Our Mission from God

The Lord has called each and everyone of us to reach out to the world, to bring His people the faith that our Lord Jesus Christ personally brought by the will of God to earth. We are those apostles: everyone on NET, everyone reading this, and everyone in this world. We are the Son's and Daughter's of God who should constantly be seeking the will of Him to be done in our lives, especially being modern day apostles/missionaries. No one said it was going to be an easy road but wow, the reward will be so great in the end when we strive for this goal in our lives. 

As a team this is what we strive to be, the reflection of his love in all that we do. In the events we put on, to hanging out with host homes, and just being a witness for Christ. Every year each team has a Mission Statement that we follow to the fullest so we can be the servants that Christ has called us to. Every team's is different according to the nature of their ministry. As an Infuse team we "Will fearlessly build the city of God inside the city of man through a personal witness to His Love." While Encounter teams may have something along the lines of "We will spread the gospel across Canada to all those who have and have not heard the good news of our Lord." These are only one liners most obviously from some mission statements cause we clearly are here to do more then just that! 

Also an important part of our ministry, both for Parish and Road is the intersession of our patron saints for the year. This year we have been blessed to have St. Faustina and Blessed John Paul II as our patrons helping us out. This lent we have taken up saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet that St. Faustina received through God by a powerful vision of the mercy of our Lord on the cross. Blessed JP II had so much love for youth and celebrated 19 World Youth Days while he was in his Papacy which makes him such an amazing patron for the youth we encounter on daily basis. 

With that said "We will allow ourselves to be filled with the Lord's love by praying without ceasing so that Christ's love may overflow to others." I pray that this blog has inspired you and has made you think of your own "Mission Statement" of life. Seek the will of God to be done in everyone's life. God bless.

Matthew ten-Bohmer

Infuse 2

Medicine Hat, AB

Host Families Rock!

Last week on Ash Wednesday, as a team we played the music for the service at the Catholic high school here. In the evening, we held our PULSE Jr. high youth group, where we watched a short video explaining the meaning behind Ash Wednesday and then went to Mass together.

This past week was reading break for the all schools, so we had a break off from ministry events. We had the week to catch up on work in the office and spent lots of time together as a team.

We also got to spend more time with our host homes this week!

One of my favorite parts of being on NET is defiantly host homes. 

James 1: 17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above.

Everyone who opens their front door and welcomes us in, are answering to the call to follow God's desire for us to be generous and welcoming to everyone who we meet.

Sometimes walking into a house you have never been in before and sitting down for dinner with a family you have never met before can be scary. But all of the families have been super welcoming, and usually tell us that their house is our house for the next two weeks. At host homes, we usually do whatever our host family is doing. I have gone to hockey games, movies, and even late night grocery shopping trips with host mom's. I actually feel like I am apart of the family while there, and it is so nice when we see them at Mass on Sundays and have someone to sit with! Having host siblings are the best, because they are just so excited to have us there to play with them! 

This week has been pretty wonderful. We are all excited for this upcoming week of ministry and to see everyone we haven't seen for the past week.

God Bless,
Love Amy ten-Bohmer
iNFUSE ONE
Lethbridge, Alberta 

Busy Week of Ministry!

What a busy week of ministry!


Our team had the pleasure of hosting not only a Family Fun Day this week but also Parish Wide Adoration on top of our regular events.

For Family Fun Day, we held a movie matinee of FACING THE GIANTS and we did a little entertainment of our own- a skit about going to the movies. Thanks to our new volunteers helping the event to run smoothly! This past weekend our team was also greeted by a few NET alumni. How blessed we are to have vibrant young Catholics throughout Canada.

                                                                                                     On Wednesday night, we had an awesome night of adoration with music, benediction, and afterwards, some snacks. For the first time during adoration here, we invited participants to bring up candles to the altar as a sign of prayer petitions. The beautiful glow of the tea lights served to visually display how united we all our in our struggles, but really, the beauty came from our hope in the Lord that He will answer our prayers.

Our team has decided to pray daily for our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. Please continue to do the same.

Seeking God's Nature

Life out in Medicine Hat can always be summed up into one word and that word would be Awesome. Seriously! The community, the host homes, the youth, the priests, the parishioners are all nothing short of Awesome! The way they take care of our needs, the opportunities we get to hang out with them and really get to know their stories is always so amazing. God really is constantly giving us the chances to build up friendships and bonds that we hope shall last for years to come. 

