A Life iNFUSEd

Hello and goodbye from iNFUSE #1,

Well, this is it.  The final blog.  Oh my gosh… I don’t even know where to start.  I guess thank you would be a good place – thank you to everyone who has read our blog!  I’ve enjoyed writing it, and I’m glad to have been able to share all the joys of our team with you. 

         It’s been an incredible year.  Although it’s been almost 9 months, it’s gone by so fast.  For me it’s been a year to learn how to love, and I think that goes for the rest of the team as well.  Learning how to love, how to be loved, and how to show love just by loving… crazy right?! 

         What attracted me so much to this ministry and NET itself was the love I saw between the Netters and how dedicated and honest they were to each other.  Just the other day, Young shared with us what one of our host sisters had said – she shared about how we’ve witnessed to her by how much we loved each other and that we had been such a culture shock for her.

         Throughout the year, it was hard to really see all the fruits of our ministry, even when it’s been right in front of us - mostly because we’d always be really focused on what we could improve on.  Coming to the end of the year has given us the chance to step back and see that what we came here to do has been a clean success.

         This week has been filled with goodbyes, tears, and so much joy.  Last week we went to the grade schools for the last time, and today was our last visit to the high school… and it’s amazing to realize how many people we’ve come to know and love.  Coming into this year, the word ‘relationships’ was drilled into our head, and our team ran with that.  Ya, maybe we came here and continued building what last year’s team started, and maybe from the outside it looks like a youth ministry – but I promise you that that house is filled with every individual that we’ve met along the way.  For me, saying goodbye to the host homes who’ve opened their homes and hearts to us all year, was one of the hardest parts.

         All of us have grown so much this year… I can’t say I’m the same person I was when I came here, but I can say that I’m more me than I used to be!  Waking up wondering how you can better love the person next to you, telling each other how important they are to you, and never forgetting why you’re here in the first place – Christ, and His love.

         At first, I’m not going to lie, part of me thought that NET would be easy, that it would be like some awesome sleepover every night, or that going to youth group all the time would be nothing but AWESOME.  Oh boy did I get a huge wake up call.  From the outside, it may seem this way, but it’s been a year filled with climbing, striving and surviving… but despite the difficulties, the beauty of it all, and the amount of growing that occurred, completely surpasses every difficult moment we encountered.  And just saying, it sometimes is like an awesome sleepover, and sometimes it is nothing but AWESOME…

         So, to end this off, thank you once again – for taking the time to share in our adventure, for every thought, and every prayer. May God bless your hearts.

Signing out for the last time,

~ Natalie (iNFUSE 1's Blogger)

Tidings of great JOY!

G'day from iNFUSE #1,

So guess what, last Saturday, not only did we not run Awaken, we participated in it!  The night was called Fellowship of the Cross, and that’s pretty much all we knew about the night, UNTIL that night!  Our volunteers planned the whole thing, wouldn’t tell us anything, and made Judy (one of the volunteers, who happens to be really close to us) swear to secrecy, otherwise if she told any of us she’d suffer the consequences – it’s not as sketchy as it sounds once I tell you her brother is also one of the volunteers!   Well, the night started off in the church, we heard a short talk on fellowship, then we set out on a great adventure through the town of Yellowknife that inevitably brought chalk, 3-legged-races, which led to 4-legged races… (That’s three people tied together… say whaaat?!), 30second-improved-songs, and water balloons.  Oh ya!  It was in tents… sorry I meant intense! 

            Now, just last night, we attended our last iGNITE (Junior High YG), where it was just as intense.  The night was called Reminisce, and we played a whole bunch of games we’d played throughout the year.  In the middle we had a beautiful prayer time where we all had a chance to write a letter to God that would be placed in a time capsule that they’ll open next year.  It was beautiful, and one of the best parts of the night was when one of the youth that had never come before, showed up!  We wrapped up the night with a lot of whipped cream.  The youth got to slam giant plates of whipped cream into the new Squad team’s faces! It was extremely epic! 

            Well, I can’t wait to update you for the last time next week, until then…

May God bless your hearts,

~ Natalie (iNFUSE 1's Blogger)

p.s. A couple days ago (when I wrote this) it started snowing dollar sized flakes…

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)