Getting Settled In Yellowknife!

Hello everyone, iNFUSE Team One here,

For the first blog I have decided to talk about our first few days in the awesome city of Yellowknife! After all of the plane switching and plane rides we made it to Yellowknife with no problems at all. Once we arrived we received a very warm welcome from Fr. Ben, Susan, Gerry and some other members of the incredible staff at the Diocesan Centre. We spent most of the first day getting to know our office, parish, and some of the people we will be working with this year which was very fun!

A few days later we were welcomed by James, Christine, and Phoepe, though some call it - pranked. They decided to welcome the new NET team with dish soap on our van, which was

forgotten after they fed us some fantastic spring rolls. James, Christine, and Phoepe are just some of the amazing youth in Yellowknife. We were privileged to visit all three schools, and meet a ton of the youth! It has been a blast laughing and simply getting to know them. The ladies of St. Patrick’s CWL also welcome us on Saturday night with a delicious pasta dinner and cake (insert picture). We spent the rest of the night just talking, laughing, sharing stories, and getting to know the incredible people of Yellowknife.

Another cool thing I just have to mention is that for the first couple of weeks the whole team was privileged to stay in the same host home! Our host family is amazing, they are extremely hospitable, loving and just down right amazing! Our host mom would say “We’re nothing to write home about” but I beg to differ. I have to say we are truly blessed to be place in such a welcoming community. We are ecstatic to be here and can’t wait for what’s to comes. Well that’s it for now, but keep your eyes out for our next blog. We are sure to have even more amazing stories to share with you next time!

So for now, farewell and God bless!

iNFUSE Team One

( Yellowknife )

Bolton!

Hey Everyone!

This is Encounter One's official blogger, Silken Neutelings.
Last Saturday before the Commissioning Mass one of our vans broke down, and therefore was sent to the shop for repairs. We were set to depart on Sunday morning, but without our second van in working condition, this proved to be impossible. Fortunately for us, we were able to kidnap Massive Worship's brand new van! Thus, after gathering our team, grabbing a few things at Canadian Tire and crashing at one of the host homes for an extravagant lunch and snacks (we were all blown away by their hospitality!) - we were off!
We had our first four retreats in Bolton, Ontario, for Gr. 8 students and they were all really awesome. Some of our retreatants felt really touched in different ways, it was so awesome to see God work through our words and actions. I can't wait to see what else God has in store for us and all the youth we meet this year!
God bless!
-Silken
Encounter One: Cristy, Daniel, Alex, DJ, Matthew, Sarah, John, Sydney, Tyler, Mary and Me

In the beginning....

Hey Everybody

This is Infuse 2, Medicine Hat, checking in to inform everyone about our recent progress as a team and as a ministry. We left Ottawa, Ontario at seven o’clock on Sunday, October 2nd. It was a pleasant four hour flight on which Joel and I finished a four hour game of monopoly(I won), and Kyle and I watched “Inception”. Lauren experienced her first flight in a plane, and we spent twenty minutes in the middle of the flight with our seat belts fastened on account of “severe turbulence”. Needless to say, it was an interesting flight. We arrived in Calgary around a quarter after nine, also October 2nd. For all those out there as confused as I was about a flight that took us four hours to fly, but which we landed two hours after we took off, I just want to clarify that the time difference between Ottawa and Calgary is two hours and that, yes, it is possible.

We spent our first Albertan night in Calgary, and drove to Medicine Hat the following morning where we received a tour of one of our parishes, Holy Family Parish. We were hosted by one of our contact persons who had agreed to host the whole team. It was a great experience to be able to be together as a team, especially during our first week here. We’ve spent most of the first week here settling in. We’ve had tours of the city, and we had a tour of Saint Patricks parish, which is the other parish we will be ministering to over the next eight months. We've managed to rearrange our office at Holy Family in order to better accommodate eight people. There’s also a lot of other rooms around our office (ei. conference rooms, staff rooms) which the staff here at Holy Family has been very gracious in letting us use whenever we’ve had a need.

