Hello to all Yellowknife followers. It's Rianne here to give an update on our team's first ever retreat day in Yellowknife. The excitement was building in the days coming up to our retreat for all the gr.7/8 students at St. Joseph Elementary School. Talks were practiced, songs perfected, dramas performed, and energy prayed for.
When the big morning had finally come, I came downstairs (at 5:30am) to find out that one of my sisters was sick. This meant that there were only 6 of us Netters to handle 106 gr. 7/8 students! Our perfected songs and performed dramas had to be rearranged and re-casted because we were one woman down.
Despite being short one team member, the retreat was a hit! The day was centred on our personal relationships with Jesus. We already knew some of the teens there from our iGNITEs (gr. 7/8 youth group). It was so satisfying to really be able to minister to these teens who we've met a few times before.
Prayer ministry (When we pray individually with the teens) is always my favourite part of any event or retreat. It blows my mind to think that God can use my unworthy hand as an instrument to bring forth His Spirit to the youth. There were definitely youth who were touched by this time of prayer.
The next night, we held an iGNITE, and we had record numbers of 15 youth! A lot of the youth were ones that we had seen at the retreat the day before. It was so encouraging to see some of these youth being drawn from their schools to the parish. Hallelujah! The night was called 'It IS In You', and focussed on taking our identity in Christ. It's crazy how well we're getting to know some of the youth and how comfortable they are around us. We are truly coming to be part of the community here in the Knife.
Next up an awesome glory story from Natalie!
It was exam time in the high school last week, and going in to hangout with the students at lunch was a little different this time. It was kind of like an old abandoned town… Just a few stray tumbleweeds floating around, maybe a couple students around a table or two who were studying their faces off. It was quite a foreign atmosphere. This day that was like no other, was also different in some surprising ways... While walking down the halls, Phylicia noticed a girl sitting over to the side. She felt compelled to talk to her, so she walked over and they started chit-chat about exams and studying. After talking for a bit, Phylicia was suddenly struck with a burning desire to ask this girl if she believed in God. Normally, she wouldn't ask questions like that the first time she talked with someone, talk about early proposal… Anyway, she decided to take the leap! Turns out, this girl was open to discussing it because she shared that last week had actually been the first time she'd prayed in a really long time.
On the other side of the school, myself and the rest of the team had been rejoicing over the one retreat form that had been handed in. It was a form I had handed out to a girl none of us had ever reached out to yet, and seeing her name on the page was SUPER exciting! :)
Back over to Phylicia now, her and the girl had had a really great talk about God and Phylicia left the conversation with much hope, and excitement. She soon came over to us to share her joy. As she told us about this girl, my jaw dropped. It was the same girl I had given the form to the week before, the same girl that had been the first to hand in her form.
Anyways, its really awesome to see the work that we are doing here for God is having such an impact on the teens here in Yellowknife. It inspires us to keep going and fuels us with the excitement in planing more events and retreats for the fantastic youth here in Yellowknife.
So continue to keep us and the teens in Yellowknife in your prayers!
Just a update from the Team here in Yellowknife! more on the way so please stay tuned!
God Bless!
iNFUSE Team One!
Thursday we had a day off, so we all decided to go into Saskatoon and while we were there we picked up our Supervisors! Yaaaay! We were all super excited to see Tyler and Erica. Over the past little while our team had been going through some challenges, but thankfully they were able to straighten things out. We have grown through these experiences and will be leaving the diocese more united than ever. God has truly blessed us.
AMAZING host families while we've been in the Prince Albert Diocese. One family had a skating rink in their backyard, so a few of us took the opportunity to play some hockey, though not all of us had skates, it was a BLAST. At another host home, there was also a chance to go snowmobiling! Many of us on the team had never gone before, so they very eagerly took the opportunity! (Notice in the pictures that the snow suit didn't quite fit DJ...)