This past week has been super fun being able to go snowboarding/skiing twice with some of our youth from both Unchained and Equip up in Hidden Valley. It is a beautiful provincial park nestled in the Cypress Hills 45 minutes outside of Medicine Hat. It absolutely amazing to be driving through flat praises with no trees or snow, take a turn into the hills and then all of a sudden come across an area full of trees, gain elevation well above the prairie floor and snow making me think we had just entered British Colombia. Only two of us from the team (Matt and Kyley) had ever snowboarded/skied so for everyone else it was their first time. It was great watching them learn the techniques, make it up to the bigger trails and have a day with nothing but smilies! Good times were had by all. I also had my unbirthday (Matt) up there which was well beyond awesome.

Ministry has been going super solid as of late with a lot of talk about Lent for both youth groups. Many small groups have been had to discuss what we have given up or taken on for the Lenten season. Some people are giving up Facebook and Instagram while others gave up all liquids (not including water) and praying the rosary daily. It's always inspiring to see what others are doing to grow in holiness for the Lord. 

Some of the biggest news in the Catholic world is with Pope Benedict XVI stepping down as Pope has made many turns head but we are praying for him and his health. He recently spoke about the "Emerging Youth Culture" which is a very important to not just look over but to take action and fully participate in for the sake of our youth in the church. One line that really stuck out to me as being a missionary is getting a shout out from the Pope as he stated the "generous and courageous" youth volunteers who dedicate their lives to the needy as well as those who "joyfully bear witness to their belonging to the Church." It is totally focused on NET and other missionary individuals/groups all across the world which brings us strength to keep doing what God has called us to do! 

With all that said our focus should be on our youth for they are the future of the church. God is calling for constant change and bringing youth back to the church. God bless!

Matthew ten-Bohmer

Infuse 2

Medicine Hat, Alberta 

70 Grade 10's in Southern Ontario

Hey all.
I just got an incredible email from my good friend Rianne Rops who is on the road right now with Encounter team 2. She shared with me her experience while doing an all Male retreat for 70 grade 10's! Exciting...
 
Anyways, so we had that 70gr.10 male retreat on Monday. I was super intimidated about it, and I realized that morning in prayer that I secretly wanted something to happen at the retreat.. have some guy give me a hard time or have them all whistle at me so that the brothers on my team would have to protect me or something. It was weird realizing that.. but so good that I did, because it gave God the chance to put me in my place. i was being all prideful and wanting the retreat to somehow be about me, instead of desiring leading these men to Christ. God told me that I needed to seek to be invisible. Do not seek to be noticed, singled out, or anything.. but be invisible so I can lead these men to Christ. Before the retreat, I was really nervous about small group. Some of the girls were seeking advice about video games/zombie apocalypse stuff.. but I'm wayyy too ballet to pull those things off, so instead, I was just genuinely me, and I think the guys recognized that and respected that.. so we got along really really well.

So second small group comes along, and there were these two guys, lets call them "Matthew" and "Thomas", who I got along with pretty well. They were the ones who asked the most questions. The first one: "Why can't we just love God and have fun at the same time?" Then they translated it to: "why can't I get drunk on weekends and have sex with my girlfriend, even if I love her?" Ooookk. Well, that started the conversation, and then we talked about sex for 15mins. whoa man. And the weird thing was, it wasn't even weird! It was great. At one point, I got them to realize that the person they're dating now is probably someone else's future wife. that slightly freaked them out (in a great way!). Anyway, they weren't quite satisfied. At lunch, I gave Thomas my second piece of pizza and he was really honoured haha. Oh my goodness, he's like my litttle brother!

Then came prayer time! Wooooo! I loved doing silent blessing with the men. Emma! I felt like Mary! I felt like this gentle, beautiful woman, coming through God to bring gentleness and love and wonderful things to these men who just needed the tenderness of a woman.. oh my goodness I don't even understand it. I felt so honoured being a woman in this place. I felt special and protected surrournded by so many men. Masculinity is soo good. Femininity is so good. I felt like Mary!!! whoa. So, I got to Thomas (my favourite.. he must've reminded me of someone I know, because I was extremely drawn to minister to him). I prayed with him, and then I left him the Youcat (Catechism of the Catholic Church for youth). but little did he know that I slipped in a note saying "If you can't say no, what is your 'yes' even worth?" to mark the perfect page explaining purity, sex, etc. I didn't hand it to him, but i left it beside him. Anyways, at the end of the prayer time, he handed me the book, and gave me an extremely appreciative/genuine "thank you"

I DONT KNOW WHY IT WAS SUCH A BIG DEAL BUT IT WAS!!!! Emmmmmmaaaa! I loved this retreat so much. I was watching this church full of men pray. I felt honoured by them praying. I felt honoured by another boy in my small group, lets call him "Joshua" (who wanted me to pray with him, but chose to not have my hand on his shoulder as a sign of prayer because he wanted to protect his purity that much!) I felt affirmed in my femininity just by being surrounded by masculinity. They were so polite and respectful and real, and I desperately want Matthew and Thomas to find God. They're my little brothers in Christ!