Random Interesting really cool fact, One of our parishes is a consolidation of three parishes, St. Joseph Parish, Christ the King Parish, and St. Mary's Parish. They consecrated it as Holy Family Parish for this reason. How awesome is that?

On Saturday and Sunday we went to all the masses at Holy Family Parish, and introduced ourselves and explained NET a little bit, the we hung out in the foyer and talked to people after the masses. So we've gotten to know a little bit more about the community at Holy Family Parish. Next weekend we'll be doing the same thing at St. Patricks parish, and then we'll be fully integrated into Medicine Hat.

We've finished planning for our high school youth night, which will be at Holy Family, and our junior high youth night which alternate between St. Patricks and Holy Family so that each parish has two youth nights per month. We're planning to start visiting the schools next week and that's when we'll be starting our youth groups.

So, please, keep us in your prayers.

God Bless

Isaac Sullivan

p.s. To love God is something greater than to know him. -- St. Thomas Aquinas

Way Hey and Away We Go!

Greetings from the East Coast and welcome to iNFUSE Team 3's blog! After our beautiful Commissioning Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa, we said our goodbyes to our fellow Netters and got a good night's rest before setting out for Halifax. We drove to Nackawic, NB and stayed the night with some wonderful host homes and the next day finished our trip to Halifax!

We will be spending the next eight months here in Halifax, doing ministry at Saint Benedict Parish. This Parish is a young one, having been built just a year ago! It is the culmination of three separate parishes that have come together to form Saint Benedict. Our first day at the parish, we went to 9:00 am Mass and afterwards there was a Coffee Social. It was so wonderful to be able to talk to some of the parishioners and it was truly a blessing to see how welcoming they were! After only being here for a few days we've received such a warm welcome from the parish community.

Yesterday, we had our first Team Day in Nova Scotia and we went to Lunenburg, where the Fisheries Museum is located. We spent the day there, looking at all the historical fishing equipment, including two ships! On the way back, we stopped in a quaint little town called Mahone's Bay, where a scarecrow festival was happening. Scarecrows covered the whole town! It was all in all a great day for us to bond as a team!

We ask that you keep us in your prayers, especially our ministry, and we will keep you in our prayers as well. We look forward into this year desiring to rely on God's grace and to bring him glory in everything we do!

God Bless!

iNFUSE Team 3

I Will Go

Greetings from your faithful Team Two blogger, Katie Foster.

Our last day of training was completed on Friday, and on Saturday we were commissioned by the Archbishop of Ottawa along with the other NET teams in the Commissioning Mass. While most teams left on Sunday, our team has remained in Ottawa for a few days to rest and prepare for ministry. We head out Wednesday morning for a couple days journey to the Thunder Bay diocese.

I would like to share with you a story from Commissioning Mass. In the afternoon, while we were getting ready, my teammate Mariah Fortune called her mom. In this conversation, Mariah made the discovery that her mom had flown with a friend to Ottawa from Nova Scotia to suprise Mariah on this special night. It was a very special reunion for all parties. What I would like to share specifically was a comment that her mom's friend made upon observing the Netters at Commissioning Mass. She was suprised at the amount of confidence and joy that exuded from a group of young adults. Upon hearing this story, it really made me realize just how much we, as Netters, witness to others not only through our words and actions, but just by our very lifestyle. When people see us, they see that we are different, and in this way we live out the quote from Paul Claudel when he says, "Speak about Christ only when you are asked. But live so that people ask about Christ!"

And with that, I shall depart with words from the Christian band Starfield, " I will go". Tomorrow our team begins the journey. I ask that you pray for our safe travels, and pray that we may all be faithful and effective witnesses of the Gospel.

In Christ,

Katie Foster

Encounter Team Two Blogger

(Top picture - The Net teams sing "God Be Praised" at Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa;

Bottom picture - The reserved sign for Encounter Team Two at the Commisioning Mass)