Anywhere the band goes, God is sure to go

We are not used to being center-stage while playing music. The choir or band section of most churches is in front, but off to the side. When playing for Mass, we seek only to magnify what is happening at the ambo and the altar. When leading music for other prayers, we put the visual focus on the Blessed Sacrament, or a crucifix. Last weekend in Montreal, at St. Thomas a Becket Parish, we held a rally for over 80 young people, and the Massive Worship band was right smack-dab in the middle, even in front of the altar.

To provide excitement, we had to break out of our "play-the-music-and-pray-the-music-only" shells and adopt the attitude of "let's give 'em a show!" It's not just a show, however. All the energy and joy we can give is the joy of Christ, flowing through us. And half the event was specifically prayerful, anyway.

After our first song, though, Jesse introduced the rest of us band members individually, as we provided instrument solos to go along with our introduction. It goes so much against our aim to be selfless, but it does so much to create a rapport with the audience to whom we are trying to bring the light and joy of Christ. It's fun, and talent can gain the respect of the skeptic.

It was a great audience. There were members of a few different parishes' youth groups, and they all sang with the songs, laughed with the fun, and at least some of them had real encounters with God. One person told us they "really felt close to God and that He was surrounding me!" Hopefully, this person will always know that God is around, surrounding everything with His love. Hopefully we, too, can learn that no matter where we are, choir loft, sanctuary, altar, or even in the outside world, God is surrounding us with His love in all places.


God Bless,

Sean Flynn
Massive Worship Band

God's Booster...Encouragement!

A BIG hello from everyone on Team 5! All of us here are doing great. This week was full of little moments of encouragement; it started off with the Knights of Columbus from Smiths Falls and Perth holding a dinner for our team. I had a great time. It was a good chance for us to get to know the community a bit better, and it also gave us the opportunity to say thank you to the Knights of Columbus who are a huge support for our team! I really enjoyed talking to many of the people there, it was really encouraging hearing everything they had to say about our ministry, and we received many thanks for being here for the youth.

The meal was awesome! There were some ribs and roast beef, vegetables, and mashed potatoes skillfully mashed, I must say, by the awesome hands of our own team member, James Richmond! The Knights loved him for doing that! For dessert we had a cake with our names on it. At the end of the dinner, the head Knight gave a speech and basically thanked us for being here and for giving up our time. Then the best part- they gave us these little maple leaf-shaped bottles with real maple syrup in them! I can't wait to use it. That night was very encouraging because we were able to witness the enthusiasm of the community for the work that we will be doing.

Wednesday night we had another dinner, but this time it was with the priest of St. John's Parish and the people who were interested in volunteering for core. It was a chance for us to just get to know each other, and a chance for them to ask us questions. The dinner was filled with laughs; I had such a great time! The best part was just knowing how God is providing a core team for us. A couple of them are very young which is amazing because this area doesn't have many young adults.

After the meal the potential core were full of great questions, and I really felt the Holy Spirit moving in our answers. It was weird, like we didn't have to think before answering. God was with us the whole time even though I thought some of the questions were a bit of a challenge to answer.

Lastly, our team helped out with some Grade 9 retreats that the schools put on. We went to a cabin at Foley Mountain, and joined the retreats for the lunchtime, we did a skit, a talk, and then had small groups. This was encouraging because we were able to see the excitement of the youth again! The youth were so enthusiastic; They would ask awesome questions about God during small groups, mingle with us as if we were their friends, and they just really loved us. After the retreats this week, I felt so happy and excited for the rest of the year. It's going to be awesome; it is awesome!

Team 5 will be back soon!

God Bless,

Shayla

Kicking Edge off - G’day from down under

G’day, G’day! Emma Fradd here, from Team 4 in Wetaskiwin. We had our first Edge night this weekend and it was EPIC!

Over 40 young teens turned up, that's right I said 40! We played games all night, got to know our youth a bit better and our team all agreed that the night was a success! We have a few guys interested in joining the band which is VERY exciting and also a good amount of young teens and young adults who want to join Crew and Core to help out with Edge nights and Life nights; now we’re all excited for this weekend’s Edge night on saints! woohoo!

