipeg's name). It seemed that nearly everything in this small town was related to Winnie in some way, shape, or form. It was neat to see all the Winnie the Pooh-themed gadgets and trinkets.

On Sunday, we had what we call a Team Day, in which sharing was held, that brought the entire team so much closer. It was great! We've been facilitating many confirmation retreats lately. Sure, as a NET team member, we put on these retreats, giving the talks, leading the small groups etc, but the Lord will continually teach us through our ministry. What has really been hitting me is how amazing this sacrament really is. Even if I didn't take this sacrament seriously when I celebrated it in grade 5, today, I am really becoming so thankful for what the Holy Spirit did in me then, and is soon going to do in each of these youth's hearts.

As I say in each of my posts, the Lord is blessing us so abundantly. I keep saying it because it is always so true. We are so blessed here on the road, and once more, I am also very thankful to you, our dear supporters. Without you, it would be nearly impossible for this ministry to exist. Thank you. I have seen so many teens completely change their lives simply with one of these retreats. It's awesome what great things the Lord can do in so little time. Thank you specially for all your prayers!

May God keep blessing and keeping you! And as we approach this season of Advent, may you re-encounter in a special way this festive season, what amazing gift Christ has given us in His coming here among us.

God Bless

Kevin Prada

Team 3, Les Équipes NET

P.S. On top, there is a picture of our team enjoying the statue of Winnie the Pooh in White River, then down here, the brotherhood sporting our new Christmas ties.