Saskachewan!

Hey everyone!
Here we are in Saskachewan where we`ve spent the last two weeks of our mission. We`ve been all over the Prince Albert Diocese, and we spent a week in Saskatoon as well. The countryside is super different than it was in Quebec and Ontario - you can see so much of the sky!! Travelling has been a bit more intense of late, moving almost every night. Our host families of been incredibly awesome though, they really spoil us. In the past couple weeks we`ve gone tubing, ridden in a Bombardier, had some sweet jam sessions, gone skating and skidooing, played "Mrs. Head Mistress, miss," made chaplets, played with some awesome kids...it`s been great! They are all so full of joy, as are the people we`ve met at retreats :)

One thing that really hit me during our stay in Saskatoon is that they are currently building a new cathedral because the old one got too small for the number people that attend mass! When we did music for Ash Wednesday at Notre Dame de Lourdes, the church was full to bursting with young people in their twenties and thirties attending mass with their families. It was amazing! We learned so much from the people there, what a beautiful parish. They really gave us hope for the church and showed us that there really is a revival happening in the church. It`s alive and thriving! The youth have a strong faith and desire for God.

Before arriving in Saskachewan, we had some sweet adventures on the road. On our way west from Montreal, we spent a few days in Trenton, ON, and put on a retreat for the teenagers of military officers from the base. It was quite the experience for the whole team to be able to meet officers of the Canadian Forces and to be able to hear each others stories. Incredible :) We also had put on a retreat at a school in Thunder Bay. The students we`rent very receptive at first, but after a little while they all jumped in and we saw a change in their attitude towards God. One young man even told us that because of the retreat he`d found God and it changed his life. God is so good and it`s so inspiring to see Him working everyday in the hearts of these young men and women.

Please continue to pray for us! We travel often and we need your prayers to keep us safe and full of energy :) You are always in our prayers,
Julie Godin
Les Equipes NET

La-la-la-la-la-la-Salle

Hello all, Cecile here this time, with an update of the Massive Worship teams adventures…

We just finished a lovely week in southern Ontario – LaSalle to be exact. Now let me first inform you that the climate of southern Canada is indeed MUCH warmer than that of everywhere else we have been in the past month. Never in my life have been in weather that is 9 or 10 above 0 in February!

It really was beautiful.

We were in LaSalle for a total of 6 days, during which we facilitated a Massive Worship Encounter weekend for the youth band at Sacred Heart Parish, and two youth rallies.

The Encounter weekend was an incredible time. What made it really unique was the fact that the whole weekend was just for the 6 youth who made up the youth band. We had so much fun being able to simply get to know the 6 of them (they were really great), and watch them bond as musicians over the course of the three days. At the end of weekend they played for one of the Sunday masses at their parish using songs and skills they had acquired over the past couple days. It was really motivating to see visible fruit of our ministry!

The next couple days following the weekend included a youth rally for the high school age group from the parish. That event had a great turnout, and there was a ton of energy from the attendees.

The next day we went into the Catholic junior high school in town, and went classroom to classroom inviting the kids out to our youth rally for their age group. We enjoyed walking down the halls of the school with guitar, fiddle, and banjo, and going into a class only to watch the kid’s eyes grow wide with interest at these young adults with weird instruments invading their classroom!

That evening we had our junior high youth rally, and we had 99 people come out! It was so much fun! The energy that night was incredible! It was really inspiring when, during one of the more prayerful songs we do, I stepped back from the mic to let the crowd sing, and as I stepped back I heard close to 100 voices singing “Jesus, You have me completely, every breath that I breath, I am absolutely in love with You”. It was breath taking.

So, we are now on our way to the east coast, we will be doing ministry in New Brunswick, as well as Halifax. I cannot wait to see the ocean.

You are in our prayers! Thanks for taking the time to read about our adventures...

Till next time!

