Hello, hello, hello!

Summertime is unfolding here in Ontario, where our team is now entering into the final week of ministry. We have been super busy lately, putting on retreats and traveling to the next town, in typical Encounter team fashion. Our retreats recently have been amazing, and every day I am left with wonder and awe at how God is working in each of our retreats. .

Two in particular stand out in the past couple of weeks. Both were in Brooklin, ON, a town just north of Whitby, where our team spent a lot of time in the winter. What was unique about those retreats was that the youth attending would be confirmed that night. Basically, they went from the NET retreat right into their confirmation only hours later. Small groups that day were really amazing, as many of the youth were already quite knowledgeable about Confirmation and what to expect. Later in the day, during prayer ministry, we had confession available. Something that our team has experienced time and time again is long confession lines, and these retreats were no different. At many of the retreats, students will only begin to line up for confession after their small group leader has prayed with them, but recently we have begun to encourage youth to line up as soon as they are ready, whether their small group leader has prayed with them. At our second retreat in Brooklin, Mariah told her small group that if they really wanted to go to confession, they should line up immediately, and suddenly, her entire small group moved and got in line! After praying with my small group, I left the church to get more Rosaries from the back room, and when I returned I found that my entire small group had disappeared and was now in the confession line. Unfortunately, due to time, not everyone was able to go to confession, but the priest was generous with his time and offered to come an hour before Confirmation that night in order to hear confessions.

Here's what a couple of youth said after those retreats:

"Today I learned about my faith and where I’m going with it. I learned that I want to spend the rest of my life with God and am looking forward to it. I confessed my sins and felt great about it " -14 male, Brooklin, ON

"I really liked how I could talk to my small group leader and I felt comfortable with her. Today made me want to go out and share my faith with everyone, and to stand up for my faith. I’m even more excited than I was before to make my confirmation and take charge of my own religion. Also, today helped me remember that there are youth programs out there that aren’t all pompous and instead teach you. Thanks!" – 14 female, Brooklin, ON

"The entire NET team was so fun and funny which made the day so much better. It really helped me to enjoy my day here. The video about forgiveness and the little white ball really spoke to me and it stood out. It really made me think and realize that no matter what I do, God won’t love me less. That phrase really stuck in my head. It also made me think about how important God really is in my life and how I feel like I’ve been shutting him out for the past few months. I really want to change that and it also made me excited to get confirmed." – 14 female, Brooklin, ON

Please continue to pray for our team as we do our last few retreats and head to Ottawa for Wrap up Week! Thanks and God Bless!

Katie Foster

Encounter 2

So Long, Fare Well....

Well...It's here...

The time has come to say good-bye to Medicine Hat. To all of our youth. To our volunteers. To all of our amazing host families. To our priests. To this life that we've been living here for eight months. It's hard to believe that it's already over. I feel like I'm still just getting to know so many people. Like I'm at the point where I could really impact people's lives, and where I know that they are impacting me. And now it's time to go. Time to say good bye to our ministry, and trust that the team that comes to the Hat next year will understand, and come to love all of these amazing people we've met. All their peculiarities and all their amazing generosity. I wish there was some way to tell them how much they've impacted me this year....

It's so bittersweet, leaving....We're going to be able to see our families, whom we haven't seen since our two week break for Christmas, and at the same time, we're leaving this amazing community which has become our family in these past eight months, and this amazingly beautiful city which has become our home. I'm not going to lie, it's going to be very weird to be back in Ontario, and to see trees lining the roads that weren't planted, and to drive down a highway, and not be able to see my destination way ahead in the distance, over the fields. I'm going to miss the coulees, those weird giant trenches through the city. Most of all, I'm going to miss the people. I know I said it before, but they deserve me saying it again. The people here are amazing. Letting us into their homes, feeding us, giving up their days and evenings to help us, or to attend our events, coordinating snacks, or making them. All those people who gave up their time just to have a brief conversation with us, or maybe took so much time to get to know us closer...  So many people that have helped us in so many ways.  I know that I can honestly say this on behalf of my team. We will never be the same because of this experience. Thank you Medicine Hat.

God Bless

Isaac Sullivan

Howdy!

Howdy Blogger Readers!

This is Sarah reporting for Encounter 2! I just wanted to take some time to tell y’all about the wonderful people we’ve met in the past few months. We've been back in Ontario for nearly a month, but before that we were out on the east coast.

Because of bad weather we had numerous delayed ferries while on the way to Newfoundland. We had an amazing host family, who took our entire team in for an extra day. On our way back from Newfoundland, we had another delayed ferry, and the same family opened their doors to us when we arrived in Nova Scotia at 4am, even though they were leaving for New York that morning! We returned a few weeks later to do some retreats in that area and they asked to have our entire team stay with them for the whole week that we were in Margaree! 