Life here is pretty amazing! We are getting requests from all over the community to come into schools, play some praise and worship, help out at local events, and even to record a Christmas song for a local CD! Excitement? I think so; I’m even allowed to record some of my own songs for free!

Yes indeed the community is getting to know us Netters quite well, and well...especially me, I suppose I should tell you why. Last Friday something happened, Erica and I were sitting with our host family around the table enjoying a rather tasty supper, when the phone rang. Maria, our host Mum answered; at first she smiled, then her face looked shocked, and she stared at me...
“Emma” she declared, “you’re in the paper”
“What?” replied Erica, “What’s it for? Because she’s from Australia?”
“No” said Maria.
“Something to do with music?” Erica asked
“No” Maria repeated.

My shoulders dropped, because I knew; I knew what was in the paper. It was an article that my Dad had written to the Wetaskiwin times,explaining “Our daughter Emma, she’s a missionary and a talented musician, spending the next 10 months in Wetaskiwin, so take care of her!”

I was so embarrassed, but then I got over it and realized how big my dad’s heart is to write a letter to the local paper in Wetaskiwin for me! Everyone who I come across now gives me random hugs and compliments about my parents who wrote a letter about me in the paper, so praise God!

But that’s about the gist of things; today, my beautiful sisters and I were honored by our wonderful brothers. We each received a lovely rose, they smelled AMAZING and we have put them up in the office; there’s plant life in our headquarters!!
Anyway, I’m off until next week when we shall be united once again.

God Bless,

Emma Fradd
Team 4 Wetaskiwin

Team 3 in Bonnyville

Once more, a big hello to everyone!

This is your jovial blogger from Équipe 3, writing this time from Bonnyville, Alberta. For the past few weeks, we've been travelling from town to town, experiencing french hospitality at its best. First off, after our stay in Falher, was a travel day all the way to Fort McMurray; way up there in oil sands territory, then another day of travel to our current location. From here, we visited Cold Lake, Plamondon, and we’ll be making our way to St. Albert tomorrow.

Our stay here in Bonnyville has truly been memorable. How often can you expect to see an entire NET team staying in the middle of the Albertan wilderness, in a nice cozy little log cabin just like the ones you see in those cute Christmas movies? Not often. This is awesome! Picture it: a log cabin, facing a beautiful lake, with the essence of fall roaming in the air. To top it all off, on our first night here, we caught mother nature at her best: aurora borealis lighting the sky with green and blue pigment. It was awesome!

It was really great to have this time as a team! On top of all the retreat ministry we do on a daily basis, we got to spend time bonding as a team. Going for long walks along the lake’s shore, visiting the bison at the neighboring farms (reminded me of my Manitoban stomping grounds), and the casual wrestling match between guys...'twas pretty great! One thing that really struck me was the hospitality of the people here, it's amazing! I don't think I've ever seen so much great food in my life! The generosity they have shown us, and every host home for that matter, is so humbling!

Last Sunday a community, Notre Dame d’Evron, celebrated their centennial of being in Alberta with Mass. From the testimonials we witnessed, this community seemed to have had a vital impact on the Franco-Albertan community. But we discovered later on, sharing over brunch, how much of a missionary spirit these women truly had. One of them had spent over 40 years in the Ivory Coast in Africa! We witnessed the different ways in which the Lord reaches out to His people, in the last generation, through this type of permanent community, and in this generation, where He also works through new communities like NET.

We are seriously loving it here on the road! What an experience! I think the NET experience has been dubbed 'hard but good', and this stands true with our team’s experience to date. The Lord is very much present in our daily lives and ministry, and we are just counting His graces!

Praying for you all!

Kevin Prada
Équipe 3

P.S. On the top left hand corner is a picture of us remembering childhood fantasies aboard this play structure at the Plamondon school; and on the bottom, (from closest to furthest) Marise, Déneige, Katy, Evan, Christiana, me and Carrie, enjoying a walk along Moose Lake, which our cabin here in Bonnyville over-looks.

Hi from team 2

Greetings from Team 2! Once again, this is Claire reporting with a new exciting update! We have done so much traveling this week, sometimes it's hard to keep track of the days!

