It's Snowing!

It’s snowing! It’s the beginning of October and snow is falling from the clouds! Snowflakes actually have a form! They look like little stars! As if something that detailed came from the clouds, God sure was being beautifully specific when he designed those frosty little flakes! OK so I should probably explain my excitement...Hi, I’m Emma Fradd (I'm in the front on the bottom picture,) I’m from South Australia and snow is a first for me! Previously snows only existence was in Christmas movies and in Northern parts of Australia where I have never ventured. It’s so beautiful! I cried a little bit ...don’t tell anyone...

My wonderful team and I(you can call us Team 4) have just arrived in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, that’s where we’ll be for the next 8 months and we are SO excited. I was a bit embarrassed to show the level of my excitement around my team (we just met 6 weeks ago), like I was biting my lip to keep from squealing, but then they just burst into and shouts and “woohooing” as we drove past the ‘Welcome to Wetaskiwin’ sign! Yes!

So here we are, setting up our office, Hannah’s drawing us a big calendar for October (including thanksgiving and Halloween which are both new for me!), Our Team Leaders Marc and Erica are doing us up a schedule for the next 2 weeks, Marissa is organizing Gas receipts from our 5 days trip up here from Ottawa and Josh and I just finished some work for ‘The Edge’ (Catholic middle school ministry) which will be starting up in 2 weeks!

So thats about it for now, I’m gunna go sneak outside for my break and see if there is enough snow to formulate a snowman!

God Bless,

Emma Fradd

Team 4 Wetaskiwin

Our first travels

Here we are, finally arrived at our destination: the province of Alberta. This is Kevin Prada, once more, your friendly neighborhood Team 3 blogger. These past few days, which we have spent traveling from our home base in Ottawa, to our current location in Red Deer, have been an absolute blessing.

If I were to offer you right now the chance to spend the next five days of your life traveling in two mini-vans, through cold, snow, and sleet, I’m pretty sure some wouldn’t be too quick to jump on the opportunity. But sincerely, this journey has been amazing! We got to see a bit of everything of our beautiful country’s landscape, all from northern Ontario’s lakes and mountain-like hills (I’m from Manitoba, so for me, any height that makes my ears pop is considered a mountain), to Manitoba and Saskatchewan’s open prairies, and Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, visible on the horizon from our host home here in Red Deer.

It really gave me time to reflect on the beautiful gift God has given us in the nature that surrounds us! Seriously! Just take a minute to look outside, and think about how big this thing we call earth really is! And it is all one big massive gift from the Creator to the created, you and me. Coming from Winnipeg, I find it easy to complain: our provincial bird being the mosquito, and Winnipeg’s only season being winter. But it really stunned me how awesome, immense, and complex this home we have been given really is, and gave me a new appreciation for this God-given gift.

This time also enabled us to bond as a team. Hey, being enclosed in a space equivalent to a large closet with a bunch of people of your age, for five days straight, funny things are going to happen. So many anecdotes to tell, so many stories to share! I can really tell that our team is finding its own personality, its own identity, and forming itself into quite the family.

So far, nothing but awesome things to report from our end! We just finished our first few retreats on the road, and they went very well! We are definitely all accompanied by the grace of God, and can really see Him at work!

Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers!

Here is a picture of us crossing our first provincial border to my home turf, Manitoba (I’m the big guy in the middle of the top row).

God Bless,

Kevin Prada
Team 3 Les Equip NET

Team 2 in Sudbury

Hey Everyone! It's Claire reporting for Team 2. Our time in Sudbury is coming to an end, but it has been a great week!

Last Wednesday, the 7th, we had an "Initiation Complete" Encounter Day for grades 7 and 8. Lauren did a great job giving her talk for the first time! Thursday was challenging but we realized that some are going to be like this and we won't always see the fruit of our work.

Our Encounter Day on Friday was a very positve way to end the week! The youth were all girls from Sault St. Marie school. They were a very respectful and enthusiastic group. They responded very well to everything, especially Riane's talk and the dramas. We all had very good small groups as well. Many of the girls said they were going to start praying and going to Mass more often.

Thanksgiving weekend was very relaxing. On Saturday, we had a partial ministry day and then most of us attended Mass with our host families. On Sunday we had team day; we went to the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Sudbury for team prayer. On Monday, we had a full ministry day, working on skits, dramas, and music. Also, we shared Thanksgiving dinner with our host families. We are very grateful for their generosity!

