Vlog Round 2

Greetings fellow inhabitants of the world wide web! This is April Fogle again from iNFUSE Team 1, and I am excited to announce that we have made another Vlog for you all. To view it just click on the link below:

Vlog 2-iNFUSE Team 1 Yellowknife

We hope you enjoy!

Until next time,

April Fogle

iNFUSE Team 1

We are FULLY ALIVE in Christ!

Holy smokes! Can you believe that it is less than 2 months until ministry is done for the NET year of 2010-2011? I sure can't! This year is flying by! God is still pouring out His grazes like crazy though, that's for sure! Wow, God is speaking to my heart so much lately, and I am so thankful for that. This is my second year on NET. Last year I was on a traveling team. So when team announcements were made at training, and I was put on a parish team, I was really unsure of how it would go. It was really hard at first to get used to the smaller team and different ministry, but God has showed me lately just how blessed I am to be here. The ministry is going amazing! I know so many youth and so many parishioners hearts are changing, and I just have to step back for a minute and give God so much praise for that. I really really love everyone here with all my heart, and God has really showed me this in a powerful way lately.

So let me just tell you about our weekend of March 18-20. We had our EDGE night entitled "How Did It Begin?" It was on Evolution vs. Creation. We did a longer drama that was set in a court room. There was a judge (Cecile), a guard (Candace; a CREW member), and the prosecutor and defendant (myself and Marcus). I was the one that was saying that creation is solely from God, while Marcus took the evolution side, saying that it is only from science. We ended up in a big argument, and the judge (who represented the Catholic church) ended up making a decision that both of our arguments had truths and had flaws. We really stressed to the youth what the Church teaches; that God DID create everything, so science and God can co-relate. So that was our Friday night. Saturday, we had to wake up early and go to a town about a half an hour away from Wetaskiwin to put on an Initiation Complete (Confirmation) retreat. Oh man, it was awesome! I loved doing Confirmation retreats last year on the road, so I was blessed enough to do the talk for the youth! YES!!! We really bonded with the youth at this retreat, and we are excited to see them again when they come to visit us at an EDGE night!

After this BUSY retreat, we had to race back to Wetaskiwin to get dressed up for our final Glass Alabaster night. We had so many surprises for the girls, it was really great! We brought in some of the young men from our youth groups to come dressed up and to serve the girls dinner. The girls didn't know the boys were there, so when we opened the door (where we had dinner), and a boy came to escort a girl to the table, the girls were HAPPILY surprised! I then gave them a talk on commitment, particularly on commitment to chastity. Later, we had an affirmation session, writing a special note to each girl. We headed to the Church (which was only lit by candles), where we prayed over each girl, and gave them each their own personal prayer time with Jesus. I was touched by this, and I know all of our girls were as well. Look at all of us! I just really love them so much!

Sunday we started our training for new CREW members. We had 6 people there! I did a talk on living a Christ-centered life, and then we went to the Church to write commitment letters to Christ. Other sessions included learning about relational ministry, about working as a team and dealing with conflict, and about the general flow of EGDE nights. I am so excited that the Holy Spirit is working through EDGE nights and through our volunteers.

Our team day on March 24 was of epic proportions! We re-took the temperment test that all netters took at training, to see how much we have learned about ourself over the past few months. It actually made a lot of sense, because we all have learned so much about ourselves. We then did the test for each other. That was interesting! Later in the evening, we went to Beaumont for Mary Beth's Coffee House. There was so much talent there, and the coffee shop was so quaint and cute!

This past weekend, we put on a Confirmation retreat for the candidates here at Sacred Heart. There were about 55 retreatants all weekend. It was absolutely beautiful to see the transformation happen along the whole weekend. When they arrived on Friday night, they were asked to raise their hands if they were excited to be at the retreat; if they were excited for confirmation. Only a couple of them raised their hands. We were extremely blessed to have many amazing speakers come to share their stories with the youth and to teach them about different things. I had a small group of ten Grade 9 girls. It was a blessing to me, because they were so open with me. Every single one of them had doubts about God, and they shared their questions with me. I felt so honoured that they would trust me like that. They told me how they doubted Jesus' presense in the Eucharist. So I fully explained the Eucharist to them, and told them personal stories of how I was touched by the Eucharist, and I also told them many miracles that have happened with the Eucharist, and by the Eucharist. I could totally see their hearts go from doubt to belief in one SHORT small group. Honestly, it was amazing! That night, we had prayer ministry and Eucharistic Adoration, so it was really cool to be able to pray over the youth and to see them in their prayer. WOW! Is all I can say.