Happenin' Halifax

Hello from the east coast,

We arrived in Halifax just over a week ago. The ten days that we spent here were packed full of ministry events. We spent time with people between the ages of eleven and eighty-five. The community embraced us with open arms. I have never seen such a vibrant and active faith community as a Catholic. This parish had multiple events happening daily and many of it's ten rooms in the hall were used several times a day. We had the priveledge of attending a brunch for new members in the parish. At this brunch they had two people share their testimony about being welcomed into the parish community and the priest spoke briefly explaining that in order to be a member of the parish there are certain expectations for new parishoners including attending Sunday eucharist. It was inspiring.

Our ministry here consisted of many different events such as youth rallies, parish missions, music encounter days and playing for mass. One of the events that really stood out was a music encounter day that we held for the youth. We only had six youth attend that day which allowed for one on one instruction. Most of them were in grades five through eight and they left excited about music ministry. The church is hoping to facilitate jam sessions and eventually start up a youth band. Sometimes in ministry it's easy to get caught up in numbers. Though this event was small, much fruit came forth from it even in just a few days.

As we were leaving Halifax, the suspension broke on one side of our trailer and we were stuck on the road about a kilometer from the parish where we had done ministry. It was pouring rain. People honked and waived and even stopped to ask if we needed any help. They were people from the parish who recognized us and our trailer. We were once again welcomed in with open arms when we needed a place to stay the night as we awaited repairs.

Thank you Halifax! We will miss you.

Erin

A Balmy Winter Here on the Prairies...

Hey everyone! It’s Silken here from Encounter Team #1. We are currently residing in the Regina diocese. We have done retreats in Moose Jaw, Estevan, Yorkton and Regina itself.

While we were in Moose Jaw we had a retreat for Gr. 6, 7 and 8’s. It was a full day retreat, not only for youth in Moose Jaw, but surrounding areas as well. One girl had an especially awesome experience during our prayer time. She just sat in the church for quite a while afterwards, when Sarah went to check on her, she said she was in awe, thinking about how amazing God truly is. She said she was meant to be there that day. It was so beautiful to hear about.

When we were in North Battleford, we celebrated John’s Un-Birthday (his real birthday was the day before, on February 7th). One of our previous host families in Hafford offered for us to go back to their place to have the party. So after our retreat that day, we told John it was his Un-birthday, we blindfolded him and drove about 45 minutes to their place. He was SO surprised when we took off the blindfold and realized where we were. The house was decorated with lots of Irish décor, along with ‘Happy birthday’ signs everywhere. They went all out, and even made a couple cakes for the occasion. John was able to ride bareback on one of their horses – he had NEVER been on a horse before, so it was quite the experience. We also roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over a fire, another first for John. It was a wonderful evening for the whole team, we had a BLAST.

Oh! On our way down from Prince Albert to Regina, we were able to meet up with the French team for lunch in Saskatoon! It was so great to see them, to catch up and just hang out. They are just so freakin AWESOME!

While we were here in Regina, we had the priviledge of having lunch with Archbishop Daniel Bohan. He was very eager to meet all of us and quite interested in the work we were doing in his diocese.

That’s about all for now =) Please keep up in your prayers, we always need them!

God bless,

Silken Neutelings

Encounter Team #1’s Official Blogger

Go To Confession... Everybody's Doing It

Welcome to Encounter Two's first blog in ages! Our team has been busy travelling around southern Ontario covering ground all the way from Windsor to Peterborough and everywhere in between.

Recently we have been giving a lot of Confirmation retreats...On a particular retreat, Before moving to the church for prayer, we played a video for the students on the mercy of God. Once moving into the church for prayer ministry, the youth saw a drama on confession in which a student, not wanting to go to confession, begins making up ridiculous lies to confess. The priest sees through the youth's lies, and assigns a penance that eventually has the young man standing before a crucifix and marveling at the mercy of God. After this touching drama, Emily shared an amazing testimony on how she came to know God through going to reconciliation. From there we moved into a time of quiet prayer for the students, with the sacrament of confession available.

