It's a Dream Come True...

Hey, it's Mairin speaking here for Massive Worship. 6 years ago, I attended an amazing event that powerfully changed the direction of my life, and I believe it greatly contributed to getting me to where I am now. I never dreamed that years later I would be helping to facilitate the exact event in Antigonish, Nova Scotia for over 800 youth from across eastern Canada. If you haven't guessed already, 6 years ago I went to an enormous youth conference famously know as "Steubenville", and this past weekend I played in the band that was chosen to lead hundreds of youth in worship at Steubenville Atlantic! That's right, you heard correctly, Massive Worship is leading music for Steubenville Atlantic, summer 2010! That in itself is a dream come true. Well, actually more than that, because this is so great a gift that I never even DREAMED of this happening.
Okay, so let me tell you about this past weekend where we partnered along with Bob Rice in stirring up the excitement for this summer's conference:
At approximately 6:00 Thursday morning, 4 of us band members jumped into a van and made our way to Halifax, NS. The other 4 members of our band opted to fly in the next day, lucky ducks... We arrived in town close to 1:00am, stumbled into bed, and woke up late the next morning to begin the first day of our tour from Halifax, to St. John, to Charlottetown. We met up with well-known speaker, songwriter, and expert youth evangelist, Mr. Bob Rice, as well as Halifax's Youth Coordinator and Steubie Atlantic head honcho, John Stevens. There began the most amazing time we could ask for. It went like this: wake up, drink coffee, drive numerous hours, drink coffee, eat, set-up, sound check, rock out, eat more, go to sleep, wake-up, drink coffee, drive numerous hours, drink coffee... etc.
Bob was down to earth, inspiring, affirming, and completely hilarious. He had a way of gaining the youth's attention and holding them in the palm of his hand, while smoothly ushering them into a heartful moment of intimate prayer. Massive Worship rocked out and found it entirely possible to have so much fun while running on so little sleep! Lots of coffee... John Stevens was an hilarious one as well. Dry humor coupled with passion for youth and evangelization, that's John Stevens. He too had the youth in the palm of his hands, they even had a chant for him! Over all, it was an amazing weekend, and Bob Rice shared with us that it was an unexpected fulfillment of one on his dreams too, to go on a mini tour with a band where he was the main speaker, kind of like Chris Tomlin and Louis Giglio. Done and done. www.steubenville.ca

Wetaskiwin's First Lifenight

G’day again all you blog readers out there, sooo Wetaskiwin has started up lifeteen and let me tell you! Our opening night was really Rad!

It was a games night but Casino style.

Our 6 Core members arrived early and we set up the room like a Casino! There was a lounge area, Jazz music was booming and we set up Christmas lights around the sides of the room to make the lights a little dimmer.

THEN we set up our games, there was Texas Hold ‘em, 99, Black Jack and Craps. Before the night began however, we had our first official Lifemass! We had a great turn out for a new scheduled time on Sunday nights; the congregation did a great job of singing along! And we commissioned our Core; we made them Core Shirts and Affirmation letters.

After the Mass began our lifenight, we had 11 Teens show up, which may sound low, but the night was a huge success! Everyone participated in the games and the team and Core met a couple of new teens we had never seen before! The night concluded with prizes for the teens and the majority of them said they would come again next week with friends! And thus begins the growing of the lifeteen ministry!

God has truly blessed our team! Because there are no Catholic high schools in Wetaskiwin, we have had to minister to our crew (grade 10 – 12 who help out with Edge nights) and other people we know from church, which is a small amount, so please pray for our team that through our current teens, God will reach out to all the other high school teens in Wetaskiwin.

Anyway, Hope you guys are all doing splendid out there!
Until we meet cyberly again...

Emma
Team 4

Sledding, Mayonnaise, and Beauty!

Hey, it’s Shayla from Team Five. So, once again, we have had a crazy week. From our Team Day last Thursday, to our messy Lifenight, and to an amazing lunch program, it has been an exciting week.

