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