"We are just like the Voyageurs!"

Greetings blog readers! Well, things have calmed down a little since Massive Worship left but the parish is still abuzz with activity.

The weekend following all the amazing Massive Worship activity we held our family retreat. It was a great time for the families to bond both within their own units and with other families. There was a great turn out with about ten families, all open to playing games, learning, sharing, and growing together in faith. Phylicia gave an incredible talk about how families can become more effective and how important faith is to creating strong families. I think my favourite part of the retreat was seeing all those families praying together up in the church. I couldn’t help but stop in my tracks (I was headed downstairs to help set up for our potluck dinner) and stand in awe of that beautiful moment. I think that what we have been able to bring to the families in this parish is one of the best parts of parish ministry.

The Sunday following the family retreat we had a LifeLine night entitled “Can You Survive?” This had quite a few teens questioning what the night would entail. Well, let me tell you…it was an amazing night of teamwork, communication, resourcefulness and trust. The teens travelled around the property together following clues that we had left them. The catch was that at each clue location, people on the team would receive “injuries” that would prevent them from using their eyes, mouths, arms, legs etc. The team had to work together to get the whole team to each location and finally back to the church basement. Once they were all back we discussed some of the hardships they faced and their strategies for assigning injuries. It was quite interesting hearing where they thought they could have improved and how they figured out how to efficiently allocate injuries. There was even the brilliant idea of using a wheelbarrow to assist someone who had broken their leg. The best part of the evening was seeing the growth in teamwork and friendship.

We had our last Glass Alabaster night of our program. It was a great evening with prayer, sharing, dressing up, a photo shoot, and awesome snacks! I have loved seeing our young women grow closer together in sisterhood and faith. All three of the girls go to different schools and have only known each other through church, but now we can see beautiful friendships growing between them and I think they will still remain close and be able to share their faith with each other. Our message for our last night was that they should not be afraid to live out chastity in their lives; the message of the program is not just meant for those who participate in it, but for the whole world. This message has already sunk in for these girls as they have told us the reactions of some of their friends when they would share some of what we had gone over with them. They are showing a great concern for their friends who are not living chastely and want to help others through what they have learned in Glass Alabaster. Keep them in your prayers as they try to change the world through living out chastity.

Now for the reason behind the title of this particular blog. There is a small town in the area called St. Malo which is home to the Catholic School of Evangelization. This school has an outreach team of four young adults who run retreats and do general Catholic outreach. For our team day we spent the day with them, getting to know them and just hanging out. While we were there they suggested that we go canoeing as they had a couple of canoes and there was a lake nearby. This sounded like an awesome idea, so we strapped the canoes on to our vans, put on our life jackets (yes we drove to the lake in our life jackets – safety first!) and headed to the lake. Well, it turned out that the lake was still 90% frozen! But that didn’t stop us. We went in “voyageur” style - breaking the ice with our paddles and pushing off of the thicker ice to prevent the canoes from scratching too much. It was so much fun! Did I mention we also went to an alpaca farm? I can’t believe how soft their fur is! I never thought I would ever learn so much about alpacas! It is interesting seeing how much you learn while on NET.

And then we come to Easter. It was wonderful experiencing Easter here and being able to share this great time of joy with the parishioners and our host families. And finally we can tell the world that Amanda, Phylicia and I have spent the last few months crocheting blankets for Andrew and Brenden. We finished them a couple of days before Easter Sunday and so were able to give them as Easter presents. I am pretty sure that the whole parish knew about what we were doing and we worked really hard to make sure the guys would not find out. And it paid off. Seeing the surprise and joy on their faces was simply priceless! I must tell you, there were some crazy adventures and some close calls during the making of these two blankets…I will have to share some of them in the next blog.

Happy Easter from all of us on the Steinbach iNFUSE team!
God bless
Elizabeth Fitzmaurice

Our God is not dead, He's alive, HE'S ALIVE!

Crunch time is on! We are down to last few weeks of ministry here, and it will definitely be a bittersweet goodbye! We are all so excited to go back to our families, but cannot bear to say goodbye to everyone here at Sacred Heart.