At the end, the youth came up to the area before the altar and everyone knelt before Jesus. We sang the Benediction and a closing song together before our Saviour. My small group the next day was absolutely awesome! They all talked about how they individually were changed throughout the weekend. The Holy Spirit is great! At the end of the weekend, we asked the same question as we did at the beginning. We got them to close their eyes, and asked them to raise their hands if they NOW were excited about Jesus and about being confirmed. Almost EVERYONE raised their hands this time. We got them to open their eyes to see that almost everyone else was raising their hands. Now if that isn't a glory story, I don't know what is! Praise God!

So that is a little bit of what is going on here in Wetaskiwin! We hope that you enjoyed our little update! Stay tuned for more!

God Bless,

Katie Doyle

iNFUSE Team 3

Wetaskiwin, AB

"Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:5-8

Truth Is Effective

The Massive Worship Youth Rally.

A 2-hour concert, filled with teachings, skits, and of course Music. Sounds pretty epic ey?

Now picture yourself in Grade 7 or 8 or 9 and not being too fond of Jesus or His teaching.

Alright, this is now the Youth Rally that our team put on in Cold Lake. It was hard, although a few really enjoyed it and got into it, the majority of students were talking to each other, giggling, possibly finding us very cheesy and silly, which is fine, we’ve felt like that before, but I suppose it is a rather hard thing to experience when all of us on the team want so much for them to know, experience and encounter Jesus, our God.

During our time of prayer, Riane shared her testimony, and then led us in a prayer where we repeated after her. One of the lines we repeated was “Jesus I open my heart to you” and after everyone said this I heard a voice from the crowd say very boldly “I don’t”, Riane continued with her prayer…

When I heard this, my heart broke, to hear somebody completely reject Jesus flat out without even being “open” to him. I suppose it affected me a lot more because it was being “open” to Jesus is what led me from an atheist back to my Catholic faith. And I started to become very discouraged. My thoughts sounded like this:

“Jesus, what the heck? How can this be? They are not even open to you, how are you supposed to do anything through us if they don’t even care about you? Why are we here? Jesus, are you just humbling us? I can’t do this”

In this moment I really felt Jesus saying:

“Emma, if you don’t, who will?

I have called each of you to be a part of this team to minister specifically to these people in this way”

And then I felt that the Lord wanted me to look specifically into the crowd and find the people we were singing for. And amongst the people hitting each other and talking and laughing and making fun of us, I saw this girl in the back row, who had her head propped on her hand who looked like she was really thinking about Riane’s words and our teachings. I began to see little pockets of people singing with their eyes closed. And then to top it off, in the front row I saw this girl in grade 7, singing her heart out with her eyes closed and her hands in the air; grade 7! So beautiful. And this is what fueled me to continue on with the Rally in good spirits. God really showed me who I was playing for and he reminded me that in the moments leading up to me experiencing God 3 years ago, I was very shut off from him and not open whatsoever; first he had to soften me up. God showed me that there is ALWAYS someone we do our retreats for, even if it’s just one person, our retreats aren’t pointless, even if we do them over and over again, even if the retreatants look uninterested. God is working though our ministry, even if I were to see no one in that crowd praying or singing, God speaks his words through us, and God’s word is truth and truth is effective.

Emma Fradd,

Massive Worship

Heyo from Encounter One.

Hello from Airdrie, Alberta! Maria here, recounting for you once again the adventures of Encounter Team One.

