Merry Christmas from Massive Worship!

"Nibble, nibble"

Merry Christmas from Steinbach!

What better way to celebrate the season than with our first high school event – an “Elf” movie night! It was great to spend time with some of the youth who will be involved with our high school youth group in January. It was a lot of fun and it is easy to see how excited the youth are to start the youth group in the new year.

Our recent family fun day was a huge success with over 60 parishioners participating in our gingerbread house making contest. Thanks to one of our parishioners, we received a great deal on some gingerbread house kits to give to each family/team. The afternoon started off with a drama about the Annunciation and the struggles Mary had to face once she said “yes” to God’s request. We also had a talk about Advent and preparing for Christmas and a skit about the story of St. Nicholas. From there we handed out the kits and let the families design their houses together. Amy put together some wonderful prizes for the most creative and the cutest houses, as well as the family that showed the best teamwork. It was great seeing how different each house was and seeing all the different strategies each family had. One group of sisters had the genius idea of crushing a candy cane and using that to decorate the pathway to their house’s door.

My favourite part of the past week was when a parishioner came into our office after Mass and told us how his young son randomly says “nibble, nibble”. This line comes from a skit Andrew and Brenden performed at our parish talent show. I guess we are a memorable bunch, even to the younger parishioners.

Although the team is excited to go home for Christmas, we will definitely miss this parish. We hope that every parishioner has a blessed Christmas and New Year and that they may continue to grow in fellowship this season. And we wish the same to all of you reading this.

God bless!
Elizabeth Fitzmaurice

“Win the game of football! Win the game of life!”

Hello wonderful readers. Welcome to another update from Steinbach, Manitoba! This past week has been full to the brim with fun, activity and, of course, ministry.

As some of you may know, Amy is from America. California to be specific, and since American Thanksgiving fell on one of our team days we decided that it would be an awesome idea if we watched Thanksgiving football together. The team also thought it would be a great day to celebrate Amy’s unbirthday too. So, just as we settled down to watch the game the five of us exchanged looks and broke into song singing “Star Spangled Banner”, which most of us had to learn in only a couple of days. It was incredible!!! We then pulled out some spicy chicken wings and watched the game together. We ended off the night by taking some photos out in the snow.

Did I mention that the very next day was Amy’s actual birthday? We were surprised by our contact people with an apple pie, complete with sparklers, in honour of Amy’s birthday. Later on that week some of our teens brought in a cake that they had baked for Amy. It was definitely a time of celebration.

We were also honoured to have our supervisors visit us again. They tested our teamwork by leaving us in a local park, in the snow, with a note stating that some of us had lost the use of legs, mouths, eyes etc. and a clue to direct us to our next clue. So, we wandered around Steinbach looking for clues, guiding and carrying each other. It was a lot of fun and really brought us together. The best part was arriving back at the Church to coffee, hot chocolate, cake and apple pie. Delicious!

Our last REACT night before Christmas was a great success! The night was entitled “Jesus Who?” and was focused on the freedom, hope and love that Christ offers to us. Brenden gave an incredible talk, which was followed by small group discussions. We then moved up into the church for a drama, testimony and prayer ministry. One of our high school leaders said he really enjoyed prayer ministry and that he felt renewed from it. That kind of feedback is just wonderful!

Although we only have a week and a half left here before we head home for Christmas, we plan to be excellent in our ministry and give it our all. We have a number of workshops, parish events and planning to do for January, but we are super excited to do it!

God bless!
Elizabeth Fitzmaurice

Massive Worship on the Air

Happy Advent, readers!

We were recently in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where a parish asked us to play for Mass on Sunday which happened to be Christ the King Sunday, a great celebration. After we set up in the church we found out that they were actually broadcasting the Mass on the radio! Since it was the Saturday night Mass they were recording it so that they could broadcast the Mass the next day on the radio. Our first on-air broadcast! We might listen to it sometime... we'll see.

The Mass was beautiful.

We also had a very pleasant surprise! The French team was actually in Yarmouth the same time as us! They had a retreat at the same building in which we are staying. It was so nice to just hang out with them and catch up on each other’s ministries and team. As Netters, it is always a gift when you happen to run into another team and we really enjoyed having supper together. They also joined us in the congregation for Mass. It was just a very great day.

Then Sunday came around and we played once again for Christ the King Sunday. It went well again and then after the Mass a few people came up and thanked us, but one man in particular really had an impact on us: he came up and introduced himself and as he was about to start talking, he had to stop because suddenly tears started welling up and he was so moved and told us about his conversion when he was 47 and that the music "did his soul good". He told us to never stop what we were doing, and that it was time for his generation to step back and for ours to get out there and evangelize. He definitely put the point across that what we are doing really is making an impact and to keep it up. It was so inspiring to us, and all because we played at Mass. Never underestimate the power God has to work through you in everyday things.