At first, only a couple of students lined up. In a matter of minutes, the line began growing. It continued to grow, and eventually, the students were lined up all around the church. Seeing so many students line up in so quickly at time, all armed with examination of consciences in hand, moved my heart. I was nearly brought to tears as a began to count the number of students in the line that now stretched around a quarter of the church. Twenty five... thirty... thirty five... forty. I traveled around the line to remind the students to be quiet as they waited, even informing the students near the back of the line that they probably wouldn't have a chance to go due to time restrictions, and yet they chose to remain and wait. It was amazing to see so many youth desiring to come closer to God and reject sin in their lives.

Praise God for such a beautiful witness to this amazing sacrament. Please continue to pray for our team as we continue this journey. We also ask for prayers for all the youth that we encounter, especially the confirmation candidates as they prepare to receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

God Bless!

Katie Foster

Encounter Team Two

(Top photo - Matt Sullivan gazes out over the city; Bottom photo - Matt Scott and Eoin reenacting the defeat of Satan at the hands of St. Michael the Archangel)

HAPPY BELATED VALENTINES DAY!!!

Hey Everybody

Isaac Sullivan here with an update on how things are going in the Hat, and what exactly is going on in the Hat, and why exactly those things are going on in the Hat, and where the Hat is anyways….

Firstly, it’s Medicine Hat, Alberta… Canada…North America… Earth…. yyeeaaaahhhh ….anyways…

Sometimes on NET, we do this thing called honoring, which is basically when the guys on a team do something nice for the girls basically just to show them how much they appreciate them, or vice versa. So Kyle and I, for the past week have been taking the girls out individually during our lunch breaks and spending some time just hanging out, and then we did something that was individually suited to each girl. For example, for Gloria, we drove to the SPCA and pet the puppies there, because she LOVES dogs. So we did something unique for each of the girls, and then at the end, we invited each of them to a dinner which we set up on monday, which we cooked amazingly!

Speaking of good healthy relationships, that was what our Unchained night was on(grs 10-12). Lauren gave a talk and we had the youth minister from McCoy High School, Lance, and his wife, Katie, come and give a testimony, and answer some questions about how to build a healthy, God- focused, relationship in today's society, and then we had Men and Womens' sessions. It was really cool, during men's session we had alot of opening up, and people started going into detail about their personal lives, and relationships they've had, or are having, and how they've been drawn toward, or away from Christ in those relationships. It was great.

Also, we're going to be having citywide adoration on Thursday, February 23, and, no big deal, but the God of the universe is going to be there. If there's any chance that you're going to be in Medicine Hat on that day, it starts at 7pm.

God Bless

Isaac Sullivan

p.s. A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. -- GK Chesterton

Well hello, Prince Edward Island!!

Hello again! There's been lots of exciting things happening in Halifax! Some of the highlights have been having lobster for the first time since being in the Maritimes! The host home Katie, Erin, and myself stayed at a few weeks ago cooked us lobster and I have to say it was fantastic! Erin was probably the most excited out of all of us!

One of the more exciting adventures our team went us was our trip to Prince Edward Island, where we got to stay with Liane's family! It was so much fun getting to meet her family and to experience P.E.I. with them! We went to Cavendish and toured the Anne of Green Gables house, and went to the beach, which was freezing by the way, but Brandon got his handful of red sand, and we went sledding as well!

An event that I personally experienced was CCO Halifax's first Nightfever, and this was also the first time Nightfever had ever been done in North America. It was 3 hours of Adoration, but it was open to everyone, especially people passing the church. They were invited into the church to lay a candle at the front. At the end of the night, the sight of all the dirt and salt from people's boots was left at the steps of the sanctuary, and it was like people had come to Christ, and had laid their burdens at his feet. It was a really beautiful night!

On another note, the parish has been getting ready for the Massive Worship team to arrive, and we're all very excited for them to get here! We can't wait to see all the things they will bring to Saint Benedict!

Until next time, our team prays for each of you and we ask God's blessing upon you!

iNFUSE Team 3

Party in the Prairies!

Hello! Silken here from Encounter Team One!

We are still floating around the Prince Albert diocese, we have been here for exactly two weeks now. The majority of our retreats have been family retreats! We hadn't done any family retreats until we arrived here in Saskatchewan. They have been really great, it's fun to have such a variety of ages. We had a retreat in North Battleford, and Daniel's family drove four hours to come to it! It was so great to meet his parents and his 3 younger brothers.

