"We are just like the Voyageurs!"

Greetings blog readers! Well, things have calmed down a little since Massive Worship left but the parish is still abuzz with activity.

The weekend following all the amazing Massive Worship activity we held our family retreat. It was a great time for the families to bond both within their own units and with other families. There was a great turn out with about ten families, all open to playing games, learning, sharing, and growing together in faith. Phylicia gave an incredible talk about how families can become more effective and how important faith is to creating strong families. I think my favourite part of the retreat was seeing all those families praying together up in the church. I couldn’t help but stop in my tracks (I was headed downstairs to help set up for our potluck dinner) and stand in awe of that beautiful moment. I think that what we have been able to bring to the families in this parish is one of the best parts of parish ministry.

The Sunday following the family retreat we had a LifeLine night entitled “Can You Survive?” This had quite a few teens questioning what the night would entail. Well, let me tell you…it was an amazing night of teamwork, communication, resourcefulness and trust. The teens travelled around the property together following clues that we had left them. The catch was that at each clue location, people on the team would receive “injuries” that would prevent them from using their eyes, mouths, arms, legs etc. The team had to work together to get the whole team to each location and finally back to the church basement. Once they were all back we discussed some of the hardships they faced and their strategies for assigning injuries. It was quite interesting hearing where they thought they could have improved and how they figured out how to efficiently allocate injuries. There was even the brilliant idea of using a wheelbarrow to assist someone who had broken their leg. The best part of the evening was seeing the growth in teamwork and friendship.

We had our last Glass Alabaster night of our program. It was a great evening with prayer, sharing, dressing up, a photo shoot, and awesome snacks! I have loved seeing our young women grow closer together in sisterhood and faith. All three of the girls go to different schools and have only known each other through church, but now we can see beautiful friendships growing between them and I think they will still remain close and be able to share their faith with each other. Our message for our last night was that they should not be afraid to live out chastity in their lives; the message of the program is not just meant for those who participate in it, but for the whole world. This message has already sunk in for these girls as they have told us the reactions of some of their friends when they would share some of what we had gone over with them. They are showing a great concern for their friends who are not living chastely and want to help others through what they have learned in Glass Alabaster. Keep them in your prayers as they try to change the world through living out chastity.

Now for the reason behind the title of this particular blog. There is a small town in the area called St. Malo which is home to the Catholic School of Evangelization. This school has an outreach team of four young adults who run retreats and do general Catholic outreach. For our team day we spent the day with them, getting to know them and just hanging out. While we were there they suggested that we go canoeing as they had a couple of canoes and there was a lake nearby. This sounded like an awesome idea, so we strapped the canoes on to our vans, put on our life jackets (yes we drove to the lake in our life jackets – safety first!) and headed to the lake. Well, it turned out that the lake was still 90% frozen! But that didn’t stop us. We went in “voyageur” style - breaking the ice with our paddles and pushing off of the thicker ice to prevent the canoes from scratching too much. It was so much fun! Did I mention we also went to an alpaca farm? I can’t believe how soft their fur is! I never thought I would ever learn so much about alpacas! It is interesting seeing how much you learn while on NET.

And then we come to Easter. It was wonderful experiencing Easter here and being able to share this great time of joy with the parishioners and our host families. And finally we can tell the world that Amanda, Phylicia and I have spent the last few months crocheting blankets for Andrew and Brenden. We finished them a couple of days before Easter Sunday and so were able to give them as Easter presents. I am pretty sure that the whole parish knew about what we were doing and we worked really hard to make sure the guys would not find out. And it paid off. Seeing the surprise and joy on their faces was simply priceless! I must tell you, there were some crazy adventures and some close calls during the making of these two blankets…I will have to share some of them in the next blog.

Happy Easter from all of us on the Steinbach iNFUSE team!
God bless
Elizabeth Fitzmaurice