It's Not Over Yet

       It's getting to the point of the year where the end of our mission is in our sights, and often times consuming our thoughts. This has been making it difficult to stay focused on the present and to keep our eyes on why we are here, serving on NET. So at this point in the year, I've been falling short, losing my zeal and energy because I've felt like I've done all that I could do, that we've met all the youth we are going to encounter and that I just have to finish up the last couple months. But I was so wrong!

       Our team went to the My Generation Youth Rally in March and helped them out with a few things. We brought 7 youth with us to participate in the weekend. We thought that our group would be the only ones going to the rally from Swift Current but it turned out that there was a youth there from Swift Current that we had never met before. I was introduced to her and she told me that she didn't even know there was a NET team in her city. I was quite surprised. The thing is, her family doesn't attend Mass anymore, and we don't encounter her at the High School because we are confined to being in one classroom because it's a public school that isn't very open to our presence.

       After meeting this youth, I invited her to come to our high school youth group, and to my surprise, she actually came. She had such a great time at youth group that she told me she wanted to come to every youth night we have. Myself and another member of the team hung out with her at Starbucks not too long ago and she told us that she's really glad she met us and wish she had known about us sooner because she wants to get to know us and hang out with us more.

       The thing that really gets me about this is that I didn't realize that we could still make a difference and that there are new youth out there that need to encounter Christ through our help. I too wish that we could have encountered her months ago, but I see now that it's not too late to make an impact in this young person's life. We can still challenge her to love Christ and embrace the life of the Church in the next month we are here. We're leaving in a month but we plan to hang out every week until we leave.

As much as I think this youth needed to meet us, I think I needed to meet her all the same because if I hadn't, I think I would have lost even more strength and zeal for this ministry than I already had. It's not over yet. We're still here, we still have ministry to do, we still have youth to encounter. I'm not going to let the end of the year get into my head. I'm going to fight even harder to bring youth to Christ in this last month.

        Now I'll end with a beautiful quote from the beautiful Mother Theresa, “We may never know all the good that a simple smile can do”.

Blessing to you,

Hunter Norton

iNFUSE 1, Swift Current, SK