Our Mission from God

The Lord has called each and everyone of us to reach out to the world, to bring His people the faith that our Lord Jesus Christ personally brought by the will of God to earth. We are those apostles: everyone on NET, everyone reading this, and everyone in this world. We are the Son's and Daughter's of God who should constantly be seeking the will of Him to be done in our lives, especially being modern day apostles/missionaries. No one said it was going to be an easy road but wow, the reward will be so great in the end when we strive for this goal in our lives. 

As a team this is what we strive to be, the reflection of his love in all that we do. In the events we put on, to hanging out with host homes, and just being a witness for Christ. Every year each team has a Mission Statement that we follow to the fullest so we can be the servants that Christ has called us to. Every team's is different according to the nature of their ministry. As an Infuse team we "Will fearlessly build the city of God inside the city of man through a personal witness to His Love." While Encounter teams may have something along the lines of "We will spread the gospel across Canada to all those who have and have not heard the good news of our Lord." These are only one liners most obviously from some mission statements cause we clearly are here to do more then just that! 

Also an important part of our ministry, both for Parish and Road is the intersession of our patron saints for the year. This year we have been blessed to have St. Faustina and Blessed John Paul II as our patrons helping us out. This lent we have taken up saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet that St. Faustina received through God by a powerful vision of the mercy of our Lord on the cross. Blessed JP II had so much love for youth and celebrated 19 World Youth Days while he was in his Papacy which makes him such an amazing patron for the youth we encounter on daily basis. 

With that said "We will allow ourselves to be filled with the Lord's love by praying without ceasing so that Christ's love may overflow to others." I pray that this blog has inspired you and has made you think of your own "Mission Statement" of life. Seek the will of God to be done in everyone's life. God bless.

Matthew ten-Bohmer

Infuse 2

Medicine Hat, AB

Host Families Rock!

Last week on Ash Wednesday, as a team we played the music for the service at the Catholic high school here. In the evening, we held our PULSE Jr. high youth group, where we watched a short video explaining the meaning behind Ash Wednesday and then went to Mass together.

This past week was reading break for the all schools, so we had a break off from ministry events. We had the week to catch up on work in the office and spent lots of time together as a team.

We also got to spend more time with our host homes this week!

One of my favorite parts of being on NET is defiantly host homes. 

James 1: 17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above.

Everyone who opens their front door and welcomes us in, are answering to the call to follow God's desire for us to be generous and welcoming to everyone who we meet.

Sometimes walking into a house you have never been in before and sitting down for dinner with a family you have never met before can be scary. But all of the families have been super welcoming, and usually tell us that their house is our house for the next two weeks. At host homes, we usually do whatever our host family is doing. I have gone to hockey games, movies, and even late night grocery shopping trips with host mom's. I actually feel like I am apart of the family while there, and it is so nice when we see them at Mass on Sundays and have someone to sit with! Having host siblings are the best, because they are just so excited to have us there to play with them! 

This week has been pretty wonderful. We are all excited for this upcoming week of ministry and to see everyone we haven't seen for the past week.

God Bless,
Love Amy ten-Bohmer
iNFUSE ONE
Lethbridge, Alberta 

Busy Week of Ministry!

What a busy week of ministry!


Our team had the pleasure of hosting not only a Family Fun Day this week but also Parish Wide Adoration on top of our regular events.

For Family Fun Day, we held a movie matinee of FACING THE GIANTS and we did a little entertainment of our own- a skit about going to the movies. Thanks to our new volunteers helping the event to run smoothly! This past weekend our team was also greeted by a few NET alumni. How blessed we are to have vibrant young Catholics throughout Canada.

                                                                                                     On Wednesday night, we had an awesome night of adoration with music, benediction, and afterwards, some snacks. For the first time during adoration here, we invited participants to bring up candles to the altar as a sign of prayer petitions. The beautiful glow of the tea lights served to visually display how united we all our in our struggles, but really, the beauty came from our hope in the Lord that He will answer our prayers.

Our team has decided to pray daily for our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. Please continue to do the same.

Seeking God's Nature

Life out in Medicine Hat can always be summed up into one word and that word would be Awesome. Seriously! The community, the host homes, the youth, the priests, the parishioners are all nothing short of Awesome! The way they take care of our needs, the opportunities we get to hang out with them and really get to know their stories is always so amazing. God really is constantly giving us the chances to build up friendships and bonds that we hope shall last for years to come. 

This past week has been super fun being able to go snowboarding/skiing twice with some of our youth from both Unchained and Equip up in Hidden Valley. It is a beautiful provincial park nestled in the Cypress Hills 45 minutes outside of Medicine Hat. It absolutely amazing to be driving through flat praises with no trees or snow, take a turn into the hills and then all of a sudden come across an area full of trees, gain elevation well above the prairie floor and snow making me think we had just entered British Colombia. Only two of us from the team (Matt and Kyley) had ever snowboarded/skied so for everyone else it was their first time. It was great watching them learn the techniques, make it up to the bigger trails and have a day with nothing but smilies! Good times were had by all. I also had my unbirthday (Matt) up there which was well beyond awesome.