On Thursday April 7, NET staffer Matt Fradd, came to our small town to put on an event. The event was called "Interview With An Ex-Pornstar." We had been praying for this event for a long time, and were kind of skeptical of the number of people that would be coming, but still trusted in God. As the time came closer and closer, and we were finishing setting up for the event, people started pouring in the doors! I was so excited, silently praising God in my heart! The event was so good! Oh my goodness, I know it changed a lot of people's opinions.

After Matt's event, our supervisors came up for a visit! It was so great to see them again! We missed them so much! This supe visit also had a bittersweet taste to it. We had an amazing time, but it was sad because it was our last supe visit of the year. It was great to have them around and to share more memories with them.

On Friday April 8, we had an Edge night entitled 'kNOw.' One of the parishioners came in to share his testimony and how he came to know Christ. This night was focussed on drugs and alcohol, and the power of saying 'no.' His testimony focussed on his struggle with drugs and alcohol, and then how he overcame that. I think that the youth really got a lot out of it.

On Saturday, we brought 17 of our youth to a Think Fast at OLVC (Our Lady of Victory Camp). The total youth at the event was 32, and we brought 17! Praise God! It was really great, because the kids were all excited to fast in solidarity with those who go without food everyday. Isn't that amazing? Who is ever excited to fast?

The following Friday was an Easter social EDGE night. We set up different game stations, including an egg and spoon race, finger painting with chocolate sauce BLINDFOLDED, Easter egg hunt, and a bunch of others. The games were a competition, so the kids competed against each other to see who could win the most tokens. I had fun even watching the kids and running stations.

The Edmonton diocese recently finshed the 40 Days For Life, and as a team, we had the privilege of going to pray in front of the abortion clinic. A couple of ladies form our parish were there with us for the hour, and close to the end of the hour, we all sang together the Hail Mary. So beautiful! That same Saturday we came back to our beloved parish and put on another Crossroads Coffee House. I love this ministry! It's just a chance to get together with youth and other people of this parish and have fun and hang out. So lovely.

On Palm Sunday, we had Lifeteen. Since this Sunday is otherwise called Passion Sunday, we thought it would be appropriate to watch the Passion of The Christ with our high school youth. One of the youth had never seen the movie before, and she was really touched by it.

This past weekend was EASTER! Oh my goodness, we were so so so excited about Easter! We went to the Easter Vigil, and it was so beautiful! I was so ansy all day in anticipaton. Us girls got ready together, and it was so fun! It felt so good to belt out ALLELUIA!!!!!! Praise God. On Easter Sunday, the girls made a BIG beautiful brunch to enjoy as a team, and then we had a team prayer full of praising God and Alleluia's! Yesss! We then went for a walk on this beautiful day. We felt refreshed and full of the Holy Spirit all day. So awesome!

So that is a really long update about what is up in Wetaskiwn, and I wish I could say so much more... but this blog is getting SUPER long! We love you all, and are praying for you! Seriously, thank you so much for supporting NET Ministries, we couldn't do it withough your prayers and support.

God Bless,
Katie Doyle

iNFUSE Team 3

Wetaskiwin, AB

"DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1Cor. 15: 54-57

Happy Easter!

Hello to all from Brandi, and the Massive Worship team!

We are currently in Deep River, Ontario, where we had an amazing Easter Weekend, but more on that later on.

First I want to start out with the Encounter Days we did. It was our very first official time doing a full day Encounter day (the type of Ministry that Encounter teams do). It was very interesting getting it all set up for because it is such a different ministry than we are used to… well I guess a few of us were used to it because we were on Encounter teams last year. However needless to say none of us had done it in a very long time.

We were in Pickering, ON and put on two Confirmation retreats. It was so exciting seeing where they all were and what their Confirmation meant to them and then helping lead them to more of an understanding by talks and our own personal testimonies. I was excited because I actually got to give the Confirmation talk that I used to give on the road last year when I was on an Encounter team.

Each retreat went very well; there were games, music, talks, skits, dramas, and last but not least (and my personal favorite part of the day) prayer time.

The prayer time has always had an impact on me because of the impact it has on the retreatants. It’s like taking these busy, busy teens who are constantly bombarded with the media, music, school, cell phones, the internet, sports, extra curricular activities and basically just a lot of noise and letting them sit in the stillness and quiet of God’s presence and have a quiet moment to think about their lives and God and who they are. It gives them a chance to pray and ask God for help, along with asking the NET team for prayers.

