iNFUSE team 3, Eps 4. New Hope

After an inspiring week of training, here we are back in Drayton Valley for the second half of the year. It's incredible how fast it's going, but it's been well worth it so far. We started the new year off with an ice cream social/ scavenger hunt, and men's and women's sessions.

During team prayer, I received a thought the other day. I was thinking about those people who seem to think they shouldn't sing because they don't like their singing voice. Now we've heard many comments on this topic before, but maybe here's a new one: Think about all the angels in Heaven who spend their time praising God, and helping us to do the same. If we praise God, we can be assured they are joining us, and surrounding our voices with crazy 100 part harmonies or something, making whatever sound comes out of our mouths sound beautiful when it is present to our creator. Then that got me thinking about our jobs as music leaders at Mass. Really what we are there to do is surround the congregation's voices with beautiful sounds to help them to praise God and present their songs to our Lord. Cool, eh? I shared that with our newly recruited youth singers.

When God provides little bits of wisdom, we are only inspired to learn more and serve more. It's great to be back!

Stephanie & iNFUSE 3

Round 2! Ding Ding Ding!

We are back in business folks! We are officially done January training which took place in Wetaskiwin, AB which is about 5 and a half hours north of us just outside of Edmonton. Training was a great time of reunion and rejuvenation to get us ready for ministry again! We have returned to the south now of Medicine Hat and were pretty excited to see the giant teepee again along with one of our churches Holy Family as we drove into town. 

So far being back for the past week has been such a blessing to be able to get back to what God called us to be (missionaries most obviously) and to be able to meet up with all our friends in the community. We've been able to already have one Unchained night with the high school youth based on surviving 2012 and making it to 2013 (the first date since 1987 to have 4 different numbers, go figure). There was some river crossings, scavenger hunts, hunting of a giant Winne the Pooh, and resolution making for this New Year to really commit ourselves to God. Then for the Equip youth (middle school) we have a very exciting night coming up called "Finding God in the Hobbit" which is pretty self explanatory but is going to be a great night! 

Getting back into the swing of things has been lots of fun with visiting with the high school and middle schools, getting to know new host homes, going curling for Sharon's Unbirthday, getting haircuts from our priest and coming back to a office that was set up for a big party with streamers all over the place (Thank you to who did it haha!) All I can say is that it's good to be back in town. We're excited for this second half to begin with all the good times and challenges it's going to bring. 

God bless!

Infuse 2 Med Hat

Matthew ten-Bohmer

We Are Back!

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!  It is so wonderful being back in our parishes in Lethbridge, and getting to see everyone after almost a month of being gone.  With renewed and refreshed hearts, we as a team are excited for this upcoming half of ministry this year!

Ice Cream Sundaes

This week we kicked off the new year with a fun social night with our Jr. High youth group, PULSE.  We played some of the games from the TV show called “Minute To Win It”.  All the youth who showed up had an excellent time!  Who knew playing games with household objects could be so fun?!  The night ended with everyone making their own ice cream sundaes!  For the high school group, ARISE, we had a fun social night and played board games for the evening - and of course, we ended off the night with Dairy Queen!

We did full-band for our Encounter Day

We also had an Encounter Day (all-day retreat) this week for Grade 9 students.  It was a great chance for us to get to know them better and share God’s love with them!  One of the girls even mentioned that she might start going to church now!  We don’t always see the fruits of our labor right away - but it is so rewarding when you do, especially just after one day!  God is good!

I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love Amy ten-Bohmer and iNFUSE ONE, Lethbridge, Alberta

BAM!

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Paul most definitely had it right when writing to the Romans; to conform to modern society is to fall away from the truth of God, “what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Catholicism is a faith for all people, including the popular, rejected, healthy, injured and sinful. It's incredible how we've seen the Holy Spirit move in people from all walks of life; they opened their hearts a micrometer to the possibility of an infinite love, and BAM, Jesus comes gently barging in (how's that for an oxymoron?).

We have recently been in Southern Ontario, visiting rural communities and cities alike. This week we had the pleasure of taking part of a young adult night at McMaster University in Hamilton, providing worship music with our Massive Worship band. This university is seriously awesome, offering a Catholic youth night, including bible studies, talks, testimonies – it's wonderful! They offered adoration of the blessed sacrament, and reconciliation during the exposition. More than 100 university students were in attendance, and although there were five priests hearing confessions, lines trailed up the sides of the church even after the hour of adoration had been completed. It was amazing to see such a Catholic community and a desire to know Jesus among young adults. They were searching for God, worshiping Him, and opening their hearts to His Grace. One girl who had not been to confession for 10 years (10 years!), found herself inline next to our teammate, Josh. She actually asked him to go into the confessional first so that she could sit on the side where she would be able to see the priest face to face. Her bravery and openness to God led her to incredible peace and an experience of forgiveness, which she later shared with Josh.

Well, now our team is off to the St. Catherine's diocese, where young people wait to be evangelized, and Niagara Falls waits to be “ahh-ed” at (that's right, we're going to observe the mighty work of God in the form of the Falls, and I am extremely excited about it). See you in the Eucharist!

Encounter 2 pseudo-Blogger,

Emma White



And you said we were crazy...



Ben, Josh, Ryan and Kevin on a dragon, looking meaningfully into the distance :)

Merry Christmas from Encounter 2!

Ryan being epic

G’day! This Is the guest blogger Ben Walsh, for another awesome update on  Encounter 2’s life on the road.

We recently finished up a seriously awesome time in Kamloops and Kelowna in beautiful

British Columbia, kicking it off with a energy packed Youth Rally in Kamloops with over 50 youth attending the event, it was so great that by the end of the rally they were jumping up and down with excitement!

The past week or so after finishing up in BC we traveled to Winnipeg and again we were blown away by how open they were to God and a lot of the youth had experienced NET before, so it was great to see how excited they were to have NET in their town.

Our team was fortunate enough to have an awesome team day which involved seeing a live version of the nativity, along with big mascots and actors who played different parts, it was really cool and the team had a lot of fun.

Rianne and Emma baking!

Our team is now heading back to Ottawa for December retreat and our 2 week break, but thanks all for reading and catch you In the new year!

Blessings and prayers,

Ben Walsh,

 

Massive Worship/ Encounter 2