Welcome your host...Brenden Gillespie?

Another week has gone by here in the lovely city of Steinbach. Our host homes continue to amaze me in how welcoming they are. We have only been in three different homes so far and they have each made me and the rest of the team feel like part of their families.

It has been great being able to participate and support our host families in their various activities. Cheering at hockey and volleyball games, being invited to birthday parties, and helping to cook cinnamon buns are just a few of the ways we have been able to connect with and support the families that have opened their homes and hearts to us.

At our first host home, Amanda and I started doing some crocheting (she was kind enough to teach me how) and the family we were staying with started knitting with us. It was great to see how excited they became about knitting together and from what I have heard they are still going. My crocheting, on the other hand, has been placed on the backburner for a bit but I’m hoping to continue soon.

One of our highlights for the week was that our supervisors were here for a visit. They picked a great time to come as they were able to experience our first Family Fun Day parish event. These events take place once a month and this month we decided to play Jeopardy! Thanks to my current host home, we were able to find a dashing three-piece suit for Brenden to wear as our game show host as well as a pair of lovely bright-coloured 80’s style dresses for Amanda and myself to wear as question board flippers. The rest of the team got to act as human buzzers, complete with helmets for protection.

The event was so much fun and a great success! We had between 20 and 25 people in a variety of ages. The categories ranged from Disney, Food, Sports and Pop Culture to Saints, the Bible and general Catholicism. Our final Jeopardy question was a real challenge as it required the participants to move around the church to find the answer. The question was: how many complete doorways (a door frame with doors) are there in the parish building? It was wonderful seeing the teamwork and fellowship between the youth, parents and parishioners.

Coming up this week we have our parish talent show which will showcase various talents from our wonderful youth and parishioners as well as Steinbach’s friendly local NET team. Our second REACT night, which is now open to grades 6, 7 and 8, is also coming up and we are excited to learn more about how to have good Catholic friendships with others!

Before I sign off I will leave you with a quote from our office quote board.

"If we can develop a love of truth in young Catholics and empower them to seek truth, we will have served them rightly." -Matthew Kelly

God bless from Steinbach,

Elizabeth Fitzmaurice

“OH WHEN THE SAINTS…”

Ladies and gentlemen! I am proud to announce that the first ever Steinbach iNFUSE grade 7/8 youth night went incredibly well! Our youth group is called REACT (stay tuned for an awesome logo) and for our first event we learned about the saints, which was quite fitting as All Saints Day was just around the corner. The evening was full of candy, music, games, a skit, and of course information about the saints. We had four game stations, each representing a different saint. Andrew ran a balloon/dart station for St. Sebastian. The teens would get a candy every time they popped a balloon. Brenden ran a “find the Smarties in the M&M’s” station for St. Jude in which the teens would race each other to find two different coloured Smarties and one peanut M&M amongst the regular M&Ms. I constructed and ran a blindfold maze/obstacle course for St. Paul in which the teens would be paired up, with one person blindfolded and the other person having to verbally lead them through the maze and over (or under) the obstacles. Amy ran our Jeopardy station for St. Thomas Aquinas in which the questions ranged from fun facts about us NETters to facts about the Church and the saints.

At the end of the night we let the teens pick three saint cards (each of us had chosen three saints to research and write a short bio about so the teens had eighteen saints to choose from). The cards turned out beautifully and we were even able to laminate them. The teens really loved the cards and were asking a lot of questions about the saints we introduced them to. One of our youth helpers was so excited to find out that there is a saint you can pray to when you have a headache.

We continue to have fun and games as a team. One of our more memorable nights saw us invited to three different events and on top of that Amanda and Brenden had a meeting with our contact people. We had to juggle a few things but we managed to pull it off. I would like to thank Amanda and Brenden for their awesome leadership and delegation skills! We have also discovered that we have some “Bible Ninjas” hiding Bible verses around our office. These little tidbits of God’s word are truly inspirational and are bringing us so much joy. The only thing is we don’t know who it could be…

I find that every day we spend here we fall more and more in love with this parish and community. The families we stay with continue to amaze me with how they welcome and include us as members of their family. The family Amy and I are currently staying with got us dressed up in rocker costumes and took us around town to drop off popcorn balls to various families from our parish. It was so much fun to bring treats to others on Halloween.

So, what do we have planned for the next week or so? We have our first Family Fun Day coming up which is a Jeopardy event. We are also looking forward to have Matt and Caitlyn, our wonderful supervisors, come and visit us. Plus we have a parish-wide talent show to plan for.
Keep us in your prayers as we continue to do God’s work here in Steinbach.

God bless,

Elizabeth Fitzmaurice

November BBQ? Is this Normal?

Hello faithful blog followers! It’s Emma Wynker checking in from Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Did November catch anyone else by surprise? Wasn’t it just summer? Ah well. Time flies when you’re having fun! Here’s an update on what iNFUSE 3 has been up to!

We had a Happy Halloween here at Sacred Heart. We did a social justice project with our Lifeteen youth called Trick or Eat. The idea was that since we’re all “too old” to beg for candy, we would go around and collect food donations for the local Salvation Army. We had a great turnout of youth, and the community really stepped up to the challenge. It took a full van AND truck to move all the donations! Thank you to all our wonderful collectors and donators! The costumes were really creative, too. My personal favourite was the youth coordinator here at Sacred Heart, who aptly came dressed as a leech. We also had a Holy Family going around collecting food, complete with a real baby! All in all, the night was a roaring success. Candy, community, and costumes – really, how can you go wrong?