It is usually the most effective time of the day.

Another thing about these two Encounter days was that during the prayer time there was a chance for them to go to the sacrament of Confession and there was such a huge line up that, unfortunately, they weren’t all able to make it because of the time. The fact that the desire was there was what amazed me the most.

We then moved to Ottawa and did a youth rally at Frank Ryan school for about 380 students. It was very high energy and a lot of fun. Afterwards we had a few students thanking us and commenting about the youth rally on our Facebook. Go Frank Ryan!

Now for Easter weekend. We had a bit of a break from ministry for the weekend and we also happened to be in Deep River, hometown of James! The guys on our team got to stay at his house. The girls were split off into to other host homes that are his family friends. We had an amazing Easter. The Easter Masses and services were all so beautiful, we went to all of them as a team and also watched The Passion on Good Friday. Easter is such a powerful time to grow in your spiritual life, especially after a long Lent.

When you’re away from home especially on a holiday it’s so nice to have a family to celebrate it with. On Easter Sunday everyone gathered at one home and we had a lot of food and also an Easter goodie bag hunt! It was a lot of fun to join in on the families traditions, like the hunts and the different foods, like coloring Easter eggs, decorating cookies, the butter lamb (see picture of Sir Lardalot), and Easter dove bread.

After the hunt we played some football and soccer in the field with our team and the younger members of all the familes. It just turned out to be a great day. Host homes have been so great to us; it’s beautiful how they just let you into their family for the time you’re there. It is definitely what makes it easier to be far away from your own family. I love host

homes!

We also had the opportunity to learn some ballroom dances! We had a session on one of the nights and we learned a jive and a waltz, it was a blast!

I’m so happy that the weather has finally been getting sunny. For a ministry day (where we work and practice things for ministry) we were able to spend the day at a house that was on the River, it was gorgeous! We got to have band practice overlooking the water, and at lunch we had a campfire where we roasted hot dogs and made smores and banana treats. Summer is almost here!

I hope you are all enjoying the Easter season and the weather as much as I am.

God Bless!

Brandi Olson

Miraculous Works

We were so happy to arrive in Steinbach! We had passed through the town for one night in February and people seemed to be excited about the upcoming ministry, which was still over a month away. We were also excited to come back to this community, and man were they ever great!

Their hospitality and welcoming spirit toward our team blew us away. As some of you know Steinbach is actually home to NET iNFUSE team 2, so the parish was already anticipating us. The iNFUSE team had also been preparing for our arrival by promoting us.

We were featured in the newspaper and James was able to do a promotion for the Youth Rally on the local radio station.

We started the week off with the Parish Mission. These are always a joy because of the parishioners that come out. They were enthusiastic and so welcoming and their smiles always make us feel like we are making a difference. We had three great nights.

On Friday was our Youth Rally. Our venue was a huge Mennonite Church that is next door to Christ Our Savior Parish. Steinbach has a strong Christian community so the iNFUSE team invited all of the youth groups of the city out to the rally. There ended up being 250 people! It was amazing to have so many faith-filled people from the Catholic Church and different Christian denominations all praising together and just having a great time. There was even a youth minister from a different church that was saying that he was so happy that NET team had come to Steinbach because he had never learned so much about the Catholic church before and that he is going to be sad when they leave. He was also very interested in Massive Worship's mission because he was also a musician.

Then on the weekend we put on a Massive Worship Encounter weekend, which consists of talks, sessions, and instrument training.

There were basically two main groups, teens and seniors. We worked with both choirs and the whole group was open and enthusiastic from the beginning. One senior lady was even moved to tears at the end of the first night when we all prayed together. It was just an awesome weekend all around.

A few days after this weekend, the choir director of the ladies choir gave Riane a call. Riane was the leader of the vocal workshop, along with Christian. The director said that the ladies came to choir practice and they all did the warm ups they learned on the weekend and they were all talking about how they could redo all of the songs and layer their voices and do more phrasing. The choir director said that Christian and Riane had a huge impact on the choir and she affirmed them on their work. She also went on to say that she had such a good week and was so impressed with all of the events that she went to. She was very thankful and concluded that, “MW doesn’t stand for Massive Worship, but miraculous works.”

