Adoremus

Last Saturday the team went out to a young adult adoration night at Saint Joseph's Basilica called Adoremus, it was based around two hours of adoration with five priests available for confession. There were prayers, readings and plenty of time for reflection. For us going to the night was awesome, after a busy month to be able to just sit before Christ for two hours, to pray and go to confession if we wanted. But also after the event we had the chance to meet many of these young adults, quite a few of them from the University of Alberta; to speak with them and invite them out to a couple events was great.

It sort of showed in a way how we are just a part of how God is working here in Edmonton, on one hand we are here at Saint Thomas More and in four of the schools inviting the youths to encounter Christ. And then on the other hand Christ is working all around the city calling people to Himself in other ways and other people.

Praise be to God!

iNFUSE 2
Edmonton

Cooler Days, Warmer Hearts

Hey Everyone!

Last Thursday we had our first social night for the Almighties youth group! We went bowling! Everyone who came had an awesome time, and it was so wonderful to get to spend time with the youth!

Also, host home ministry has become a very fruitful part of our ministry. Our host families have been so kind, and have gone above and beyond to make us feel welcome and like part of the family. Since we move host homes every two weeks, it always takes a little time on both sides to adjust, but through God's grace we have really been building amazing relationships with the families, especially with the youth who we stay with. We have played board games, watched and played sports, had family dinners, and prayed with the host families. It’s so wonderful to see how much they have been opening up to us and to God since we have been staying with them!

Doing the dishes!

Mary’s awesome experience from a host home: “While in a host home in mid-October, my team-mate and I had asked our host family if they wanted to pray night prayer with us. The first night, our host mom and her three high school and university aged kids joined us and shared intentions. The next evening our host mom asked if we would pray and said her kids would join us to pray a final prayer, but they preferred not to do intentions out loud. The next night none of the kids showed up to pray, but when our host mom prayed, she prayed for each of her children and thanked God that they were given a chance to pray out loud together. I saw this as such a beautiful example of how she loved her family so much, and simply wanted her children to grow in love with God and grow in their relationship with Him.”

God Bless!

Shaina Wreede

iNFUSE One, Montreal



And we're off!!!

Hey there! Tim here, Encounter One's blogger for the year!

Man, has it been a crazy week and a half. We've done nine retreats already all around Toronto. The week and a half may have been crazy but it was also amazing. Our youngest crowd was grade seven and our oldest crowd so far was grade tens. I know we've hardly even started the year, but just seeing how God's been working through the youth is amazing.

The retreats have been running really smoothly. The youth are having a great time and God's definitely been busy at work with them to say the least. Seeing so much change in such young people in only six hours is really inspiring. One thing we learned pretty fast is that while these youth may be learning a lot from us, we learn even more from them. Having done a lot of volunteer work in the past, we all know how great it feels to do good, but nothing compares to the feeling of directly experiencing God at work in the retreatants.

We got to stay in Peterborough for four nights last week, which was amazing. Peterborough really brought us closer together as brothers and sisters on our team as we had some funny mishaps, but we stayed united as a team throughout all of it. For example, one of our vehicles got lost in downtown Toronto on the 401 highway (named the busiest highway in North America) during rush hour traffic on a Friday. Or when we celebrated Rachel's birthday, we hid her cake in the oven...then our host dad went to cook supper and preheated the oven...resulting in a charred black cake...
But while we had some mishaps, we're completing our mission of contacting the youth of Canada and bringing them to Jesus as best as we can and that's what's important.

Encounter 1

Beginnings of Youth Ministry

Last week kicked off our junior and senior high youth groups, "Compass" and "Cornerstone". The nights were great, bringing out more than  40 youth in total. We had lots of fun with games, music and getting to know the youth!

Just seeing God working in the lives of these youth has been incredible, their love for God, intelligence and openness was astounding.
While Jessica was giving her testimony on how trying to please her friends and make them happy just drained her and left her empty searching for God, a young woman said "That's me!"

God is working! Praise be Jesus Christ!

iNFUSE2, Saint Thomas More Parish

Edmonton Alberta

Another Week of Firsts!

We had an All Saints party for all ages on October 31! It was a great opportunity to involve the younger youth that we don’t often get a chance to work with. It was also the first time any of us had ever organized an All Saints party! We had different stations with different carnival-style games with candy for prizes and caramel apples too! Later in the evening we did a skit and played a big game of Drop the Keys and finished off the night with a litany of the saints. We had lots of youth and some younger families come out and it was a super fun night!

 

Another awesome experience this week was leading our first ever Adoration night! Paul shared a little bit what Adoration is, then I shared my testimony, and Kristen and the band led music. Matt also led a really great reflection. It was amazing to see how many of our youth came out to spend some time with Jesus. It was also really great to see some of the older parishioners that we don’t get to have contact with on a regular basis come out. 

God bless!

Katelyn Sutton, Les Équipes NET blogger