This week we met with the principal of a local public school here in Wetaskiwin. We’ve been invited to come in and help with various clubs and groups. We’re also planning on giving presentations and participating in school-wide retreats. What an amazing link between the public school system and the parish! I’m hoping that just being there will inspire youth to be bolder in their faith. When we visited this week, they sure weren’t shy to welcome us and tell their friends all about the NET team! Praise God for this wonderful opportunity! Wooohooo!

Emily, DJ, and I checked out the Jr High Volleyball playoffs at Sacred Heart School the other day. Those girls are good! (Defending champs – yeah ladies!) But it was a little difficult to watch the game, because all the students in the bleachers wanted to chat with us! Awesomely awesome, I must say. It’s so nice to feel welcomed in the schools. The faculty at Sacred Heart School is phenomenal – they are so willing to have us come by any time and just hang out with the students. We play a little foosball, invite them out to EDGE, and share about God! It’s a good deal.

Our last team day was a blast to infinity and beyond! The ladies of iNFUSE 3 BBQ-ed up some shishkabobs to honour our wonderful brothers. FYI, in BC we don’t BBQ in November. It’s too wet. So this was a big deal for me. But you may ask, ‘How did we get DJ and Marcus out of the kitchen?’ Well, they were sent to find a nature trail somewhere past Wetaskiwin… which apparently they never did… But they must have liked their meal, because they didn’t even object when all the girls insisted we rent Toy Story 3 as our after meal entertainment! Best. Movie. EVER.

As always, we have a number of upcoming events. First on the list is our EDGE night. EDGE has a phenomenal guest speaker this week – Mr. Andre Reigner from CCO! On Sunday, we have our Lifeteen night. We also have two upcoming weekend retreats. This weekend, the Netters are attending a Leadership retreat at Our Lady of Victory Camp. And we are currently planning our first overnight retreat! More details on that to come! Keep reading, keep praying, and keep warm! Enjoy that extra hour of sleep, for all you readers who will be benefiting from the lovely time change. I know I will!

Hey again, so this past two weeks our team has been very busy with retreats and travelling. A few of the fun things that took place, though, were...
1- My (Patrick) jumping in a lake at 1:30 in the morning in Manitoba
2 - Seeing the last place where Terry Fox went
3 - Visiting the Steinbach team. While hanging out as a group one day we found a giant pile of leaves and had the great idea of burying Trevor in them. The photo to the left may just look like a bunch of leaves but Trevor was definitely under them all ready to jump out at any given time.

While on retreat, one of the times that was interesting was when we entered prayer ministry time. All appeared to be going normal but suddenly it seemed like God showed His love and grace to everyone there, and a number of the retreatants began to cry. It was so nice to see the holy spirit doing so much work through the prayer time and see how much the youth quieted down for, and responded to, prayer.

Currently our team is in High River for the night having just come from Peace River. Our next stop will be Kelowna, British Columbia. After that we will be heading back towards the east to continue retreats in the prairies.

Stay tuned and Ill try to keep you up to date next blog.

~Patrick

It's Farkle time!

Greetings from Maria Kalin and Team One! We are currently chilling in Bolton, Ontario and loving it!

Things are going great with our team! We spent the last few weeks in the London and Toronto Dioceses. We spent a team day in London at Tom's parents' house carving pumpkins. In the picture, Mark's pumpkin is the troll with the ears, Carissa's is the pretty lady pumpkin, Judith's is the baby one with the big eyes, Mike's is the Monster one, Jake's has a black eye, Marc's is his trademark Lion, Tom's is the two-toothed one, Katie's is the lovely lady pumpkin, Claire's has the Marian (the cross with the 'M') symbol and mine has the NET cross. We had a lot of fun scooping pumpkin guts and being creative.

We had a huge surprise last week, a visit with Les Equipes! Katie, Judith and I were driving to our host home after a retreat on Wednesday when we saw part of Les Equipes! We freaked out. Katie started snapping her fingers frantically and I was fumbling to get the window down and yelled at them! Thankfully we were at a stop sign and they ran up to our van and hugs were given and hands were shook. We didn't stop laughing at how excited we were till we got home. We stayed at a 'haunted' rectory with them for the next two nights before coming to Bolton. Pat and Erica came down for our first supervisor visit and stayed with us as well, (We love you both!) It was soooo great to see fellow Netters, and we had a blast catching up, hanging out and singing with them. Ah, Sean, how we have missed your infectious laughter. The whole French team is so joyful, we can't help but be invigorated by their zeal and love.

On Halloween the whole team went out for dinner and dressed up. Everyone had great costumes! I was seriously impressed by how awesome we all looked and how creative the costumes were. Jake was a Spartan Warrior, and Judith was a pirate who could take a ninja anyday. Katie was Velma, and she even had a little Scooby-doo doll. Claire was an elf, NOT one of Santas' elves, but one from Lord of the Rings. Mike and Marc were conjoined twins, Marc being the nerdy one and Mike being the normal one. Carissa and Tom were Raggedy-Ann and Andy. Mark and I were inspired by Tim Burton's, 'The Corpse Bride,' and went as a corpse bride and groom. After enjoying a great meal at Boston Pizza we went back to Judith and my host home and played 'Just Dance' on the Wii. Even the boys were dancing. It was great. We have been having some great team bonding times.

We have given some retreats for older grades in the last few weeks, and some of them having been a little trying. After one particularily trying one, we were all drained and talking about the day. Mike gave us something to think about and put the day into perspective when he said, "I think today was a great day. It was tough for us, but we brought Christ and the Mass to youth who don't usually experience that. It's easy enough and fun to put on retreats for kids who already go to Church, but this is why we're here...to bring Christ to those who don't know."

Amen, brother.

Until next time, keep us in your prayers as we are leaving Ontario and will be heading to PEI and Nova Scotia (Home of our very own Judith Webster!).

God Bless,

Maria Kalin

Encounter Team One.