Leadership Training!

This weekend we started our first Leadership Training Series! This is really super exciting for us because as a parish team building a foundation for youth ministry, our goal is to be always looking to replace ourselves in ministry so that things can run smoothly after we leave. This Sunday was our first session of leadership training and we had 12 senior high school students and young adults come out which is really incredible, especially for this early in the year! I just know that God has big plans for la Beauce even after we leave.

We were also able to attend a Soirée de Témoignages (Testimony Night) to close off the Year of Faith! It was a beautiful night and a great chance to hear about how some of the parishioners have experienced God in their lives. Paul and Kristen also shared testimonies that night. It was a really beautiful way to end the Year of Faith.

Katelyn Sutton, 

blogger for Les Équipes NET

Still Before God

Hello Everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well! We’ve been getting back into the swing of things at the office after being on a retreat with the youth group the weekend of Nov. 15-17th! We were up north at a place called Camp Tiberiade. It was so beautiful!We weren’t in charge of running the retreat, but we were extremely excited to be a part of it, and to help the leaders in any way they needed us.

Since our youth group, the Almighties, meets every other week, we haven’t had too much time to spend with the youth. But this weekend, God blessed our team in so many ways. We got to spend so much time investing in and getting to know a lot of the youth. We were given the chance to see them each grow in their faith and understanding of God, their relationships with each other, and their own personal relationship with Jesus. It was so amazing to be a witness to the work that God was doing in their hearts!

We prayed, we sang, we laughed, we played games in the woods, we talked (and talked some more!), we stayed up late, and we got up early! Overall, it was an amazing God-filled weekend. A few of them even expressed how excited they are that our team is at their parish and that they can see that we’re taking the time to really get to know them!

Also, we had a tough time deciding on a blog title. "B[log]tastic" was also in the running!

God Bless!

Shaina Wreede

iNFUSE One, Montreal

Expect Great Things

God has definitely been working through us here in Beauce since our arrival. I can’t even believe how many amazing things have been happening and the way hearts are already being changed so early.

A few weeks ago at our senior high school youth group, we had one student attend who had been invited by a friend and decided to come check it out. He arrived late and had missed the opening game, song, introduction, and almost all of the talk. He seemed to have fun during the night, and afterwards we found out that during prayer time that night was one of the few times in his life that he had actually felt like God existed. We've also had many students tell us that prayer time was the favourite time of the night!

We’ve also been spending our lunch hour once a week at the high school in St. Prosper for the last three weeks. It was kind of awkward the first couple of weeks and none of the students really wanted to talk to us, though they were looking at us with curiosity. This week though, a couple of the girls sat with some of the girls we’d met over the previous couple of weeks. They were excited to see us and spend time with us and they listened to Kristen play guitar for the entire lunch hour. Teresa, Julie, and I also met a couple of girls who welcomed us with open arms and spent the entire lunch hour with us even after their friends left the table. The boys had a successful lunch hour as well!

Our team was given yet another awesome opportunity this week! We went to Quebec City for an hour-long radio interview with a Catholic radio station that will air November 30^th!

God bless until next time,

Katelyn, Les Équipes NET blogger

Adoremus

Last Saturday the team went out to a young adult adoration night at Saint Joseph's Basilica called Adoremus, it was based around two hours of adoration with five priests available for confession. There were prayers, readings and plenty of time for reflection. For us going to the night was awesome, after a busy month to be able to just sit before Christ for two hours, to pray and go to confession if we wanted. But also after the event we had the chance to meet many of these young adults, quite a few of them from the University of Alberta; to speak with them and invite them out to a couple events was great.

It sort of showed in a way how we are just a part of how God is working here in Edmonton, on one hand we are here at Saint Thomas More and in four of the schools inviting the youths to encounter Christ. And then on the other hand Christ is working all around the city calling people to Himself in other ways and other people.

Praise be to God!

iNFUSE 2
Edmonton

Cooler Days, Warmer Hearts

Hey Everyone!