On our way to Coaldale, Alberta, home of our beloved Carissa Elliott, we made a stop in Barnwell. We weren’t sure why, then Carissa said, ‘How would you guys like to have dinner with Massive Worship?’ We freaked out. When we got out, Carissa went in the house (Brandi and Amanda Olson’s house) first, then came out and said, ‘Sorry, guys, I guess Massive Worship has already left. They had to leave for BC or something, you know how scheduling is.’ That was disappointing but we went into the house to meet Joanne, Brandi and Amanda’s mom, and Gord, Laura and Kody Ellliott, Carissa’s family. After introducing ourselves, Joanne said she’d give us a tour of the house. She was showing us one bedroom with a really big walk in closet. ‘And the best part about this closet,’ she said, ‘is there’s a bathroom in it.’ She opened the bathroom door and out came Massive Worship! We were so surprised, Judith screamed, and there were hugs all around. We had dinner and hung out with them for a couple hours, which was so fantastic. The Elliotts wanted to hear us sing ‘Immaculate Mary,’ our commissioning song, so our two teams sang it for them. You can watch the video here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqVvPtKe5pY

While in Coaldale, we were lucky to be able to stay with Carissa’s family! They are super great and we had a lot of fun staying there. While in Coaldale we put on a retreat at Carissa’s old school, St. Joe’s which was a lot of fun. We also got to meet some hopeful future Netters! (Hi Kody and Sabina! You’re in our prayers!!) While we were at Carissa’s house we celebrated her unbirthday, which coincidentally landed on her actual half-birthday (six months to the day after her real birthday). Her friends and family came over and we ate cheesecake and played ‘Things in a box.’ Could a day be any better? We love you, Carissa!!

Claire’s 21st birthday was on March 11th (We love you, Clairebear!!) and on the 12th we had a team day and celebrated her birthday in the evening. We went to the Crossiron Mills mall and had a photo scavenger hunt. We were put into teams and had a list of things we had to get pictures within a certain amount of time. Once that fun activity was done, we had dinner, and sang happy birthday to our darling Claire. The whole team went out to see the new Johnny Depp movie, ‘Rango,’ which was quite funny.

This last week we have been pretty busy, but have had some awesome retreats. We had three grade seven retreats in Okotoks which were a lot of fun. I really like it when we can stay in a school for more than one retreat, we really get to know the students. Retreatants would come in from the days before and have lunch with us. Our last retreat of the week was a grade 10-12 retreat with about seventy students. This kind of retreat doesn’t happen much so I was a little nervous, especially since I had to give the talk. Carissa told me before I went up to speak, ‘It’s not you talking, but God talking through you.’ That is something I need to remember more often, that I’m not here talking for myself, but to speak of the truth that is Christ and how He has worked in my life. The talk went well, and so did the retreat! The youth that came were so amazing, and wanted to learn and grow in their faith journey. They were so talented, too!

With only about two months left on the road, we are treasuring every minute of being together as a team and doing the work we are doing. Alberta has been a blast to be in, so many awesome retreats! Next time we’ll be coming at you from British Columbia, my home province! Whoop Whoo!! :D

Yours in Christ, Maria Kalin Encounter Team One

Video...Blog... VLOG!

Greetings fellow inhabitants of the world wide web!

This is April again, and last week instead of writting a blog, I decided to make a video-blog, also known as a "vlog." So you can check out what is happening with us by clicking on the link below:

Vlog 1- iNFUSE Team 1 Yellowknife

We hope you enjoy! God Bless!

April Fogle

iNFUSE Team 1

In A Galaxy Far Far Away

After an epic light saber battle, I Phylicia, defeated Lizzy with my amazing light saber moves and won the honour of getting to write this week’s blog of awesomeness. (Well, okay maybe we didn’t exactly duel over it, but why bother with the details!) So what is with the Star Wars lingo you may be wondering? Well, our last REACT night was entitled “In A Galaxy Far Far Away”.