We have one more Encounter Day tomorrow in Sudbury and then on Wednesday we head for Sault St. Marie!

God Bless,

Claire Labish
Team 2 Traveling

From the Pan to the Fire

Massive Worship is a ministry focused toward those already involved in the Church, but to fulfill our Christian call to make disciples of all nations the band has committed to doing one outreach event a week. Our first step into the "real world" was an open mic night at a radio-sponsored club, dubbed "The Electric Frying Pan." This is an event where full bands and soloists could gather to show off their talent.

After we arrived and signed up, we didn't really know what to do with ourselves as we waited to go onstage. But then by the grace of God, a guy named Clinton came over to our table and started talking to us. He was in the band that would play after us, but we talked about much more than music. He professed to be a Christian by faith, but not to be a part of any religious tradition or community. He was the everyman or our generation: Crude, yet harmless; opinionated, but pleasant; believing in God, but not living in God. We talked with him and his band mate Chris for the whole time we were in the club. The five of us in the band ended up rotating between evangelizing to Clinton and Chris, and talking with our Catholic friends who came out to see us play.

When the time did come to play our set, it was awesome. We played the two heaviest, most rockin' songs we'd ever practiced, and a medium one in between. after our set we told the crowd we were a Catholic ministry band. The manager asked us to play a fourth song at the end of our set, which felt good.

As I think about that night and I realize that there was more going on than just our performance. My view of fellowship deepened that night. I know community is part of God's plan for his people, but that fact stood out me in a new light. Clinton was astounded at the sacrifices we said we've made for the sake of Christ. It was not our desire to give up worldly values, but our ability to succeed, that shocked him. I know every struggle that I've overcome has been because of God's grace, but I always had people telling me to run to God's grace at the difficult times . At the Electric Frying Pan, I saw what happens when a Christian tries by himself: He gives up by himself. I know the Holy Spirit was there with us, moving, shaking, softening hearts. And I hope that all those we spoke to, through words, song, and action, accept the new heart God is trying to give them.

God Bless,

Sean Flynn
Massive Worship Band

Introducing Smith Falls/ Perth

It's Shayla again! I'm just gonna start by introducing the Smiths Falls/ Perth team. I'll tell you about myself first (I'm on the right in the back row,) I come from Alfred ON, what I hear from people is that I'm always happy and I love dance parties! It's a great chance to look like a fool and not care because everyone else looks completely ridiculous and doesn't care too!

Thomas Russel (left from me) is our male team leader, he prefers being called Tom. When you meet Tom he seems like a quiet guy, I'll tell you that he is not! Tom always brightens up the room with his random, but hilarious jokes! Oh, and he would like to add that he loves taking walks under the moon on a nice sandy beach.

Next we have Rebecca Bilodeau. She has such a fun personality; always coming up with random stories about her life. She is super proud of the fact that her town, Glendon AB, has the world's largest perogie, I don't blame her I want a large perogie!

After Rebbecca comes Alyssa Gabrielson (left front row,) from Winnipeg MB. She is our female team leader, Alyssa is always trying to love everyone. She's like a care-bear; always blasting out her care and love, not from the stomach though, but from the heart!

James, from Deep River ON, is the next in line . He's quite the funny one. I think my whole team can agree on how we find it hilarious every time he goes off into his own little world. We would all be walking and then notice that James has wandered off from the group because something has caught his attention.

Lastly, we have Danica O'Neill from Stony Plain AB. She's the bold one on the team. She's sure of herself, and has the cutest laugh, it makes me smile every time I hear it. Danica is also in love with hoops & yo yo cards. If you haven't heard of these cards, she suggests that you look them up online, she's HILARIOUS!

Well that's the Smiths Falls/ Perth team:) This week we've all been preparing for our kick off life night on the 18th of October! We're all excited! Today we also had our first Team Day in Smiths Falls. We started the day by having bonding time with our sister hoods and brother hoods. Poor Tom was alone because James went home for a family thing, but I think he enjoyed the alone time. Our sister hood bonding time was amazing! I feel like this is the first time this week that I really feel like we're a sister hood. I love all my sisters!! The second half of the day we got back together with Tom and played some pictionary, and did other fun stuff!

Well, that's about it for Team 5. We're working hard, and can't wait to do our kick-off life night!

God Bless,

Shayla
Team 5 Smiths Falls/ Perth