That evening we played music for a Holy Hour that was dedicated to Saint Brother Andre.

The youth from the Parish then stayed and we had what we call a band-jam, which is basically where we take all of the youth who can play instruments and sing and form them into a band, or they are in their existing Worship band and we jam out a few songs. We give them tips on how to lead music and how to add dynamic to the songs. It was a lot of fun, and they were all very talented.

The hospitality we have been shown since we arrived in Nova Scotia has been absolutely amazing. Everyone is so welcoming and we have definitely been loved a lot through food. We have been eating very well! We are now in Halifax looking forward to doing some more events.

Hope everyone is doing awesome at the beginning of this Advent season!

God Bless,

Brandi Olson

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Happy Advent to you, faithful blog followers :)

In the last three weeks since our last blog we have been in Nova Scotia (for two weeks) and the last week has been spent back in Ottawa. We've been having an absolutely marvelous time.
In Nova Scotia we did a lot of evening retreats during the week and day retreats on the weekends. It was nice to have the days to do things with the team, or hang out with host families. While in Ottawa we only have had two retreats so far. The first one was in Russell and it happened to be our 40th retreat AND also happened to be at the exact location that we had our very first retreat: Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church. I had my small group in the same place I had my first. We've come a long way, geographically, spiritually, and as a team since that first retreat. Our second retreat was a weekend retreat that I will tell you more about in a bit.

The first Saturday we were in Nova Scotia we stayed in Dartmouth and us girls stayed at Judith's house! While we were there, we celebrated her un-birthday. The boys dropped us off and drove away, but then drove back about ten minutes later and surprised her! Then all through the evening Judith's friends stopped by to see her. She was completely not expecting it, and it was great to see her reaction. We ate cheesecake, destroyed a pinata, and did the oreo contest, which is where you twist the oreo apart, eat the icing, eat the cookie and then drink a glass of milk. I came in second, beaten only by Jacob. Judiths family is awesome!

We stayed in a lot of places for one night, including Cole Harbour, home of Sidney Crosby. We had our first snow fall when in Truro, NS. It's starting to feel like Christmas. The whole team stayed together at St. Benedict's Church in Halifax for four nights. We had a grand time, as we always do when we're together. Being together in the evenings gave us the opportunity to talk and play games like Mafia and Sardines. I feel like we've been doing a lot of growing as a team lately.

The last week in Nova Scotia we were able to see Massive Worship twice! How lucky are we?! We knew we were going to Mass and then lunch with our contact person, but right before we headed out the door Carissa and Tom surprised by saying MW would be playing at the Mass and then they were going to lunch with us too! It was so great to see their smiling faces. We got to hang out for a while after lunch and then on Saturday they stopped by quickly, just to participate in team prayer with us and talk for a little before they headed off to their next destination.

One of our evening retreats in Nova Scotia was kind of hard. It was a Confirmation retreat and the small group that I had would not talk. So to keep things from being awkward and absolutely quiet, I talked about Saints; how there was a patron saint for pretty much anything and also how you can ask Saints for intercession. At the end of the night, I was a little tired and worried that those girls really hadn't gotten anything out of small group. But Carissa came up later and asked, "Who was talking about saints in their small group? When we were heading to prayer ministry one of the girls behind me was telling her friend how they had heard about saints in their small group. Then she went on to talk about how saints live and how it would be cool to be a saint and be remembered for the good things that you did." That just goes to show that God can work in all situations to touch minds.

The East Coast was lovely, and as a first time visiter I was sad to leave. It was beautiful and a wonderful experience. We drove to Nackawic, New Brunswick last Monday, then on Tuesday we went from there back to Ottawa. I am very happy to be back in Ottawa, I must say. It feels kind of like home.

We just got back from our first weekend retreat and I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say we are a little tired, but very happy! The retreat was at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Russell, and seventeen youth (Gr. 9-12) came. It was phenomenal. From the very beginning there was great energy. The youth were excited to be there and they really invested in the whole weekend. It was so great to have all that time to really get to know them and have so many small groups. We also had men's and women's sessions which were very well received. It was so amazing to hear what they had to say during the large group discussion. A lot of them said their favourite part was small groups because they were able to talk about things that they normally wouldn't. One girl said, "It's awesome how close you (the team) are because it made it easier for us to come to you and just talk." A grade twelve guy said, "I'm sure I wasn't the only one who came into this weekend thinking it was going to boring. But it was so great and I feel more connected to my faith now that I ever have."

The whole weekend has just pumped me up even more for our ministry. We only have one more week left before Christmas break, but I am so excited for next year to see how God will continue to impact lives.

Till next time, God bless and stay warm!
Maria Kalin
Encounter One