Last week we traveled to a different town every day. The Encounter days went well, we had some very enthusiastic youth which was very encouraging. It's great when they express that they've had an amazing day. It definitely gives us an added boost of energy! I was also encouraged to hear the youth comment on something they learned from my talk. At first I was really happy to know that they got something out of it. Then I realized that it wasn't me who was speaking, but it was God speaking through me. That made me even more happy to know I was being used as His instrument!

On Friday we bid farewell to Ontario and made our way to Manitoba. Our team was disappointed to have only seen one moose. Several of us have never seen one before. The one we saw was making its way into the woods, so we only caught his back. It was an exciting event, though, and we are keeping our eyes open for more sightings. We were also pretty excited to cross the border line. As you can see, we all had to stop for a picture.

On Saturday we drove through the prairies to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I've never seen so much flat empty land in my life!

After our night in Saskatoon, we crossed over to Alberta. Christian and Riane are happy to be back in their home province. In Edmonton we picked up our wonderful supervisors, Pat and Meaghan, who will be with us for the next few days. We are all super excited for their visit.

Right now we're in St. Paul and ready for a busy week!

God Bless!

Claire Labish
Team 2

Detroit to Ottawa!

Hey Everyone!

Sean Milan here, reporting in! Well, once again Team 1 is finished another diocese! We were in the London Diocese this past week, with many Encounter Days; the majority of them focusing on the Sacrament of Confirmation.

We received a lot of great feedback from teachers, custodians, host parents, diocese contact people and, most importantly, the students we ministered to! Our team also got to stay together for the first time! It was bundles of FUN!

The host family we were staying with took us out to the water front in Windsor. We got to see Detroit from across the river; it was pretty awesome, and exciting, for all of us. It was a first for Rachel (from Ireland) and Richard (from Australia) seeing the U.S.A.



On a little damper note, several of our team members fell ill this past week, but that didn't stop our team, no sir-ree! The rest of our team took on the challenge - yes our team was short several members, but we adapted and continued on! But we are all feeling better now. We are now starting our next diocese, Ottawa! It's fun to be back, but weird at the same time. It feels like we just left; well, I guess we did. Last but not least, a quick shout out to all of our family and friends back home, we miss and love you all.

Stay tuned, next week, when we will be in Edmundston, NB!

God Speed,

Sean Milan
Team 1

Dear God: Thy will be done. - Massive Worship

This is Sean Flynn from Massive Worship band again. After we play music at any kind of event, we realize how different the results were from the plan. Usually after we play someone may approach us and say that they liked our music. They use words like, "You guys are really good," or they might say "How long have you been playing together?" But after the Catholic Christian Outreach foundation day Mass last Friday, and after the two Sunday morning Masses at Our Lady of the Visitation, people began approached us saying things like, "That is so much more prayerful than we're used to," or "this worship was so anointed," and "that is exactly what I needed." Thanks be to God for blessing our ministry. I believe God is answering our prayer, that He simply using us as vessels of His love and that we would be nothing but instruments of His peace.

I hope God will continue to pour His grace into our lives and into our upcoming events. We are heading to Montreal for a youth rally on October 24, and we must rely only on the grace of God as we throw drama and games into our ministry for the first time. It is just the next climb in the roller coaster of Massive Worship, like the spiritual life in general. We've already gone up and come down from the training of musicians for NET, singing to the residents of a nursing home, switching vans four times, performing at a secular venue, a jam-party (where everyone jams out sweet tunes, not where you make various fruits into jams), and the mind boggling malfunction of countless instruments and speakers.

I don't know what will go wrong in Montreal, but something always does, according to our plans. I hate even to approach boasting, but adjusting to the unforeseen has been a consistent strength of ours. My point is, I believe we are successful in our goal of evangelization through music, not because of our talents, but because we desire unity with God's will. And He sure lets us know when our plan won't work, with just enough time to depend on His grace, and nothing else.

God Bless,

Sean Flynn
Massive Worship band

First Lifenight!!!

Hello Everyone!

This is Shayla from Team 5. Every day God is constantly showing us how He's working through us in this ministry. One of those ways was through our first Life Night this past Sunday and through our first outreach program at St. John's Catholic High School.