Isn't this just beeaauuttiiffuulll!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all who give to this ministry! With your prayers, money and services, God is very much alive and working through our missionaries on the road this year,

God Bless,

Emma Fradd
Recruiter

"How He Loves..."

Our Drayton Valley team has been so blessed, especially over the past month, and I’d like to fill you in. Our regular youth programs have been running as before, but seemingly out of no where, God provided us with a group of Catholic young men to support our team during youth nights. We are excited to be able to start leadership training for volunteers next month. Also, congratulations to Colin and Joseph becoming third degree Knight of Columbus!

We were also blessed to be able to take a group of 48 youth up to Jasper to go skiing at the beginning of February. The best part of the trip, however, was staying in Hinton overnight at the Way of Holiness retreat centre. We led youth in games, and then eventually Eucharistic Adoration, a drama, some of the team shared their own journey with Christ, and they were given the opportunity to go to confession. The priest stayed an hour longer than he was planning to! Some youth who said they hadn’t been to Mass for a long time were eager to stay in that confession line. We have now seen some of those youth attending Sunday Masses.

We got a taste of Encounter team ministry as we held our first Encounter day on St.Valentine's day. The grade 9s welcomed us as we spoke  to them about the greatest search (us for God and God for us!), and we recieved lots of positive feedback.

In world news, it's now official that on February 28, 2013, our Holy Father will step down as Bishop of Rome. We'd like reflect a little on how dedicated and holy this man is, and how he's contributed to our year of faith, with a few quotes from a talk he gave on youth culture.

"I, too, wish to reaffirm this forcefully: the Church has confidence in young people, she hopes in them and in their energies, she needs them and their vitality, to continue to live with renewed enthusiasm the mission entrusted them by Christ," the Holy Father said. "I very much hope, therefore, that the Year of Faith may be, also for the younger generation, a precious opportunity to rediscover and strengthen our friendship with Christ, from which to derive joy and enthusiasm to profoundly transform cultures and societies."

Please pray for our Pope.

Stephanie & iNFUSE3
Drayton Valley, AB 

Amazing (G)race!

“Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy”

Psalm 126:2

One of the Amazing Race clues

At our Jr high youth group PULSE, we played Amazing Race! We had our second biggest turnout of the year, with 36 youth showing up! It feels great to know that we are growing! We had lots of clues all around the church that the youth had to figure out, along with a few road blocks along the way, including having to race against our volunteers in a pudding eating contest! It was a really great night!

Our Balloon Igloo!

God gives us so much Joy in our lives, we just have to open our eyes and see it! 

There is currently no snow here, so we decided to build an igloo out of balloons! Even little things in life can bring us great joy!

There has also been lots of people talking about Pope Benedict and how he has made the decision to step down from his position as Pope. 

He recently wrote about current youth culture, and one of the things he said really stood out to me. He talked about despite the challenges with youth culture, there is also a very positive phenomenon, describing the "generous and courageous youth volunteers who dedicate their lives to the needy as well as those who joyfully bear witness to their belonging to the Church".

Right now, we are training volunteers, both those who are in High School and in University, because like the Pope says, we need youth to be on the front lines, and to "joyfully bear witness" to all those around them, at school and at church.

God Bless!

Amy ten-Bohmer 

iNFUSE ONE

Lethbridge, Alberta!

On the Road Again!!!

Hello Everyone,

It's sooo good to be back on the road.  I hope you all had a very restful Christmas and I hope this coming Easter season finds you well.

I am writing from snowy, beautiful, and very flat Saskatchewan.  Since being back on the road we have driven from Peterborough, Ontario to Regina, Saskatchewan.  I must say, and my team agrees with me, that God made quite a beautiful country.

Big River's awesome sign

Since being in the prairies we have experienced the weather that it has to offer.  For example on evening in Regina it got to below fifty, and the majority of our team has never felt that type of weather before.  One of the great things that we get to experience from Saskatchewan is the great food and the wonderful people that we get to encounter.