Thursday we had a day off, so we all decided to go into Saskatoon and while we were there we picked up our Supervisors! Yaaaay! We were all super excited to see Tyler and Erica. Over the past little while our team had been going through some challenges, but thankfully they were able to straighten things out. We have grown through these experiences and will be leaving the diocese more united than ever. God has truly blessed us.

We have also been fortunate enough to get the opportunity to hang out with many AMAZING host families while we've been in the Prince Albert Diocese. One family had a skating rink in their backyard, so a few of us took the opportunity to play some hockey, though not all of us had skates, it was a BLAST. At another host home, there was also a chance to go snowmobiling! Many of us on the team had never gone before, so they very eagerly took the opportunity! (Notice in the pictures that the snow suit didn't quite fit DJ...)

Overall, we are having a fantastic time on our adventure across the country! Please keep us in your prayers!

-Silken Neutelings

3 Friday's

Hey Everybody!

Anyways, back to What's happening in Medicine Hat. This past Friday, and last Friday's Equip was on the Eucharist, as well as this upcoming Friday... It was awesome. We had an awesome talk on the awesomeness of God and how cool it is that he actually comes and is physically present in the Eucharist, and then we went into adoration... It was awesome. The teens were super respectful and a few days later Kyle and I were talking to one girl's mom and she told us how much her daughter enjoyed adoration. It was really cool.

On wednesday we drove out of Medicine Hat to a place called Red Rock Coulee as a team. take a look...

God Bless!

Isaac Sullivan

P.s. Make frequent visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and the devil will be powerless against you.

All Ages...

Hello everyone!!
How is winter going for y'all? We've mostly had warmer-than-typical-for-January weather, which is nice. It's great to be able to hop in the van in the morning and be toasty right away :)
We've spent the past couple of weeks in the Montreal/Terrebonne area of Quebec. On January 19 and 20 we had an overnight confirmation retreat at a beautiful villa in Montreal. We were able to go a little more in depth on the sacrament, thanks to the lenght of the retreat.
Since the 21st, we've been in Terrebonne. *Terrebonne literally means "Good Earth" in french :) We spent 3 weeks here in October and made tons of friends, so it's amazing being able to see them all again. We had an awesome family day with the parish, which was super fun. We had dancing pictionary, a bean bag toss, and an all-ages soccer game in the icy parking lot. I think everyone had a lot of fun and it gave us a chance to catch up with everybody.

Also while in Terrebonne, we've had the opportunity to try something we haven't done yet as a team: Working with the aged. Every day this past week we've visited a different senior's residence. With them we sing, talk and pray, and we let them know about the World Day for the Sick on Febreuary 11th. We helped them write down their personal prayer intentions that will be offered at mass on that day. Also, the Chaplain here will be taking the intentions with him to the Holy Land next month, and will pray for them in the very place Jesus died on the cross. Isn't that beautiful? I really enjoyed talking with the seniors and hearing all about their amazing life
experiences. I have so much to learn from them.
Finally, we had a three day parish mission here for the youth and adult confirmands. We talked who about Jesus and the church, leadership, and also how to live out our faith as men and women. We had an amazing group of people, all really striving to know build their relationship with God and serve Him better. it was really beautiful to see. There are even some budding vocations among them! One girl feels a strong call to the religious life, others are opent to the priesthood and really admire the life of a priest. We'll see what incredible things God has in store for them...
After we leave Terrebonne we start heading out west! We'll being going to Thunderbay, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Edmonton, among many other cities. I'm going back to my province and staying with my grandparents! Woot!! It's alwasy nice getting to see our families on the road :)
Please pray for us as we take the craziest road trip of our lives in the name of Christ our King! God bless you all, we pray for you every day.

Julie Godin
Les Equipes NET

"Most people do not suspect what God could make out of them if they would only place themselves at His disposal." St. Ignatius of Loyola

Life in the Knife

Hello to all Yellowknife followers. It's Rianne here to give an update on our team's first ever retreat day in Yellowknife. The excitement was building in the days coming up to our retreat for all the gr.7/8 students at St. Joseph Elementary School. Talks were practiced, songs perfected, dramas performed, and energy prayed for.