Ministry has been going super solid as of late with a lot of talk about Lent for both youth groups. Many small groups have been had to discuss what we have given up or taken on for the Lenten season. Some people are giving up Facebook and Instagram while others gave up all liquids (not including water) and praying the rosary daily. It's always inspiring to see what others are doing to grow in holiness for the Lord. 

Some of the biggest news in the Catholic world is with Pope Benedict XVI stepping down as Pope has made many turns head but we are praying for him and his health. He recently spoke about the "Emerging Youth Culture" which is a very important to not just look over but to take action and fully participate in for the sake of our youth in the church. One line that really stuck out to me as being a missionary is getting a shout out from the Pope as he stated the "generous and courageous" youth volunteers who dedicate their lives to the needy as well as those who "joyfully bear witness to their belonging to the Church." It is totally focused on NET and other missionary individuals/groups all across the world which brings us strength to keep doing what God has called us to do! 

With all that said our focus should be on our youth for they are the future of the church. God is calling for constant change and bringing youth back to the church. God bless!

Matthew ten-Bohmer

Infuse 2

Medicine Hat, Alberta 

70 Grade 10's in Southern Ontario

Hey all.
I just got an incredible email from my good friend Rianne Rops who is on the road right now with Encounter team 2. She shared with me her experience while doing an all Male retreat for 70 grade 10's! Exciting...
 
Anyways, so we had that 70gr.10 male retreat on Monday. I was super intimidated about it, and I realized that morning in prayer that I secretly wanted something to happen at the retreat.. have some guy give me a hard time or have them all whistle at me so that the brothers on my team would have to protect me or something. It was weird realizing that.. but so good that I did, because it gave God the chance to put me in my place. i was being all prideful and wanting the retreat to somehow be about me, instead of desiring leading these men to Christ. God told me that I needed to seek to be invisible. Do not seek to be noticed, singled out, or anything.. but be invisible so I can lead these men to Christ. Before the retreat, I was really nervous about small group. Some of the girls were seeking advice about video games/zombie apocalypse stuff.. but I'm wayyy too ballet to pull those things off, so instead, I was just genuinely me, and I think the guys recognized that and respected that.. so we got along really really well.

So second small group comes along, and there were these two guys, lets call them "Matthew" and "Thomas", who I got along with pretty well. They were the ones who asked the most questions. The first one: "Why can't we just love God and have fun at the same time?" Then they translated it to: "why can't I get drunk on weekends and have sex with my girlfriend, even if I love her?" Ooookk. Well, that started the conversation, and then we talked about sex for 15mins. whoa man. And the weird thing was, it wasn't even weird! It was great. At one point, I got them to realize that the person they're dating now is probably someone else's future wife. that slightly freaked them out (in a great way!). Anyway, they weren't quite satisfied. At lunch, I gave Thomas my second piece of pizza and he was really honoured haha. Oh my goodness, he's like my litttle brother!

Then came prayer time! Wooooo! I loved doing silent blessing with the men. Emma! I felt like Mary! I felt like this gentle, beautiful woman, coming through God to bring gentleness and love and wonderful things to these men who just needed the tenderness of a woman.. oh my goodness I don't even understand it. I felt so honoured being a woman in this place. I felt special and protected surrournded by so many men. Masculinity is soo good. Femininity is so good. I felt like Mary!!! whoa. So, I got to Thomas (my favourite.. he must've reminded me of someone I know, because I was extremely drawn to minister to him). I prayed with him, and then I left him the Youcat (Catechism of the Catholic Church for youth). but little did he know that I slipped in a note saying "If you can't say no, what is your 'yes' even worth?" to mark the perfect page explaining purity, sex, etc. I didn't hand it to him, but i left it beside him. Anyways, at the end of the prayer time, he handed me the book, and gave me an extremely appreciative/genuine "thank you"

I DONT KNOW WHY IT WAS SUCH A BIG DEAL BUT IT WAS!!!! Emmmmmmaaaa! I loved this retreat so much. I was watching this church full of men pray. I felt honoured by them praying. I felt honoured by another boy in my small group, lets call him "Joshua" (who wanted me to pray with him, but chose to not have my hand on his shoulder as a sign of prayer because he wanted to protect his purity that much!) I felt affirmed in my femininity just by being surrounded by masculinity. They were so polite and respectful and real, and I desperately want Matthew and Thomas to find God. They're my little brothers in Christ!

Isn't this just beeaauuttiiffuulll!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all who give to this ministry! With your prayers, money and services, God is very much alive and working through our missionaries on the road this year,

God Bless,

Emma Fradd
Recruiter