I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit nervous for the Life Night. I think mainly because I was leading music, but also because I didn't know what to expect. I just really tried not to put expectations on the night because I didn't know how many teens were going to show up, and I also didn't know how well it was going to go. I later realized that I shouldn't be worrying about these details because in the end, it all happens according to God's plan. If one person shows up, then it was meant for that one person to show up for us to plant that seed for God to work on.

So, to start the night right, even after our team prayed together, I made my own personal prayer. Basically I was asking the Holy Spirit to lead the Life Night through my team and me. Man, I'm telling you, that prayer really works!

The night began with Mass. I was really happy because I wasn't nervous, but also because the congregation was singing along to all the mass parts and other songs! As a music leader, that makes me really happy. The best part was during a part in 'Shine Like the Son' where one line is cut out of the Chorus. But people always forget about it and keep singing. Well, we had that split moment of silence, but I was able to hear all the voices that were singing along to the song. It brought a massive smile to my face!

After the Mass, my team and I were really surprised because all the teens were rushing to the hall to get started. They were all, for the most part, really excited to be there. As the night started I couldn't believe my eyes at what I was seeing. We had put out 36 chairs thinking that it might be too many, but we ended up setting up another 10 or so because there were so many people!

The whole night was a blast. From the skit to the talks, the awesome small groups, the pizza, and socializing! I think the best part of that night for me was my small group. I was scared that they would be hard to get to know, but it was easy; God totally set it up for me that it wouldn't be awkward. He helped me embarrass myself first so the girls would feel comfortable. To make a log story short: I ran, jumped on the stage, slid across the floor, no lights were on, and I stood up too fast to realize there was a table above me. I laughed so much, and it left a pretty good bump! The Life Night went so well, and we feel special now as a team when we look at our facebook account, we have like a million friends now!

Our outreach also went well. We played Australian Handball outside during the lunch hour. I think about 30 teens showed up. Enough that we had two games going with lines for each game. Teens that I didn't know were participating, and the teens who went to the life Night were inviting friends! It was a great time to just have fun and build relationships.

Well, that's about all for Team 5 this week. We're hard at work again preparing for our next Life Night. Once again, God is showing us the power of trusting in Him.

God Bless,

Shayla
Team 5, Perth-Smiths Falls

Introducing Wetaskiwin

Alberta: a first in french ministry

Hello, or should I say bonjour. This is your friendly team 3 blogger, reporting this time from way up in northern Alberta, in a small town by the name of Falher (pronounced Fahl-aire). Other than being home to what's apparently the world's biggest bee (which is actually really big and made be feel a bit uncomfortable), this town has also been home to our team for the past two days. I never would have thought that I'd be staying in a convent, but here I am along with the rest of my brotherhood, staying with three awesome nuns - Edith, Pauline, and Jeanine - who are truly spoiling us rotten! Also, today we put on an encounter day for the town's french school, and it was great! The group was awesome, and super joyful!

Since I've written last, we left Red Deer, and arrived in Edmonton, where we attended an evening with the Faculté Saint Jean, the University of Alberta's french campus. Here, the students got together to attempt to find who God was for them. Among other things, there were inspiring testimonies from students of the school, small groups to help digest the topics that had been discussed, and pizza! The team reaped a lot from this evening in which we were able to sit back, relax, and be in the participant's chair.

After our stay in Edmonton, we left for Saint Isidore, five hours to the north of the province's capital, putting on a young adult retreat, and finally got here to Falher. It's been a privilege staying with these nuns. We just finished saying night prayer with them, and it was beautiful, joining our youthfulness with their wisdom. It might sound like I'm trying to be politically correct and cheesy by saying that but I'm not, seriously, two completely different generations united in prayer.

So that is all for now. We are keeping all of you who are supporting us in prayer in our own prayers, and wishing you well!

'Til once more,

Kevin Prada

Équipe 3

P.S. On the top left hand corner is a picture of the team, along with our team trailer's ancestor, Ole' blue, and on the bottom, the brotherhood with the sisters with whom we are staying, Pauline (left), Édith (center), and Jeanine (left)

Bon Fire in Fort Francis

Hey Everyone! It's Claire with a new report from Team 2! First of all, last Tuesday we had to say good-bye to Frosty, our fifteen-passenger van. It was a sad day for us, because we love traveling all together. We now have two mini vans, but we still stay connected via walkie-talkies.