When the big morning had finally come, I came downstairs (at 5:30am) to find out that one of my sisters was sick. This meant that there were only 6 of us Netters to handle 106 gr. 7/8 students! Our perfected songs and performed dramas had to be rearranged and re-casted because we were one woman down.

Despite being short one team member, the retreat was a hit! The day was centred on our personal relationships with Jesus. We already knew some of the teens there from our iGNITEs (gr. 7/8 youth group). It was so satisfying to really be able to minister to these teens who we've met a few times before.

Prayer ministry (When we pray individually with the teens) is always my favourite part of any event or retreat. It blows my mind to think that God can use my unworthy hand as an instrument to bring forth His Spirit to the youth. There were definitely youth who were touched by this time of prayer.

The next night, we held an iGNITE, and we had record numbers of 15 youth! A lot of the youth were ones that we had seen at the retreat the day before. It was so encouraging to see some of these youth being drawn from their schools to the parish. Hallelujah! The night was called 'It IS In You', and focussed on taking our identity in Christ. It's crazy how well we're getting to know some of the youth and how comfortable they are around us. We are truly coming to be part of the community here in the Knife.

Next up an awesome glory story from Natalie!

It was exam time in the high school last week, and going in to hangout with the students at lunch was a little different this time. It was kind of like an old abandoned town… Just a few stray tumbleweeds floating around, maybe a couple students around a table or two who were studying their faces off. It was quite a foreign atmosphere. This day that was like no other, was also different in some surprising ways... While walking down the halls, Phylicia noticed a girl sitting over to the side. She felt compelled to talk to her, so she walked over and they started chit-chat about exams and studying. After talking for a bit, Phylicia was suddenly struck with a burning desire to ask this girl if she believed in God. Normally, she wouldn't ask questions like that the first time she talked with someone, talk about early proposal… Anyway, she decided to take the leap! Turns out, this girl was open to discussing it because she shared that last week had actually been the first time she'd prayed in a really long time.

On the other side of the school, myself and the rest of the team had been rejoicing over the one retreat form that had been handed in. It was a form I had handed out to a girl none of us had ever reached out to yet, and seeing her name on the page was SUPER exciting! :)

Back over to Phylicia now, her and the girl had had a really great talk about God and Phylicia left the conversation with much hope, and excitement. She soon came over to us to share her joy. As she told us about this girl, my jaw dropped. It was the same girl I had given the form to the week before, the same girl that had been the first to hand in her form.

Anyways, its really awesome to see the work that we are doing here for God is having such an impact on the teens here in Yellowknife. It inspires us to keep going and fuels us with the excitement in planing more events and retreats for the fantastic youth here in Yellowknife.

So continue to keep us and the teens in Yellowknife in your prayers!

Just a update from the Team here in Yellowknife! more on the way so please stay tuned!

God Bless!

iNFUSE Team One!

Awake My Soul

The Dates for our 2012 National Conference are set!

March 30^th – April 1^st, Garth, Caitlyn, Jesse and I will be travelling out West to St James church in Okotoks, just south of Calgary, to put on a 3 day conference for Musicians and Youth Ministers. Calgary was chosen as the location because the majority of request for our Massive Worship travel team comes from out there!

Our theme for the conference this year is “Awake my Soul” and we are just starting to get in touch with a list of top notch speakers and musicians to see if they can come and contribute their passion to this year’s conference! We are so excited to get together with friends and fellowship out West!

The Massive Worship travelling team will be assisting us this year, as well as a handful of Alumni who currently live in the area. I have never been a part of the conference myself, but a guy who I supervise, from the Massive Worship travelling; Cameron told us to “remember, we are planning something powerful”. He then went on to say that one of his close friends had her first truthful encounter with God at a previous conference in Toronto! Matt 18:20 "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Peace to you all!

Emma Fradd

Massive Worship Coordinator

Visit www.massiveworship.com to register early and receive a discount!