For our Team Day, we decided it was the perfect time to go sledding. Man, was it ever fun! We went to this hill by the High School in Perth. I had never seen the hill before, but from what we heard it was pretty decent. When we got there I could see why people liked to go to this hill. It didn’t look that tall, pretty average, but once you got to the top and saw down the hill, you could see how steep it was. We only had 4 sleds so we took turns going down the hill, but that got kind of boring after a while, so like most young people, we tried all going down together several times. Some successful, others not so much. We have a short video of us going down the hill and wiping out at the bottom. It’s at the bottom of the blog and quite entertaining. After doing that for a while, James and I found a part of the hill that lead to a jump. So, James and I decided to try out that side of the hill before trying the jump. We made it down and thought it was safe to take the jump it we so wished to do it. Just as were were about to get up the hill though, Tom went down on his sled. He had no idea what was coming because his sled turned around, and he was heading down backwards. Yup, you probably already guessed it, but Tom (only realizing it in the last second) went off the jump. I must say it was the funniest thing I have seen for a long time. Just the look on his face...utter surprise!

Sunday was loads of fun. Our Lifenight was called 'What a Mess'. Was it ever a mess. It was basically like fear factor. The teens got really into it. I believe we had 20 teens. We had many different activities that the teens had to do. There was a scrabble type of game that involved Alphaghetti, an ice cream eating contest that involved mayonnaise, eating a banana through nylon, throwing soaked Shredded Wheat (the big ones), shaving water balloons, putting jam on toast with your face, drinking Coke through your sock, and eating M&M’s with ketchup. It was really gross, but luckily no one got sick. Normally I have a strong stomach, but after the mayonnaise, I felt pretty disgusted. This Lifenight was loads of fun, and was such a great time to just hang out and get to know the teens even more. OH! Another great thing about this lifenight is that we had two of our potential core participate! It was a great night for them to join and I really think the teens had fun with them.

Merge (lunch program) went really well too. We started in prayer, as always, and then got right into a game of 'Identity Crisis'. With this game you were given a name of a famous person or character, and you had to go around asking people yes or no questions about your name, so that you could try to figure out who you were. Then I read the teens a story called 'The Cracked Jar'. This story has to do with your identity, and how God loves you as a whole with the imperfections that you see in yourself. There was also a meditation at the end of it. While reading the story, I was able to look around at the faces of the teens, and I really saw that they were taking this activity seriously, and they were actually thinking about what I was saying. In ministry you really cherish those moments because you can really see God working in the moment. It's beautiful.

Well, we will leave you this week with those fun stories, and next week there will certainly be more.

God Bless
Shayla

Lorsqu'on entend les mouettes, on sait qu'on est rendu aux maritimes...

Re-bonjour à tous! C'est Kevin Prada, votre bloggeur fidèle, maintenant arrivé à Bathurst, tout à fait au Nord du Nouveau Brunswick. Je vous l'assure, depuis mon dernier message, on en a fait du chemin! Depuis quelques jours, on a fait le chemin de Terrebonne jusqu'à Nackawic, NB, là où habite la famille de Evan. Après notre court séjour chez lui, on s'est rendu à Yarmouth, en Nouvelle-Écosse, et finalement, dimanche, on est arrivé ici, à Bathurst, après une longue journée de voyage, pour y passer la semaine.

C'est vraiment un cadeau pour nous, l'équipe, que de pouvoir passer du temps avec les familles de nos compatriotes. Comme j'ai dit, on a passé une soirée chez Evan à Nackawik (site de la plus grande hache au monde, voir la photo incluse...et disons que si elle était vraiment coupante, ça serait légèrement intimidant). On a eu la chance de célébrer la messe à sa paroisse, après un délicieux repas préparé par les dames auxiliaires de la paroisse, qui a fait danser mes papilles gustatives. En soirée, on a parlé, chanté et ri avec les parents et les soeurs d'Evan.