We've done a lot of traveling this past week. Our trip to Thunder Bay was very scenic; Lake Superior and the fall colours were absolutely beautiful! We were glad to be able to stay together as a team for several nights. For two nights we stayed at a rectory and attended Sunday Mass at the Church. Afterword, the priest told us that he has never seen the Church so full at a regular Sunday Mass. He said he felt it was because of our prayers. Wow!

Today we had a great day in Fort Francis! One of our host families coordinates the Life Teen program, and they invited us to a bonfire. It was held at a cottage where the owners invite the NET team to stay every year. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay overnight, but were able to spend the afternoon. Several of the youth from Life Teen came out and we really enjoyed spending time with them. They were very excited to have us; they wanted us to sing for them, so Christian led us in some campfire praise and worship! At the end of the night, they shared with us how much they were inspired by our witness. It was also an inspiration to us, and we were reminded how much we can minister outside of our Encounter Days!

The rest of our week is full with Encounter Days and we're ready to begin!

God Bless,

Claire Labish
Team 2

Team 1 is in London!

Hey everyone!!!

My name is Sean Milan. I am 18 years old, from a little town in Ontario called Barry's Bay, and this is my first year on the road with NET Ministries!!

Yes, yes, I know, I know, I have missed a few blogs, and I can explain....... but I would rather tell you about what our team has been up to!

So we have officially finished our first diocese, Yeeaaaaahhhhhh. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty excited. Over the Thanksgiving weekend we took a little trip to Algonquin Park, to the Barron Canyon!

The Barron Canyon, in a nutshell, is pretty BIG! Everyone had a great time. Rachel, Richard and Alexes were really excited to see a moose, but they didn't - but they did see a fox! There were a couple of close calls, Brandi and Mike were getting way too close to the edge. Some of us chose to stay and hug the trees, rather than risk our lives for the beautiful view.

Our Encounter Days have been going great! We traveled all day on the 401 to our next diocese (I really dislike the 401). We are currently in the London Diocese, to do a Youth Rally for boys and girls who are preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation. It's going to be crazy awesome; everyone is pretty stoked!

Well, I must go now and run in a corn field, no joke. I have to go, so until next time. Cool Beans!

God Speed,

Sean Milan
Team 1
P.S. Everyone Says Hi!!

The Power of Trusting God!

Hello Everyone!

This week has been full of little evangelization opportunities, especially within our host homes. During Thanksgiving, Rebecca and I had one particular experience at our host home’s Thanksgiving party.

At the start of the night, Rebecca and I were a bit worried about how the party was going to go. It’s normally a bit overwhelming when you go to a party and you know no one, especially a family party where your host parent has nine other siblings plus their children. However Rebecca and I knew that we shouldn’t be worried and use that as an excuse for how we were feeling. Having come from large families ourselves, we were used to this stuff.

When we arrived, everybody was really excited to speak with us. We were getting a lot of questions about our ministry, and surprisingly from our host father as well! The young teens were really drawn to Rebecca and me; they asked us questions, and some of them were interested about the Edge program that we will be starting after Christmas. So, for the most part we hung out with young teens, and went for a walk with them.

When we got back there was a young couple there who began speaking with us. They started by asking us where we came from, and then eventually into what we were doing. Rebecca and I explained how we were missionaries, and shared what we’re doing for the next year. One guy asked us if he was going to hell because he doesn’t go to Mass, and then that lead into the question of where is God in his life. His girlfriend then said that they should try to go to Mass, so we invited them out to our youth Mass.

While this may not be the most crazy experience, it did help me to see how God uses us in every-day situations. Especially when you least expect it. Rebecca and I weren’t sure about going to the party because we weren’t exactly that comfortable, but God used us to plant seeds in other people. We should see every moment as a chance for God to work through us.

Another experience we had was when we went to one of the high schools we minister to. The chaplain asked if we could speak to a couple of the religion classes about our ministry, and to advertise our Life Night coming up. We spoke to a couple classes but we felt our message wasn't really getting through. During a break we took some time to pray as a team. The message we got was to be real with our youth. While in the class I kept praying that God would send His Holy Spirit to help us and guide us. Before we knew it, we had the attention of the whole class. No more people in the back making faces at each other or talking; absolute full attention. To top it off, there was a guy who raised his hand and said that he was going to come to our Life Night, and he also affirmed us saying that we're making Life Teen sound really interesting.