Yes, it was Star Wars themed, and I really really really like Star Wars, so I was super excited to do this night. However, the night started out a little bit of a bummer, when I learnt to my horror, that out of the 11 teens that came, only two of them had watched Star Wars before. Shocking, I know! Moving on from the shock that statement must have left you with, the Star Wars night was a night filled with much fun and of course a lesson. We started off the night playing this game called Pull-Up. So basically, you have to pull up people of the opposite gender and you have to do it according to a particular theme. We did ninja, Mission Impossible, Star Wars (of course) and, my personal favourite, ballet! Getting into the meat and potatoes of the night, I gave a talk on how the ends don’t justify the means. I talked about how we, as humans, try to justify the wrong that we do because we say that as long as the end result is good, then it doesn’t really matter the actions that we took to get there. Naturally, this all connected to Star Wars, and I had a lot of fun both writing and giving this talk. After this talk we had an activity which involved bartering and trading supplies in order to make a rocket. The only catch was each team had their own rule that they had to follow. My team’s rule was we had to start with no supplies, and we could accept supplies, but we couldn’t give any away once we had them. Well, this created a little bit of a problem when we were given all of the streamers, and since all of the other teams needed a streamer we were quickly seen as unfair and well, greedy… I can honestly say that I felt really bad having to turn all the other teams away, especially since I couldn’t give them a reason why, I just simply had to say no. The other members of my team didn’t mind so much, in fact at the end of the night they named our rocket The Streamer! The night ended on an awesome note as I was talking to one of the teens about the night, and I asked them what they thought, and they said they had a good time, and they went on to say that Star Wars looked like a lot of fun and they thought that they might actually watch the movies sometimes. YES! This week we once again had Glass Alabaster and Real Men, and the night was totally awesome as usual. I really enjoy these nights, the young women we have coming out are so splendid and open, and they just want to learn about their faith and so it makes it so easy to present this information to them. We were in for a treat this night as Fr. Isidore joined us for a little game and to listen to my talk before heading downstairs to join the guys. Our theme for the night was modesty and purity of mind and I shared with the girls what purity has meant to me in my life. I shared about how I have learnt that purity is more then just saying no, but that really it is a lifestyle choice and involves all areas of my life from how I dress, to how I treat myself and guys, and even to how I think. The highlight of this night by far was the Fashion Show we put on for the girls demonstrating both modest and immodest dress. It was so much fun! We made a runaway, complete with spot lights and runway music. Amanda and Lizzy were our amazing models, and they did a super job showcasing their stuff and demonstrating how to dress to look good, but still be modest. Thanks beautiful ladies! Since I am not a guy I can’t comment personally on how the guy’s group is, but taking what my brothers told me, Real Men was really amazing. Fr. Isidore joined them this evening, and they said it made the night that much more awesome. He had a lot of really good insight and he gave a lot of awesome advice and opened it up for more discussion. Coming up we have LifeLine, entitled “Go my Favourite Sports Team Go!” We are having a night of sports and fun-ness and it is bound to be a blast. Our next REACT night is called “Man your Stations”, and as well, we are continuing to train our awesome volunteers to effectively share the Gospel message with the teens of this parish. Oh, and April Fools day is coming up and I am working my brain overtime to show my team just how much I love them! Well, all for now from this galaxy not so far away. I am off to battle the evil one, Satan, in a quest to lead more souls to Christ and share with them the joy that they can experience when they leave the dark side (sin) and come to the light (Christ). Until next time God Bless, and May the force be with you! Phylicia Vandermeer

Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9

FOR NARNIAAAAAAA!

Let me just update you on everything we've done in the past few weeks! Sorry for the delay! We appreciate all your prayers, and be sure that we are praying for you!

The past few EDGE nights have been entitled 'Just The Way You Are', 'Don't Be A Fool', and 'Siege.' 'Just The Way You Are' was about self-image, and we did a lot of discussion with the girls... and later gave them each a flower with a scripture from Song of Songs. It turned out to be a beautiful night! 'Don't Be A Fool' was about what the world offers us in the new age movement. We know that there are way too many things to delve into to tell them about, so we just told them to really pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance in everything they do. We prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and ended off by asking St. Michael the Archangel to protect us from all evil. It was a really great night. The kids were really into the talk and discussion, and learned a lot. 'Siege' is a giant game involving cardboard forts, dodgeballs, and foam swords!!! Sounds like fun, eh? I could only picture the battle scene from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when Peter yells: "FOR NARNIA!!!!" We all had so much fun!

Another thing we did is we went up to Red Deer for the Grade 12 retreat that was being put on. Cecile did the talk for the women's session. Holy smokes... it was so good. I think it was really good because it was very relatable. Cecile challenged the girls but also was very vulnerable in sharing her struggles. It was really truly beautiful!

We had another successful Crossroads Coffee House this weekend. Unfortunately, I couldn't go because I got sick that morning. But I heard nothing but great reviews! A lot of people are intersted in this, so we are very happy with the decision to keep it going.