We're on a cake!

A few days ago we were on the Big River reserve doing a retreat.  It was one of the best retreats that we had here in Saskatchewan because we had so many people come up to us near the end of the retreat, children and adults, asking for prayers.  We definitely felt the Lord working through the people that attended and through us as well.  After the retreat was done we had a potluck dinner and for dessert we had a cake that had our NET team picture on it.  The kindness and generosity that we experienced at this retreat was phenomenal and we were so grateful to God that we were able to put it on.

John eating his face

In the next week we will start our road journey again, but this time to Calgary where we will spend a month.  Myself and the rest of team are very excited to start heading out west.  Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to spread the word of God to the youth of Canada.

Stay tuned for more.

In Christ

Matt Bliault and the Encounter 1 team

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...

Letting the Holy Spirit work in ones life can absolutely be a thing of beauty given that it is a gift from God that everyone is entitled to witness. God is doing this in our lives every day as we minister to the youth and work in the community of Medicine Hat. We are called to be the refection of His love in all that we do and say day in and day out! When people approach us telling us this every day then it is so true that God is granting us the graces to do His will. I'm sure all the alumni reading this will completely agree that being on Net God gives you graces to do His will constantly and man is it nothing short of awesome!  

 This past weekend had some heavy but amazing topics for the youth of our parishes. For Equip we had a night on Lent which helped them (and myself) really challenge themselves to give up things such as Facebook, Chocolate, and Video Games just to name a few examples. I over heard a few awesome stories from the night of how some youth wanted to do more then giving something up for Lent and others saying that going up to the church was the best part of the evening! They just wanted to spend more time with Jesus in the church in a beautiful time of prayer. Once again the Holy Spirit lead the night in a huge abundance with a great talk from Ashley, an awesome reflection from Michelle, and Ian heading up the activities for the night. 

Then for Unchained we had a necessary night on the Catholic stance of Pro-Life. It was a very powerful,  night for the high school crew. Kyley had an amazing talk with so much proof of our Catholic stance on Abortion which is always a powerful reminder. We also watched "The 180 Movie" which follows this man through interviews getting peoples views on Abortion and the Holocaust and then helping people change their views completely about Human Life within minutes. Look it up on Youtube, it is a life changer. 

As I said the Holy Spirit has been a powerful intercessor for our team down here in Alberta and am super excited to see what the Lord has in store for us for the rest of the year! God bless

Matthew ten-Bohmer

Infuse 2
Medicine Hat, Alberta

                                                                Hi Jesus! :-)

Video Diary Of A Netter - Part 4

the final video, hope you guys like it!

Video Diary Of A Netter - Part 3

Part 3!

Video Diary Of A Netter - Part 2

Click here to see part 2!

Video Diary Of A Netter - Part 1

Click here to view the blog on youtube!

Encounter Team 2 Video Blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHdGNSc0ncQ

Update from iNFUSE ONE Lethbridge!

Hey Y’all!

This past week has been really awesome! The weather was chilly, but there has been some beautiful sunsets!

For our Jr. high youth group, PULSE, we had a night on different teachings of the Catholic Church. We had four stations set up, and the youth went to each of them in groups. They learned about the Alter, the Eucharist, the Bible, and the Apostles Creed. All of the youth that came out were intrigued and asked us lots of really great questions!

At ARISE, the high school youth group here, we had Adoration for the teens! It was a beautiful night consisting of music and prayer!

As a team we went ice skating this week, and for some of us, it was only the 2^nd time going! It was great fun, minus the few falls that may have happened! 

Love Amy ten-Bohmer & iNFUSE ONE

Lethbridge, Alberta!

iNFUSE team 3, Eps 4. New Hope

After an inspiring week of training, here we are back in Drayton Valley for the second half of the year. It's incredible how fast it's going, but it's been well worth it so far. We started the new year off with an ice cream social/ scavenger hunt, and men's and women's sessions.

During team prayer, I received a thought the other day. I was thinking about those people who seem to think they shouldn't sing because they don't like their singing voice. Now we've heard many comments on this topic before, but maybe here's a new one: Think about all the angels in Heaven who spend their time praising God, and helping us to do the same. If we praise God, we can be assured they are joining us, and surrounding our voices with crazy 100 part harmonies or something, making whatever sound comes out of our mouths sound beautiful when it is present to our creator. Then that got me thinking about our jobs as music leaders at Mass. Really what we are there to do is surround the congregation's voices with beautiful sounds to help them to praise God and present their songs to our Lord. Cool, eh? I shared that with our newly recruited youth singers.