At the end, we came out of that class filled with new hope. That's not all, Thursday morning I checked our team email, and we had received an email from a girl in that class. She was basically asking for the details for our first Life Night because she really wanted to go, and she expressed how excited she was. Like I already said, you never know when God is going to do something. I guess we all learned more about what it means to trust in God. You do the work and trust that God is working through you...miracles happen!

God Bless,

Shayla Doucette

Team 5 Smiths Falls/ Perth

It's Snowing!

It’s snowing! It’s the beginning of October and snow is falling from the clouds! Snowflakes actually have a form! They look like little stars! As if something that detailed came from the clouds, God sure was being beautifully specific when he designed those frosty little flakes! OK so I should probably explain my excitement...Hi, I’m Emma Fradd (I'm in the front on the bottom picture,) I’m from South Australia and snow is a first for me! Previously snows only existence was in Christmas movies and in Northern parts of Australia where I have never ventured. It’s so beautiful! I cried a little bit ...don’t tell anyone...

My wonderful team and I(you can call us Team 4) have just arrived in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, that’s where we’ll be for the next 8 months and we are SO excited. I was a bit embarrassed to show the level of my excitement around my team (we just met 6 weeks ago), like I was biting my lip to keep from squealing, but then they just burst into and shouts and “woohooing” as we drove past the ‘Welcome to Wetaskiwin’ sign! Yes!

So here we are, setting up our office, Hannah’s drawing us a big calendar for October (including thanksgiving and Halloween which are both new for me!), Our Team Leaders Marc and Erica are doing us up a schedule for the next 2 weeks, Marissa is organizing Gas receipts from our 5 days trip up here from Ottawa and Josh and I just finished some work for ‘The Edge’ (Catholic middle school ministry) which will be starting up in 2 weeks!

So thats about it for now, I’m gunna go sneak outside for my break and see if there is enough snow to formulate a snowman!

God Bless,

Emma Fradd

Team 4 Wetaskiwin

Our first travels

Here we are, finally arrived at our destination: the province of Alberta. This is Kevin Prada, once more, your friendly neighborhood Team 3 blogger. These past few days, which we have spent traveling from our home base in Ottawa, to our current location in Red Deer, have been an absolute blessing.

If I were to offer you right now the chance to spend the next five days of your life traveling in two mini-vans, through cold, snow, and sleet, I’m pretty sure some wouldn’t be too quick to jump on the opportunity. But sincerely, this journey has been amazing! We got to see a bit of everything of our beautiful country’s landscape, all from northern Ontario’s lakes and mountain-like hills (I’m from Manitoba, so for me, any height that makes my ears pop is considered a mountain), to Manitoba and Saskatchewan’s open prairies, and Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, visible on the horizon from our host home here in Red Deer.

It really gave me time to reflect on the beautiful gift God has given us in the nature that surrounds us! Seriously! Just take a minute to look outside, and think about how big this thing we call earth really is! And it is all one big massive gift from the Creator to the created, you and me. Coming from Winnipeg, I find it easy to complain: our provincial bird being the mosquito, and Winnipeg’s only season being winter. But it really stunned me how awesome, immense, and complex this home we have been given really is, and gave me a new appreciation for this God-given gift.

This time also enabled us to bond as a team. Hey, being enclosed in a space equivalent to a large closet with a bunch of people of your age, for five days straight, funny things are going to happen. So many anecdotes to tell, so many stories to share! I can really tell that our team is finding its own personality, its own identity, and forming itself into quite the family.

So far, nothing but awesome things to report from our end! We just finished our first few retreats on the road, and they went very well! We are definitely all accompanied by the grace of God, and can really see Him at work!

Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers!

Here is a picture of us crossing our first provincial border to my home turf, Manitoba (I’m the big guy in the middle of the top row).

God Bless,

Kevin Prada
Team 3 Les Equip NET

Team 2 in Sudbury

Hey Everyone! It's Claire reporting for Team 2. Our time in Sudbury is coming to an end, but it has been a great week!