Lifeteen days that have happened have been entitled 'Devils and Demons' and 'How To Save A Life.' 'Devils and Demons' was really cool because we talked about the reality of how scary the devil really is. We also really emphasized to not be too scared of the devil, but to fix our eyes on Christ and everything that He has conquered. 'How To Save A Life' was on abortion. Deacon Leo came in to gave a talk. We later went into the Church to pray for all unborn babies, and to spiritual adopt a baby in the womb to pray for.

We are coming to an end to the Glass Alabaster program. I am so sad! These girls are so amazing. I feel so close to them! I am so glad that this program has affected the girls so much. Last Glass Alabaster we talked mainly about Chastity, and we based a lot of our discussion out of the book Pure Womanhood by Chrystalina Evert. The book that I own is extremely full of highlighter, underlines, and brackets! I love it so much! One of the quotes I really like from the book is "I remember thnking, 'When my future husband and I meet, he and I will tell all our stories, and we'll just laugh about it. I'm sure he's out there doing the same stuff I'm doing.' Needless to say, I was surprised when I finally met my husband-to-be. He was still a virgin and, at twenty-four, he was still waiting--for me." So I will let you know about our final night in the next blog.

Team days have been so much fun! We have celebrated Emily's birthday! We have gone for walks in the beautiful weather! We have watched some classic Disney movies, we have gone sledding, we also went to see the movie Beastly. We also had a really good team sharing. We all know that God is calling us to greater things this year, and we are excited for where He is leading us. I love my team so much!

Keep staying tuned!

God Bless,

Katie Doyle

iNFUSE Team 3

Wetaskiwin, AB

Melting snow and dropping eggs...

The snow here in Steinbach is starting to melt. Spring is definitely on its way and what better way to welcome spring than the start of Lent! Our March Family Fun Day – Crazy Olympics – was incredible! Andrew and Phylicia did an amazing job coming up with fun activities for the families to do together. After the families arrived we put them onto three teams and gave them a variety of challenges to complete together. I was lucky enough to be on a team with two awesome families (one of which had hosted Amanda, Phylicia and me the week before). We were challenged to make a net out of yarn and tape, everyday machines out of our bodies and a structure that would protect an egg, dropped from the top of a ladder, out of straws and tape. The fellowship and good-natured competition was so great to see. It was also great to see such a variety of people come out and spend time bonding and creating connections. LifeLine this past weekend was amazing. The night was entitled Desert(ed) and was all about Lent. I gave a talk about some of the questions many of us have about Lent – what exactly it is, its purpose, why we give up things, what can we get out of it etc. The teens were really open in small group about their struggles understanding Lent and how they now see it in a whole new light. They see that giving up something for Lent is all about how they can better themselves and strengthen their relationship with God. I’m glad we had this night before Lent started so that they could really think about what would be best to abstain from and what they could give up that would help them move closer to God. Glass Alabaster was a hit this week with Spa Night. After Ash Wednesday Mass we gathered our usual group together (and a few extras who were invited after Mass) and we headed over to our host home and had foot massages, painted our nails and did face masks. Although all of these were fun I think the fellowship was the best part of the evening. Seeing all these young women interacting and simply being women together was beautiful. Some of these young women run in different circles at school or even go to different schools so it was wonderful to see the new connections and reconnections we were able to provide with a simple spa night. I cannot speak for the Real Men group, but that seems to be going really well too. I will have to get more details from Andrew and Brenden for the next blog. For the Glass Alabaster group we ordered the books “Arms of Love” and “Surrender” both by Carmen Marcoux for the girls to read. These are really great books about having pure, chaste, Christian relationships. I love how we can talk about these books and share about how great it is to be Christian women who are proud to be living pure chaste lives. We have been getting more feedback from the parishioners about the events we are holding and our Youth Mass. One of our contact people admitted to us the other day after Mass that she had been in tears during Mass because it was so beautiful. I thought that was pretty amazing, but she then went on to tell us that she was not the only person! Wow! The Spirit was definitely moving hearts during that Mass. It is moments like that that make this ministry truly worth it.

