Empowering our Volunteers

We celebrated the Olympics
with Olympic nuggets from
McDonalds on our day off!

This week one of our main objectives was to interview our newly trained youth leaders, which is the final step in their application process! This means that they can now start participating in a more active way with the junior high school youth group by leading games and small groups, giving their testimonies and even start giving some of the talks. It’s been a really exciting week for both us as a team and the volunteers. For us it’s exciting to be able to really start handing over the reins to the volunteers who will be leading this program even after we leave. It’s also been a big week for the volunteers. We could see the excitement and how seriously they’re all taking this commitment as they came in one by one for their interviews.

Saturday night was the first youth night for most of them as volunteers since being interviewed and while, as a group, they were still learning the same roles they’ve been learning for the last few weeks (greeting, helping with snack, set-up, and take-down), we could see that they were taking the jobs all the more seriously knowing that they were officially volunteers. They joined us for our nightly pro/cons session at the end of the night after the youth had left and they showed us that they were very invested in the night and knew what was going on throughout the night. It’s been incredible to be able to watch them grow as leaders!

God bless,

Katelyn Sutton

Les Équipes NET

Caught up in Grace like an Avalanche

Greetings,
Talk about a whirlwind weekend.  So recently we took our youth for a ski trip at Marmot Basin in Jasper and boy was it ever something, the weather was beautiful,  the mountains were awe-inspiring.  But that is not where this story begins, our story begins that same day at 6:00 in the morning when loaded the youth onto a coach bus to head towards Jasper many laughs were shared, and many naps were taken.

When we arrived in Jasper we were all in awe of the mountains.  We continued the day by hitting the slopes, and after everyone was finished we headed to Hinton, a small community about 30 mins outside of Jasper, to Way of Holiness Retreat center where we played games had food and to close the night off we had prayer time, which included Adoration and Confession.  It was such a powerful night.
The next day we had mass and then got back on the buss to head back to Drayton Valley, all in all it was a great experience, and a fantastic way to marvel in God's beautiful Creation.

Fast Forward and we are back into ministry full steam ahead.  Things in the office have been very busy between Youth visiting and meetings abound we have been consumed but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Recently we had a youth night on St.Valentine's Day in which we had the youth act out the reason why we celebrate St.Valentine's Day and his life, these skits were Hilarious and informative.

God Bless,
Jonathon
iNFUSE 3,Drayton Valley

GET REAL

The word spread widely and on our very second youth night with the grades 5 & 6 youth group LIFELINE we were blessed to have double the attendance of the first night.

Our youth went away, having enjoyed the night spreading the word like wild fire and in turn increasing our numbers. It was great!

Our second night was a hit and again the youth were challenged to spread the word. They went away excited and wanting to invite friends.

In speaking to one of the mothers of a youth, she was very pleased and equally excited about her sons experience in Lifeline! She exclaimed that she was very pleased that this night she didn't have to do any convincing for her son to come along. He was very excited to attend! He invited 2 friends a long as well, and went away naming of others friends he wanted to bring.

It was great to see the youth enjoy yet another lifeline night, this one being more faith based in comparison to the last. We were very blessed that the youth were super interested in the fabulous talk done by our wonder Bailey Reiger about "Truth & Lies" starting off our theme for the year "Get Real"with a bang! The youth responded well, and small groups were a great time for the youth to really dig deep into the idea of what is "Real" and what is not. 

What a fantastic uplifting experience for us all! We look forward to a lot more of Gods glory pouring into this part of our ministry.

Stay tuned for more,
Melissa
iNFUSE 1
Montreal

So it all Begins...

After spending a couple months of becoming familiar with St. Ignatius of Loyola and investigating how best to serve the needs of our parish we had our very first grade 5 & 6 youth group night, LIFELINE! It went off with a hit, having started with a Mission Impossible night with a great group of youth coming along. They met the team, had a lot of fun with different challenges we set up, and ending in ice cream sundaes, which we all love. All the youth went away having had a great night and excited to invite their friends along to the next night.

Our theme for the year is "Get Real" - STAY TUNED more for Lifeline!

Almighties youth group 4 year reunion was a blast! A great turn out, we all had a lot of fun. We started the night with a meal the youth had prepared for their families, followed by games and celebration. Ending the night with a night prayer which was a great success, seeing some of youth in the church for the first time in a while. We all enjoyed praising God together, sharing intentions and prayers as a group. It left all feeling like the group had taken a step in faith together. What a great evening!

On Saturday evenings we have started up our young adult group, ages 18-25. Our first  night was a blast with a  great number of young adults, along with some who hadn't been to church or thought about their faith for many years. Following the ALPHA program was a great decision for this group, and a comfortable, non-threatening environment for these new young adults to explore their faith.

Stay Tuned,
Melissa Doorman
iNFUSE 1, Montreal

Flashmob in Old Québec?!

This Saturday for our young adult’s night we had a couple from the community come and give a testimony on how God has worked in their lives since they met. They told the incredible story of how they abandoned everything to God and left their families and country to move to Canada. Their story of total abandonment to the will of God and how God rewards us for our trust and surrender was absolutely inspiring. After the night, one of the young adults shared with us that their testimony helped her to finally understand what it means to give your life to God!

Matt at the Holy Door!

Sunday we accompanied a bus load of our teens to Québec for a youth conference called Montée Ado. They met new friends who share their beliefs, attended different workshops, passed through the Holy Door into the Cathedral for Mass with Archbishop Lacroix (soon to be Cardinal Lacroix!), and finished the day with a flashmob on the steps of the Cathedral in Old Québec! It was an amazing day and great chance for us to talk to the youth even more about their faith!

Here's the link to the flashmob: 
http://www.ecdq.tv/fr/videos/653ac11ca60b3e021a8c609c7198acfc

Until next time,

Katelyn Sutton

Les Équipes NET