Last Wednesday, the 7th, we had an "Initiation Complete" Encounter Day for grades 7 and 8. Lauren did a great job giving her talk for the first time! Thursday was challenging but we realized that some are going to be like this and we won't always see the fruit of our work.

Our Encounter Day on Friday was a very positve way to end the week! The youth were all girls from Sault St. Marie school. They were a very respectful and enthusiastic group. They responded very well to everything, especially Riane's talk and the dramas. We all had very good small groups as well. Many of the girls said they were going to start praying and going to Mass more often.

Thanksgiving weekend was very relaxing. On Saturday, we had a partial ministry day and then most of us attended Mass with our host families. On Sunday we had team day; we went to the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Sudbury for team prayer. On Monday, we had a full ministry day, working on skits, dramas, and music. Also, we shared Thanksgiving dinner with our host families. We are very grateful for their generosity!

We have one more Encounter Day tomorrow in Sudbury and then on Wednesday we head for Sault St. Marie!

God Bless,

Claire Labish
Team 2 Traveling

From the Pan to the Fire

Massive Worship is a ministry focused toward those already involved in the Church, but to fulfill our Christian call to make disciples of all nations the band has committed to doing one outreach event a week. Our first step into the "real world" was an open mic night at a radio-sponsored club, dubbed "The Electric Frying Pan." This is an event where full bands and soloists could gather to show off their talent.

After we arrived and signed up, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves as we waited to go onstage. But then by the grace of God, a guy named Clinton came over to our table and started talking to us. He was in the band that would play after us, but we talked about much more than music. He professed to be a Christian by faith, but not to be a part of any religious tradition or community. He was the everyman or our generation: Crude, yet harmless; opinionated, but pleasant; believing in God, but not living in God. We talked with him and his band mate Chris for the whole time we were in the club. The five of us in the band ended up rotating between evangelizing to Clinton and Chris, and talking with our Catholic friends who came out to see us play.

When the time did come to play our set, it was awesome. We played the two heaviest, most rockin' songs we'd ever practiced, and a medium one in between. after our set we told the crowd we were a Catholic ministry band. The manager asked us to play a fourth song at the end of our set, which felt good.

As I think about that night and I realize that there was more going on than just our performance. My view of fellowship deepened that night. I know community is part of God's plan for his people, but that fact stood out me in a new light. Clinton was astounded at the sacrifices we said we've made for the sake of Christ. It was not our desire to give up worldly values, but our ability to succeed, that shocked him. I know every struggle that I've overcome has been because of God's grace, but I always had people telling me to run to God's grace at the difficult times . At the Electric Frying Pan, I saw what happens when a Christian tries by himself: He gives up by himself. I know the Holy Spirit was there with us, moving, shaking, softening hearts. And I hope that all those we spoke to, through words, song, and action, accept the new heart God is trying to give them.

God Bless,

Sean Flynn
Massive Worship Band

Introducing Smith Falls/ Perth

It's Shayla again! I'm just gonna start by introducing the Smiths Falls/ Perth team. I'll tell you about myself first (I'm on the right in the back row,) I come from Alfred ON, what I hear from people is that I'm always happy and I love dance parties! It's a great chance to look like a fool and not care because everyone else looks completely ridiculous and doesn't care too!

Thomas Russel (left from me) is our male team leader, he prefers being called Tom. When you meet Tom he seems like a quiet guy, I'll tell you that he is not! Tom always brightens up the room with his random, but hilarious jokes! Oh, and he would like to add that he loves taking walks under the moon on a nice sandy beach.

Next we have Rebecca Bilodeau. She has such a fun personality; always coming up with random stories about her life. She is super proud of the fact that her town, Glendon AB, has the world's largest perogie, I don't blame her I want a large perogie!

After Rebbecca comes Alyssa Gabrielson (left front row,) from Winnipeg MB. She is our female team leader, Alyssa is always trying to love everyone. She's like a care-bear; always blasting out her care and love, not from the stomach though, but from the heart!

James, from Deep River ON, is the next in line . He's quite the funny one. I think my whole team can agree on how we find it hilarious every time he goes off into his own little world. We would all be walking and then notice that James has wandered off from the group because something has caught his attention.