When God provides little bits of wisdom, we are only inspired to learn more and serve more. It's great to be back!

Stephanie & iNFUSE 3

Round 2! Ding Ding Ding!

We are back in business folks! We are officially done January training which took place in Wetaskiwin, AB which is about 5 and a half hours north of us just outside of Edmonton. Training was a great time of reunion and rejuvenation to get us ready for ministry again! We have returned to the south now of Medicine Hat and were pretty excited to see the giant teepee again along with one of our churches Holy Family as we drove into town. 

So far being back for the past week has been such a blessing to be able to get back to what God called us to be (missionaries most obviously) and to be able to meet up with all our friends in the community. We've been able to already have one Unchained night with the high school youth based on surviving 2012 and making it to 2013 (the first date since 1987 to have 4 different numbers, go figure). There was some river crossings, scavenger hunts, hunting of a giant Winne the Pooh, and resolution making for this New Year to really commit ourselves to God. Then for the Equip youth (middle school) we have a very exciting night coming up called "Finding God in the Hobbit" which is pretty self explanatory but is going to be a great night! 

Getting back into the swing of things has been lots of fun with visiting with the high school and middle schools, getting to know new host homes, going curling for Sharon's Unbirthday, getting haircuts from our priest and coming back to a office that was set up for a big party with streamers all over the place (Thank you to who did it haha!) All I can say is that it's good to be back in town. We're excited for this second half to begin with all the good times and challenges it's going to bring. 

God bless!

Infuse 2 Med Hat

Matthew ten-Bohmer

We Are Back!

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!  It is so wonderful being back in our parishes in Lethbridge, and getting to see everyone after almost a month of being gone.  With renewed and refreshed hearts, we as a team are excited for this upcoming half of ministry this year!

Ice Cream Sundaes

This week we kicked off the new year with a fun social night with our Jr. High youth group, PULSE.  We played some of the games from the TV show called “Minute To Win It”.  All the youth who showed up had an excellent time!  Who knew playing games with household objects could be so fun?!  The night ended with everyone making their own ice cream sundaes!  For the high school group, ARISE, we had a fun social night and played board games for the evening - and of course, we ended off the night with Dairy Queen!

We did full-band for our Encounter Day

We also had an Encounter Day (all-day retreat) this week for Grade 9 students.  It was a great chance for us to get to know them better and share God’s love with them!  One of the girls even mentioned that she might start going to church now!  We don’t always see the fruits of our labor right away - but it is so rewarding when you do, especially just after one day!  God is good!

I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love Amy ten-Bohmer and iNFUSE ONE, Lethbridge, Alberta

BAM!

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Paul most definitely had it right when writing to the Romans; to conform to modern society is to fall away from the truth of God, “what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Catholicism is a faith for all people, including the popular, rejected, healthy, injured and sinful. It's incredible how we've seen the Holy Spirit move in people from all walks of life; they opened their hearts a micrometer to the possibility of an infinite love, and BAM, Jesus comes gently barging in (how's that for an oxymoron?).

We have recently been in Southern Ontario, visiting rural communities and cities alike. This week we had the pleasure of taking part of a young adult night at McMaster University in Hamilton, providing worship music with our Massive Worship band. This university is seriously awesome, offering a Catholic youth night, including bible studies, talks, testimonies – it's wonderful! They offered adoration of the blessed sacrament, and reconciliation during the exposition. More than 100 university students were in attendance, and although there were five priests hearing confessions, lines trailed up the sides of the church even after the hour of adoration had been completed. It was amazing to see such a Catholic community and a desire to know Jesus among young adults. They were searching for God, worshiping Him, and opening their hearts to His Grace. One girl who had not been to confession for 10 years (10 years!), found herself inline next to our teammate, Josh. She actually asked him to go into the confessional first so that she could sit on the side where she would be able to see the priest face to face. Her bravery and openness to God led her to incredible peace and an experience of forgiveness, which she later shared with Josh.

Well, now our team is off to the St. Catherine's diocese, where young people wait to be evangelized, and Niagara Falls waits to be “ahh-ed” at (that's right, we're going to observe the mighty work of God in the form of the Falls, and I am extremely excited about it). See you in the Eucharist!

Encounter 2 pseudo-Blogger,

Emma White



And you said we were crazy...



Ben, Josh, Ryan and Kevin on a dragon, looking meaningfully into the distance :)