Before I sign off, I figured I should let you know what is coming up. This Sunday’s REACT is on how the ends don’t justify the means and the whole night is Star Wars themed. I am super excited to see how it turns out. We are also having our second parish talent show, entitled “Steinbach’s Got Talent: Take Two”. We already have a few acts lined up, mainly from the youth which is super exciting. Our volunteers are going to be receiving more training next week as well. Plus we are still recruiting more volunteers. I want to thank you, the NET blog readers, for your support. We could not do this without your prayers and all the ways you help support this ministry. God bless Elizabeth Fitzmaurice

Howdy!

This is James Richmond reporting in from the Massive Worship Team. I’ve kidnapped Brandi, our usual blogger, and locked her in our trailer (temporarily of course) so I could write this blog.

Summing up our ministry in a sentence I would say “we’ve been given’er”. We’ve been kept pretty busy which seems to be the theme out in the western provinces. At the start of the year I thought that it would be unlikely that we would be booked for a lot of Youth Rallies (basically a high energy concert with a talk, witness of faith, and drama) because they seemed so different than a usual NET retreat. I’m an athlete and I’m pretty flexible, but I never thought my foot would reach all the way to my mouth.

Recently we’ve been to Barnwell/Taber, St. Paul, and High River, Alberta. We’ve had so many Youth Rallies booked and I’ve been loving it. I think that this event really reaches out to the students on a different level than a regular NET retreat. Music is universal and crosses language and religious barriers with ease. It is so relatable and it allows us to connect with the youth on a whole different level. The first NET retreat that I ever attended (and one of the only) was when I was in Grade 6. I honestly don’t remember anything about the talks, skits, or even names/faces. What I do remember was that they were young, Catholic, and excited about it which witnessed to me and inspired me to seek a deeper relationship with Jesus. I think that we as a band can make that connection with those we are ministering to in an even bigger way because they can relate to us instantly as musicians. We’ve often gotten comments along the lines of, “They’re Christian? They’re good!”, or, “Wow, I used to think Christian music was lame; that was awesome!”

Often after a Youth Rally teens will approach us to chat, share what they got out of the event, or get autographs and pictures (funny? Yes, but it has happened several times!). In Taber, AB when we were putting on a rally for the students at the high school, it was originally just for grades 7-9, but then senior students were asking to get let out of class, and the Principal gave the okay for anyone who wanted to come to leave class. That was pretty cool, but what I found awesome was what happened afterwards. The crowd was a bit tough in that they didn’t really want to participate, but I remember keeping my eye on one girl who was bravely singing all the songs despite the fact that her friends weren’t. After the rally she came up and asked for our autographs. She had this big smile on her face and told us that she had had a really good time. I was taking down our equipment and didn’t get to talk much, but the entire team was talking about her afterwards. I don’t know how the rest of the teens took the talks and music, I know that at least one girl was touched and brought a little bit closer to Jesus that day. Also, a boy came up at the same time and was asking Paul how he could join NET. We told him he had to wait a few years, but it was encouraging.

Our team has been very blessed to be able to stay with many of our own families while travelling, and while in St. Paul we stayed with Rebecca’s family. The girls stayed at the actual house and we guys were in ye ’ol cabin a couple of kilometres down the road and through the bush. It was a beautiful log cabin and made us feel somewhat manly as we didn’t have running water or electricity and we had to keep a fire going for warmth. One night I went out to do a couple things and stoke the fire. When I tried to start up the Rhino (basically a glorified golf cart) to head back, it wouldn’t start. I was forced to hoof it through the pitch black forest with my little flashlight. But never fear, it had a built in Swiss army knife so I was ready to defend myself against wayward coyotes. Rebecca’s Dad was very generous and took the guys out on a snowmobile tour of his property our first night out. He warned us that they were very powerful machines and asked us about our experience. I fibbed a little and said that I was comfortable on one (I’ve only gone twice before and not very fast). Christian jumped on the back of my snowmobile not realizing that he was placing his life in my not-so-capable hands. Apart from getting stuck a couple of times and tipping over in deep snow I thought I was doing well and I was feeling pretty confident - I think my confidence was a tad premature. I pushed on the gas too hard and the sudden acceleration slid Christian and I backwards. However, because I had a death grip on the steering column and my thumb was stuck on the gas, Christian pulling on my body made me push harder on the gas and caused us to go even faster. We were plucked right off the snowmobile and dumped in chest-deep snow. You think we would learn but this actually happened a couple of times – t’was HILARIOUS!