Last Thursday we had our first social night for the Almighties youth group! We went bowling! Everyone who came had an awesome time, and it was so wonderful to get to spend time with the youth!

Also, host home ministry has become a very fruitful part of our ministry. Our host families have been so kind, and have gone above and beyond to make us feel welcome and like part of the family. Since we move host homes every two weeks, it always takes a little time on both sides to adjust, but through God's grace we have really been building amazing relationships with the families, especially with the youth who we stay with. We have played board games, watched and played sports, had family dinners, and prayed with the host families. It’s so wonderful to see how much they have been opening up to us and to God since we have been staying with them!

Doing the dishes!

Mary’s awesome experience from a host home: “While in a host home in mid-October, my team-mate and I had asked our host family if they wanted to pray night prayer with us. The first night, our host mom and her three high school and university aged kids joined us and shared intentions. The next evening our host mom asked if we would pray and said her kids would join us to pray a final prayer, but they preferred not to do intentions out loud. The next night none of the kids showed up to pray, but when our host mom prayed, she prayed for each of her children and thanked God that they were given a chance to pray out loud together. I saw this as such a beautiful example of how she loved her family so much, and simply wanted her children to grow in love with God and grow in their relationship with Him.”

God Bless!

Shaina Wreede

iNFUSE One, Montreal



And we're off!!!

Hey there! Tim here, Encounter One's blogger for the year!

Man, has it been a crazy week and a half. We've done nine retreats already all around Toronto. The week and a half may have been crazy but it was also amazing. Our youngest crowd was grade seven and our oldest crowd so far was grade tens. I know we've hardly even started the year, but just seeing how God's been working through the youth is amazing.

The retreats have been running really smoothly. The youth are having a great time and God's definitely been busy at work with them to say the least. Seeing so much change in such young people in only six hours is really inspiring. One thing we learned pretty fast is that while these youth may be learning a lot from us, we learn even more from them. Having done a lot of volunteer work in the past, we all know how great it feels to do good, but nothing compares to the feeling of directly experiencing God at work in the retreatants.

We got to stay in Peterborough for four nights last week, which was amazing. Peterborough really brought us closer together as brothers and sisters on our team as we had some funny mishaps, but we stayed united as a team throughout all of it. For example, one of our vehicles got lost in downtown Toronto on the 401 highway (named the busiest highway in North America) during rush hour traffic on a Friday. Or when we celebrated Rachel's birthday, we hid her cake in the oven...then our host dad went to cook supper and preheated the oven...resulting in a charred black cake...
But while we had some mishaps, we're completing our mission of contacting the youth of Canada and bringing them to Jesus as best as we can and that's what's important.

Encounter 1

Beginnings of Youth Ministry

Last week kicked off our junior and senior high youth groups, "Compass" and "Cornerstone". The nights were great, bringing out more than  40 youth in total. We had lots of fun with games, music and getting to know the youth!

Just seeing God working in the lives of these youth has been incredible, their love for God, intelligence and openness was astounding.
While Jessica was giving her testimony on how trying to please her friends and make them happy just drained her and left her empty searching for God, a young woman said "That's me!"

God is working! Praise be Jesus Christ!

iNFUSE2, Saint Thomas More Parish

Edmonton Alberta

Another Week of Firsts!

We had an All Saints party for all ages on October 31! It was a great opportunity to involve the younger youth that we don’t often get a chance to work with. It was also the first time any of us had ever organized an All Saints party! We had different stations with different carnival-style games with candy for prizes and caramel apples too! Later in the evening we did a skit and played a big game of Drop the Keys and finished off the night with a litany of the saints. We had lots of youth and some younger families come out and it was a super fun night!

 

Another awesome experience this week was leading our first ever Adoration night! Paul shared a little bit what Adoration is, then I shared my testimony, and Kristen and the band led music. Matt also led a really great reflection. It was amazing to see how many of our youth came out to spend some time with Jesus. It was also really great to see some of the older parishioners that we don’t get to have contact with on a regular basis come out. 

God bless!

Katelyn Sutton, Les Équipes NET blogger