Love follows us around...

Happy New Year everyone!!
I hope you all had a great Christmas. Our team had an amazing time getting to see our families again :) It`s been a long time since I`ve given you news so I`ll do my best to catch up on everyhting that's happened.
Right before Christmas, we got the chance to head into Jean-Francois`s region, La Beauce, Quebec, on a parish mission and retreat that lasted ten days. He was so happy to be able to evangelize in his own hometown! It was our first parish mission, which is a retreat consisting of several evenings. We developed some awesome relationships with the people there. We were able to touch on several topics, which is difficult to do in a regular day-long retreat.
One crazy thing that happened while we where in St. Georges, La Beauce, was that we got invited into a public school to do class room presentations for the 7th and 8th graders. There are currently no Catholic schools in Quebec, so it was an excellent opportuniy to introduce God to people who have heard very little about Him. We got a very good response from them and they were very curious. We could see how much they were thirsting for Him, showing us that God puts the desire to know Him in each and every person.
After our time in La Beauce, we had the chance to see most of the other Netters at our Christmas retreat outside of Ottawa. It was wonderful seeing all our good friends again and sharing our experiences with each other before returning home for Christmas :)
Coming back from Christmas break, we had another week of training to freshen us up and improve our ministry skills. Our team stayed in Ottawa for several days, doing the music for the parish JF went to while he lived there. It`s been his parish for the 3 years he was going to U of Ottawa and he told us it felt like he was back home just for an instant, it was really cool!
Our next destination was Rouny-Noranda, which was a long but nice drive up in northern Quebec. It`s good practice for our drive all the way out to Alberta next month, my home province!! Everyone there made us feel super welcome, they were all so happy to see us we felt very loved. The retreat we had there was not only a gift for those who attended, but we grew alot as a team. God helped us all to rediscover the beauty in prayer. One boy in particular went up in front of the whole group and told us how some people forget about prayer, including himself, and that he had truly prayed this weekend. He told us how important he realized it is, and that he felt so welcomed by God. Praise God who works in our lives :) The retreat really brought the youth and families together, as well as our team. At mass on the last day, the Bishop of Rouyn-Noranda gave us his personal blessing, with the sign of the cross on each of our foreheads. What a blessing...God is so good!
We've had many joyful moments this past month, I hope you all did too. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We know this mission is important, and sometimes it's difficult. It's only by the grace of God that we can succeed. We love you all, God bless you abundantly :) You are in our prayers every day.

Julie Godin
Les Équipes Net