Our team got to know the family really well and we all got very close with them. After we left, their daughter sent me an email thanking our team for the time we spent with her and her mother. Here's an excerpt from her email:


“NET has been staying here since I was born, but nothing has moved me like God did while you guys were here. Honestly, you will never know what you guys did to my faith. I can't even describe it... I wake up every morning and get on my knees to pray. I try to spread the word of God through everything I do, and people have been asking me why I've been so happy lately. It's awesome. I feel so much better. And it's like... I feel Him. I mean, I really feel Him. Every time I do something good, I can feel that it's right. And I want to have the amazing spirit that all of you have."

Our team has been so blessed to meet so many incredible host families, priest, and teachers. After our retreat in Brockville, Ontario, the parish priest generously offered to expose the Blessed Sacrament and hear confessions for our team for team prayer! It was an amazing way to close off a retreat and we were so blessed to have met such a thoughtful priest. God continues to send incredible people to our team to remind us why we serve Him and to give us small gifts of His love.

In Christ,

Sarah Masters

Encounter 2

(Top photo - Katie, Mariah, Matthew Sullivan, Sarah, Melissa, Eoin, and Matt Scott atop our host home's roof in Margaree, NS; Bottom photo - The team with our host family and the parish priest in Margaree, NS)

An End and a Beginning

Well, it's that time of year! We spent a good portion of today cleaning our office and setting it up for the new youth minister. That's right, Saint Benedict has hired their new youth minister and he's pretty awesome! His name is Ronnie Lunn and he's that guy in the picture to the left! He's been working with us for the past week and he's been at both of our last events for Junior High and High School and it's been really cool for us to see this transition. 

One of my favorite things about this past week was the last High School night. Normally, the group of youth that come to our high school night is a smaller one, but this time, a bunch of the confirmation class came to the night. It was really encouraging to see such a large crowd and how they still wanted to be involved in the youth programs. The future for youth ministry here at Saint Benedict looks really promising and I can safely say that Saint Benedict is in good hands with Ronnie taking over the youth ministry.

I have truly enjoyed this year and when I look back at it, I see how much we've grown as a team and how much the youth ministry has grown at Saint Benedict. This parish is so vibrant and so full of life and I can only imagine how much the youth program will grow and how great Ronnie will be as the youth minister.

Thank you all for your support and for your prayers and for journeying with us this year and we hope that you all have a blessed summer! If you can, come to the Thanksgiving Mass and celebrate this year with us! God bless you all!

Lauren (iNFUSE Team 3's Blogger)

"May peace reign in your soul... any other gift we possess in this life is vanity, just as all the things of this world are vain." - Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

Steinbach was worth the trip!

Greetings from MW, Cecile here once again! It is a beautiful evening in North Battleford, where our team is situated right now, and I am sitting on the front porch of the lovely Erin McQuaid’s home. I am enjoying relatively warm temperatures, and eating a bowl of French vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce on top.  Life is good.

It has been an eventful last couple weeks, and right now I’m going to share with you the beautiful time we had in Steinbach MB. Steinbach is a relatively small town, population around 13000, or so I’m told. Steinbach was one of the places that had an iNFUSE team last year, and so it was really exciting for our team to go there and to see the fruits that are still blossoming due to the labors of last year’s iNFUSE team. We were in Steinbach for a week, and during this time we facilitated a parish mission, as well as an inter-denominational youth rally.

The parish mission proved to be a great experience both for our team, as well as for the parishioners that came out to the 3-day event.  It was a unique experience, because unfortunately the parish priest was unable to be present for the event, and so instead of having any sacramental elements to our program, we had to ad-lib with some other forms of prayer and ministry we don’t usually get to do. The first night, as part of the evening we prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet in song. It was a really striking because it combined a traditional prayer that many were familiar with, and the non-traditional elements of praise and worship in song. The second night during the time of prayer we invited everyone to dedicate or re-commit their lives to Christ, and as a visible sign, people took an unlit candle from the back of the church and walked to the front where they proceeded to light their candle  and place it on the alter. It was a moving moment as people flooded to the front of the church and boldly dedicated their lives to Christ. For some this was the first time, and for others I’m sure it was the 100^th. On the final day of the mission, we had a time of prayer ministry, and this too was a touching moment for me. For the entire duration of the time we had prayer ministry available, people steadily came forward to receive prayer.  I’m sure we could have sat there for a whole extra hour praying with people!

On the Friday following the end of the mission, we facilitated an inter-denomination youth rally at the Lutheran church in town. For me, this was one of the most beautiful memories I will hold of this year. About 150 people from nearby churches came out and as one voice sang praise and worship to God. I was at the back of the church, and from my vantage point, I could see many people deep in prayer, all worshiping our God. This is the only inter-denominational event we will do this year, so it is a gift that I will treasure and remember for years to come.

All in all, this was an amazing week. We as a team realized just how big God is, in that He is present and moving in the hearts of many all across our country, but as well, across denominations. Praise be to Him!

Cecile Richard

Massive Worship 2011-2012