Always Remember: Don't Burn the Sauce!

Hello again from Steinbach, where iNFUSE team two continues to have adventure after adventure and are loving every moment of it!

Our host families continue to bring us so much joy. Just one example of this is how Amy and Amanda’s host family took them to the Forks Market, in the area where the two rivers meet in Winnipeg. They enjoyed it so much that the whole team went together on our next team day. Simply walking around the shops together and taking photos was a ton of fun. And to top off our day we had the chance to have dinner with Archbishop Albert LeGatt. It was great to meet him, talk to him about the work we will be doing this year, ask him about his vocation and serving him a dessert we had made together as a team (it was an apple crisp that was absolutely delicious!)

During this dinner a member of the team of parishioners that organized us coming to Steinbach shared a beautiful testimony of the effect we have already had on the parish. She said it is wonderful to see some of the young people in Mass that she has not seen there for a while and that she could feel a kind of electricity within the parish that has been missing for quite some time. I was truly amazed by her insight and her openness. Just beautiful!

One major highlight of the past week was a surprise visit by Encounter team 2! We knew that they would be driving close to Steinbach and we even thought they would pop in on Friday, but when they were unable to make it Friday evening our dear team leaders, Amanda and Brenden, decided to trick us. What they didn’t tell us was that the team was going to visit Saturday morning. It was wonderful to see their beautiful faces once again and to spend some time with them. It was also great to share our adventure stories and our plans for the next few weeks. We continue to pray for their ministry and their safety as they travel and minister to youth across Canada.

My personal favourite event of the week has to be our first parish event – a pasta dinner hosted by us. It was a lot of fun serving the parish a meal and entertaining them with an informational slideshow and a skit. The best part of the evening was the group of young people who offered to help out. We had six or seven young helpers in the kitchen making caesar salad, buttering and baking garlic bread, taste-testing the pasta, serving the meal and washing dishes at the end of the night! They were spectacular! The event was a huge success with over 100 parishioners coming out and we fundraised about $400 to go towards the youth ministry program. I have to admit that we did have a little bit of trouble to start…we decided to cook the alfredo sauce the day before and sadly it burnt quite badly, but with a stroke of luck we were able to get another recipe that didn’t require us to buy more supplies (on a side note: all the stores in Steinbach are closed on Sunday). After we had cleaned everything up we realized we still had a ton of coffee left over and we didn’t want it to go to waste…let’s just say it was a rather energetic evening before we went home that night especially since none of us are big coffee drinkers.

We are looking forward to a ton of events happening this week! The youth band is having its first meeting tonight! We have a parish-wide Adoration Wednesday night and our first ever grade 7/8 youth night on Saturday!

We are definitely becoming more and more attached to this city and are incredibly excited to continue the work we have started here.

God Bless!

Elizabeth Fitzmaurice