It was a bit sad to leave because we had made so many great friendships among the whole entire Parish. There were definitely a few tears shed saying goodbye.

Well I guess that wraps it up, since being in Steinbach we have made our way back to Ontario, and I just wanted to mention something that I think is really cool:

While on our travel days, we always stop for gas, the cool thing about these two gas stops that is that people recognized that we were Netters, even if they didn’t necessarily know what NET is.

The first was a man at a gas station, I don’t exactly remember the name of the place, but it must be a stop for a lot of NET teams because he asked where we were headed and then said that he had seen a lot of NET vans over his years working at this gas station and was beginning to recognize the vans. It was so exciting. The second was a woman working at 7/11. She asked us if we were Netters, we said yes and she had actually hosted Netters four years ago and she didn’t remember the name but she was able to describe one of the people who she hosted. We easily identified this living room “Good Morning Baltimore” singer as staff member Caitlyn Bondy and had a good laugh.

These two encounters just made me so happy that people all across Canada are recognizing our ministry. Even if most of them do work at gas stations.

I wish you all a very prayerful Holy Week and a Happy Easter!

God Bless,

Brandi Olson

The Massive Warship Attack

Hey!
It's Andrew from Steinbach.

I'm here to tell you about our week of Massive Worship!!
We've all been working quite hard to prepare for this, but really... the parish was blown away!
My job is to do my best to tell you what happened... and what's with the Massive Warship.

The Massive Worship team arrived in our parish here in Steinbach on the Sunday night. We got to hang with them a bit that first day, though we were putting on our LifeLine night – more on that in the next blog. So, youth ministry called! That’s what we’re here for!

That Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday was the parish mission. Monday and Tuesday went as follows: they started with a few upbeat songs, which everyone was happy to clap along with. Next a great talk was given by one of the Massive Worship team members. (I have already been told by numerous parishioners how great and insightful the talks were for them.) After this there was a drama, followed by praise and worship. It was great to see the parish so unified! Wednesday night began with mass, which of course the MW team played for. Following the sacrifice of the mass there was another talk, and then Adoration! It's so cool how much of a difference music makes. Everyone was drawn into adoration together. Music, peacefulness, and God our Maker. It was beautiful.

Next was the Youth Rally, which was held at the Mennonite Church next door to our church. We had been planning and advertising this for a while, so it was much anticipated. It was so great! Brenden opened up the night with a prayer, and then invited someone from Helping Hands food bank to say a few words. All the proceeds of the night went to this organization. I was at the back mixing the music on the sound board, so I saw the place fill as people came in, and I could hear a buzz of anticipation. When Massive Worship came on the stage, and began their opening song, everyone was right there and involved, clapping along and shouting out their praise. It was a night loaded with music, goodness, and God! My personal favourite.

Then, last of all we had our musician's retreat. It brought back great memories for me of music training at the beginning of the year. Lots of youth, and even some older ladies from the parish choir, came out for this. The retreat was filled with talks on the heart of worship, and how and why we play music - for God, and his greater glory! Then there were skits and games to loosen up our diaphragms. Next off we had the hands-on workshops. Here everyone broke off into groups: two guitar groups, one bass, one electric guitar, one drum, one keyboard, and one vocal. During this time I wandered around seeing how “my” band was doing, which was in fact stupendously. (The band apparently needs to be renamed since “Andrew's Band” doesn't quite cut it.) We had a couple of band jams, in which, to my great delight, the band (my band) established a groove without me! I cried tears of sadness and joy. The retreat ended with adoration, which was truly moving thanks to the awesome music that led me into the time of worship.

The parish was so sad to see Massive Worship go, and there were tears all round. And now already we're starting to hear how much people will miss us. Man! I love Steinbach, and Christ our Saviour! They are so much fun, and it so rubs off! Thanks to the Massive Worship invasion, the parish is even more alive than before! And the band is making a name for itself! ;)
Oh ya! To end off, one of our youth made up this joke: “A dude sees a big aircraft-carrier go by... what does he say... ... ... WOW! That's a MASSIVE WARSHIP!

God Bless!
See you in Jesus!
Andrew