Gooooooood morning CANADA!! It's 0600 hours. What does the "0" stand for? O my goodness, it's early. Dominique from team 1 here, reporting from Okotoks. Wow! What a week! Where to begin? When we last left off, we were in Kamloops, BC and we had put on a retreat for the gr. 7's of OLPH. After the retreat some of us were able to meet up with some NET alumni: John Crichlow, Andrea Faliszewski, Pat O'Donovon, and, Mike Magliocchi. It was great to hang out with them and to share stories from their year(s) on the road. It was great encouragement and quite hilarious. It was a great honour to see them! Then we packed up and headed up to William's Lake. Home of the amazing Mikulasik clan! We fell in love with them all and the whole community; what an amazing place! We stayed Wednesday and Thursday and spent most of our time at Sacred Heart Parish, or at one of the Mikulasik houses! On Thursday we had a confirmation retreat for the students of Sacred Heart School. We started the day with adoration, then Mass with the youth. The whole day they were really responsive and invested in everything! They were a great group! The prayer time went well too - Fr. Andrew and Fr. Clinton were there throughout the day and had confession open for the students. We ended off the day in joy of how the Holy Spirit led the day then had some time to hang out with the priests. To start the ending of the day, we had adoration for team prayer, then had all the host families together for a final dinner. It was a lot of fun! It was a hard goodbye, but it was time to go, so with pick-ups at 6:45am we headed out for our 11 hour trek to Airdrie, AB!
We have spent our lives for the past month surrounded by giants! It became the norm, so it was very different driving away and having them only in the horizon! In Airdrie we put on a confirmation retreat. The youth here, like in William's Lake, were very responsive and open, but prayer time blew us away! Six priests were there for confession! SIX! At first no one was really going, but there was a steady stream of them going to the front for Rosaries and Bibles. We went through the Examination of Conscience, prayed with them, then shortly after the lines for confessions were full! There was no one left spread out in the church, they were all in line! Praise God!! It was amazing! The Holy Spirit truly guided the day and it was nice to end with Mass!
To end off an awesome week we headed to Drumheller, AB to the Royal Tyrrell Museum...the one with the DINOSAURS!!!!! It was a great team day, running through the museum with giants of a different variety! Dinosaurs are huge and one of the craziest of God's creations! We were all trying to imagine what it would be like if dinosaurs were walking the earth now!! It would be crazy! "Don't go out hiking alone sweetie, there have been Triceratops spotted in the area!"...the day ended perfectly with team prayer on the top of a mountain in the badlands! It was beautiful!
We are currently back in Okotoks, AB at Holy Trinity Academy and have retreats for the grade 10 students for the next couple days! We are all well and fine; continue to keep us and this ministry in your prayers and we will be in touch in a week! God Bless!
In Christ,
Dominique Lanthier
Team 1
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