Ensuite, on s'est dirigé vers la pointe sud de la Nouvelle-Écosse, à environ neuf heures de Nackawic pour animer une retraite, samedi passé, pour les jeunes confirmants du diocèse de Yarmouth. Les jeunes présents, dont le nombre s'élevait à presqu'une centaine, étaient super, et ce qu'il y avait de vraiment 'colon' (comme dirait un bon acadien), c'était leur accent. Par exemple, la traduction phonétique de 'Quelle heure est-il' ressemble un peu à ça: 'Tchelle heure hé thcill'. C'était vraiment bien de pouvoir former ces liens avec cette communauté. Et de plus, en soirée le samedi, comme l'océan borde la ville, on a pu visiter le port de Yarmouth. Donc, ce qui était du déjà-vu pour les Néo-Brunswickois de l'équipe, c'était vraiment exceptionnel pour le Manitobain innocent que je suis, comme je n'ai jamais vu l'océan d'une des côtes canadiennes. C'était vraiment très beau, tous les bateaux qui y étaient garés, et l'eau qui continue et qui continue.

Ensuite, c'est le chemin vers Bathurst, là où on se trouve actuellement. Il y a deux choses qui entrent normalement dans la conversation lorsqu'on parle des Maritimes: le paysage très pittoresque et le monde sympatique. Et selon moi, ces deux faits sont très vrais. On peut marcher sur le trottoir, sachant que lorsqu'on croise une personne, elle va nous faire un sourire, et lorsqu'on dîne au Subway, la caissière prend le temps d'entamer une conversation avec nous, ce qui n'est pas toujours le cas dans le reste du pays.

Les choses se déroulent visiblement très bien de notre côté. Comme toujours, le Seigneur est vraiment présent avec nous, et on anticipe maintenant avec hâte la retraite de fin de semaine qu'on va animer samedi prochain pour les jeunes du diocèse de Bathurst. On se laisse donc maintenant en union de prières, car on a besoin de vos prières, et je vous assure qu'on prie pour vous!




Kevin

P.S. En-haut, c'est une photo de l'équipe rassemblée près de la plus grande hache du monde, à Nackawic; et ci-bas, c'est Déneige qui a bien hâte d'arriver à Yarmouth!

On the Farm and Back to Ministry

Hey guys, it's Natalie Senko here in Burlington, Ontario. It's been quite an exciting first week for me and the team.

Last week Riane and I stayed on a dairy farm in Waterford, Ontario, so we jumped into some borrowed coveralls and rubber boots and went to work. Our host sisters gave us a tour of all their barns and even let us feed the baby calves; they were so cute! As we wandered, I kept telling Riane that I wanted to take a calf with us on the road. And maybe a little lamb. And a few barn cats. We decided it might get a little tricky when they grew a bit bigger since both of us are scared of large animals, however my heart was still set on having a calf so I called my finance asked if we could buy one after we get married. He said, "We'll see."

Then we traveled on to Ridgetown and had some great retreats and were hosted by an absolutely amazing family! On one of those retreats we had some boys sitting in the back of the church that just could not sit still. One of the boys grabbed a rosary off the table and started swinging it around and hitting the boys sitting next to him with it. Christian, who had been praying with a retreatant in the pew in front of them, turned around and gently took the rosary from the boy. He started explaining to the young retreatant about praying the rosary and how powerful those prayers are. Then Christian handed the the beads back to the boy and went back to praying. The boy then held the rosary with two hands, and passed it carefully to another retreatant who lightly placed it back on the table. It was amazing for me to witness how a little care and explanation can make such a difference.

Then for team day in London, Ontario we did a Mall Scavenger Hunt. We broke off into teams of four and scoured the mall for Mary, "Canada" and all sorts of other silly things. Some of the teams got super creative and it was so fun to see all the picture documentation!

Anyway, remember it really is the small things that make all the difference.

In Christ,

Natalie

PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE DOYLE!