I hope that this blog has given you a bit of an idea what is going on out west with Massive Worship. I really feel like we are pioneers and paving the way for future Massive Worship teams. The response to us has been fantastic and I know that God is working in this ministry. I can’t wait to see how God will use it in the future. I should probably go let Brandi out of the trailer. It does get cold at night I suppose.

May God bless you and your family – oh, and bless you with a coyote-killing flashlight (you never know when you may need one!)

James Richmond – Electric Guitar

Massive Worship

(isn’t that a cool way to sign my name!)

I Heart Shaunavon

Shaunavon: a small town in southern Saskatchewan. A place where there are fields as far as the eye can see on pretty much every side of town. There’s one main street. It’s the perfect little town.

There is a Paul Brandt song that says, “The best things in life that I have ever seen came from small towns and big dreams.”

This really reminds me a lot of Shaunavon because they just have such an amazing and involved community. Great people and great hospitality. We felt so welcomed from the moment we got there until the very end. It was a wonderful time getting to know the Parish community.

We did a Parish Mission while we were there which is a three-evening event with Mass, a talk, drama, and Eucharistic adoration.

Here is some of the feedback from members of the Massive Worship team about our time in Shaunavon:

Did anyone share with you about how they were touched by the Parish Mission?

I talked about Gifts and Talents, and about not being afraid to use our gifts and talents that God gave us. Afterward one of the parishioners came up to me and shared with me that God had really spoken through me in the talk to encourage her. By coming to the Parish Mission and hearing the talk she received courage to step up in her Faith and to move forward in the way God was calling her. It was really beautiful.

(Brandi Olson)

During the parish mission we had adoration every night (exposition of the blessed sacrament) and after the first night I had a lady come up and ask me, “What are you supposed to “do” during adoration?” She knew what it was, but didn’t know if she should sit, kneel, pray Our Fathers or what. I briefly explained that you are simply there to “adore” your God. I also said it’s a good time to just look at God and let Him look at you. The next night after adoration she came up to me and said there was a huge difference between the first night and the second. It just made sense to her and she really enjoyed it.

(Christian Bekolay)

How were you touched by our time in Shaunavon?

I think what impacted me the most was the incredible hospitality of the entire town. The Church congregation supplied us with our OWN FRIDGE filled with food and several families invited us over for suppers/lunches every day we were there. I have various food intolerances and a woman of the parish baked me the single most delicious loaf of bread ever, along with cookies and muffins. I often feel like a burden because of my food issues but I felt very loved by the community. Also, we had our trailer light wiring broken on our last night and when we took it in to the local shop, they fixed it for free! God Bless Shaunavon!

(James Richmond)

(Shaunavon is also home to Hayley Wickenheiser!)

What’s the strangest thing that happened in Shaunavon?

When we were there it happened to be “I Love Shaunavon” Day. The town mascot, Heartly, (a big yellow, smiling, heart) stopped by the Church to say hello.

Well I guess that pretty much sums it up.

We love Shaunavon

God Bless you all!

Brandi Olson (and various other members of Massive Worship)

"Why 'Y', you ask..."

Greetings NET blog readers. Here is an update from the past two weeks:

We continue to have adventures with our dear van, Frank. Every second Saturday is our moving day in which we would load up the van in the morning and after our work day is over take it to our new host home. This past switch we were on the way to our first stop when we discovered that we had a flat tire…what was funny was that we were actually on our way to our mechanic’s house. How convenient is that? So we quickly gave him a call, as we were unsure of how to get the spare tire out from under the van, and he came to our rescue. We all got quite a laugh out of the irony of the situation.

The next day was our second LifeLine night which we entitled “Y”. We had a running joke that people would probably wonder why “Y” and to find out why “Y”, the teens would have to come out to “Y”. Try saying that ten times fast. The topic of the night was God’s purpose for us. We had the teens work together to try to make their way from one end of a maze, “birth”, to the other end, “heaven”. Then Brenden gave a talk about how many of us don’t think about our purpose and that God’s purpose for us is wonderful. We also talked about how we also have to work to realize this purpose and put it into action. Despite the fact that it was a long weekend, we had a really good turnout and quite a number of new faces.