Lastly, we have Danica O'Neill from Stony Plain AB. She's the bold one on the team. She's sure of herself, and has the cutest laugh, it makes me smile every time I hear it. Danica is also in love with hoops & yo yo cards. If you haven't heard of these cards, she suggests that you look them up online, she's HILARIOUS!

Well that's the Smiths Falls/ Perth team:) This week we've all been preparing for our kick off life night on the 18th of October! We're all excited! Today we also had our first Team Day in Smiths Falls. We started the day by having bonding time with our sister hoods and brother hoods. Poor Tom was alone because James went home for a family thing, but I think he enjoyed the alone time. Our sister hood bonding time was amazing! I feel like this is the first time this week that I really feel like we're a sister hood. I love all my sisters!! The second half of the day we got back together with Tom and played some pictionary, and did other fun stuff!

Well, that's about it for Team 5. We're working hard, and can't wait to do our kick-off life night!

God Bless,

Shayla
Team 5 Smiths Falls/ Perth

From the Road: Team 2

Hey everyone it's Claire from team 2 reporting in today. On Sunday we had our first long van trip as a team! In the evening we arrived safely in Sudbury and settled in with our host families.

Then on Monday we had our first Encounter Day for grade 8 students . The theme was "Who are You?" They were a pretty rowdy group but they really settled down for prayer ministry. We all thought that prayer time went well. A lot of the youth said that the dramas were their favorite part of the day. Over all, things went pretty smoothly.

On Tuesday we had a C.E.O. Encounter Day (Catholics Empowering Others) for grade 12. We were expecting about 50 youth, and so we were really surprised when only 11 came! Other than making a couple changes in our game choices, we went on with the day as usual. They were a really good group. Since there were as many team members as youth, we were able to talk personally with all of them. Prayer ministry went well; the teens were very respectful and a lot of them seemed to be moved.

Brendan talked with one boy who said he was an atheist. Whether or not he changed his belief, we don't know but we have hope that the seed we planted will grow. Katie, our recruiter, was very happy that she got our first female recruit! Hopefully the first of many! Again, the youth really liked the dramas and the skits.

We are off to a good start and looking forward to the rest of the week!

God Bless,

Claire Labish
Team 2

Fire in the market

Hi my name is Kevin Prada and I'm serving on NET's French team this year. As our NET training has now come to an end, I was reminiscing on some of my highlights. One thing that stands out for me is a night called "Fire in the Market". When this was announced by the staff my first thoughts were, "Is this some sort of arson or Fire Fighter intervention?" no, that wasn't it at all! We were going to be lighting fire in people's hearts. We were sent on a spontaneous mission of evangelization for the night, by going up to strangers, randomly in the market or on the street. We evangelized by simply giving a smile or striking up a conversation with someone we bumped into and sharing our personal testimony.

To be quite honest, this seemed quite intimidating at first. On NET, we evangelize in a very structured environment, on a retreat (now called Encounter Day), where youth are expecting us to share our faith. But here, where people were just continuing with their day-to-day activities, we had to get out of ourselves, and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us to the right people, and to inspire our actions.

I had the privilege of meeting a man named Paul who now lives on the streets. Through a series of unfortunate events he had lost a successful career and was now left to a life on the streets of Ottawa. To be honest, when I first saw this man my first reaction was to think he was just too lazy to get a job. But as he started sharing his life with me, I was stunned at the true dignity he had in himself, and I was reminded of this true and inherent dignity that we all have as sons and daughters of God.

Each and every person around us was created in the image and likeness of God Himself. Wow! I think it's easy to often dismiss the homeless, or put a blind eye to those commercials on TV of orphaned child in far away lands. I know my own reaction when I see them is to flip the channel. But this experience has really pushed me to see God in everyone I meet. Jesus did say that whatever we do to these little children of His, we also do unto Him. He is in them. He loves them just as he loves us and in return we should love others as well.

This experience challenged me, and so I challenge you, when you see one of God's children, smile at them, pray for them, show them love, and the inherent dignity that is in them. For when you do this to them, it is to Jesus that you are doing it.

God Bless,

Kevin Prada
Team 3 Les Équipe NET