The next Sunday was our REACT night. We played “Minute to Win It” games with the teens making up “countries” as their team names. I think my favourite team name “Running Refrigerator”. They all created flags that went with their team name and that flag was hilarious, with a fridge running after a chicken. The night was filled with flying cards, shooting elastic bands, flipping spoons, smiling faces and laughter. It was great seeing how the teens warmed up to each other after the first couple of games.

Glass Alabaster and Real Men continue to go really well. Last week the women looked at some of the lies the world tells us about what it means to be women and how it is actually our identity as daughters of God and brides of Christ that give us our worth and define us as women. This week we looked at the importance of female relationships throughout our lives. These women continue to amaze me with their openness and their desire to learn more about our worth as women. I cannot tell you what the men are doing in Real Men, but from what Andrew and Brenden have said it is great for them too. They had someone new come out this week and he is really excited to come back next time.

Our Discovery Faith Study is coming to a close. I have mixed feelings about it as I really enjoyed meeting our group of women every week, but I am happy to see how much they enjoyed it and grew from it. I know I felt reaffirmed in my beliefs through this study. One of the women has expressed an interest in leading it next year for a new group of parishioners. Isn’t that awesome?!?! I am so glad that we have been able to inspire her to take on that leadership role.

I almost forgot to mention, Matt and Caitlyn, our lovely supervisors, came and visited us during these past two weeks. It was great seeing them and getting their feedback on the work we are doing here. A huge plus was being able to share some of our stories with them. I am so glad that they are able to come out to meet all the wonderful people we have met here. I don’t think some of the stories we tell them would be quite so funny/inspiring/entertaining etc if they had not met the people involved.

Coming up we have a LifeLine night on Lent entitled “Desert(ed)” and a REACT night entitled “In a galaxy far, far away” (yes it is Star Wars themed) that is on the fact that the ends don’t justify the means. Our March family fun day is also coming up. The parishioners are getting ready to take part in some Crazy Olympic activities! We are also doing a lot of work with our volunteer leaders to get them ready for when we leave at the end of May.

Please keep us, our ministry and the mission of this parish in your prayers.

Until next time, this is Elizabeth signing off for iNFUSE team two!

Yay for minus fifteen weather!

We, Encounter Team One, have been very busy these last few weeks! We have gone from the Regina Diocese to the Prince Albert Diocese, and finally to the Calgary diocese.

While still in Regina some of us went to a Valentines dinner put on by CCO, with NET Ireland Alumnus, Reed Miller. We had dinner and met some very cool people, including the Marian Family. Sister Lillian of the Marian family gave a talk after the dinner and told us her very amazing story of how her family escape the Rwandan Genocide. Her story was very inspiring and reminded us that true peace comes from God and that He really can get us through anything.

The Prince Albert Diocese was an amazing couple of weeks. Ministry wise, we had quite a few ‘firsts’ while on retreat. We had our youngest retreats one day, and our oldest the next. Both those retreats were challenging but extremely rewarding. Apart from ministry, we stayed in some amazing host homes everywhere we went. The people of the Prince Albert diocese welcomed us so kindly and generously that this diocese will remain in our memories and our hearts.

One chilly (minus 30) day in the lovely village of Debden, Claire, Judith and I decided to take a walk around the town. We came upon a beautiful shrine to our Lady of Fatima, and when we got back to our host home, we asked our host dad about it. He told us a story that was amazing. During World War II, forty-nine soldiers went from Debden to fight (this is only a village of 300-some people). The Priest at that time prayed to our Lady of Fatima, that if she would keep them safe, he would a build a shrine to honour her. All forty-nine returned home at the end of the war, uninjured. He told of the story of two of those soldiers, two brothers. One was a pilot, and he flew in and out of the battle five times without being shot down. His brother was captured and put in a concentration camp. The camp was getting too full, so people were beginning to be shot on a daily basis. The day that he was scheduled to be shot, the war ended. So the shrine was built, in thanksgiving of the protection of Mother Mary. Isn’t that amazing? Go Mary!

Later, we traveled to the Calgary Diocese, and are now staying with Carissa’s family! We’re also enjoying the warmer weather of Alberta. My mom laughed at me, but -15 does feel significantly warmer than -35!

In the coming couple of weeks we will be continuing to travel the diocese of Calgary! Please keep us in your prayers!

Yours in Christ,
Maria Kalin
Encounter One