Team 2 still in Edmonton! :)

Hello and Happy Advent from Team 2!

This is Riane McCallum, writing to you from Edmonton, Alberta!
I have stolen the blog from Claire for the week, and would like to tell you about our recent adventures!

We have been in the Edmonton area for the past week, traveling in between Edmonton, Sherwood Park, and Fort Saskatchewan. Just a personal side note- I have loved being back in Alberta! Give me flat land anytime, anywhere! Our week was filled with Encounter Days, and they were so much fun. It is hard to believe that we only have six more left until Christmas break! During one Encounter Day, the school had arranged a catered meal for us and all of the students. It was so cool! We were in a fancy hall, and had a delicious meal served to us. We all felt like we were at a wedding!

On Saturday, we had an opportunity to work on our ministry. This was a great chance to practice dramas, talks, skits, and prepare for our first family retreat that is coming up! We were also excited to be able to stay the night as a team in the local high school. Later that night, after a great team prayer, the men on our team honored all of the ladies! We found our sleeping bags laid out, couches set up, delicious treats, and the movie Elf, ready for us to watch! Needless to say, we were so excited and had a wonderful movie night!

The next day, we attended Sunday Mass at the local parish, and when it was over it was revealed to me that we were celebrating my un-birthday!! For those of you who don't know, an un-birthday is for those whose birthday does not fall during the NET year, and it is a day to honor them instead of on their real birthday. I was completely shocked, and SO EXCITED! I am pretty sure that I jumped up and down and screamed! For my surprise, the team took me out to see the movie "New Moon." It was great...I loved it soo much! After that, I was treated to my favourite food in the whole world...ice cream! The day was so wonderful - it couldn't have been any better! I'm thankful for such an amazing team.

We have one week of ministry left and cannot believe it! I have to say that I absolutely love putting on Encounter Days, and I know that I'll miss it over Christmas break. We have met so many incredible people so far, and I'm excited for what lies ahead in the new year!

I hope you are all enjoying this busy season of Christmas preparations!

Until next week, God Bless!

Riane McCallum

Team 2

Hello!

Sean Milan here, updading you on recent Team 1 activity.

So, we have been in Nova Scotia for the past two weeks, and let me tell you, it has been fun, fun, fun, fun, that’s one more fun than the Beach Boys! We spent the majority of our time in Halifax and Dartmouth, we crossed the toll bridge about ten times, digging into our stipends each trip! We traveled down to Yarmouth, or as we liked to call it, Yarrrrrrrrrmouth. We also went to the city of Truro, but the majority of our Encounter Days were held in the Halifax area. We are enjoying the lovely weather, some days we wear shorts and t-shirts - well at least Dominique does! But really, we have been sooooo blessed, God has gifted us with the ability to avoid snow and freezing cold weather.

On a side note, I failed to mention that we had a supervisor visit a couple weeks ago. To say the least, it was awesome; Pat and Caitlyn are the two best "supes" I have ever had (only had). We had so much fun with them. For our team day we went bowling and bought beaver tails, but the majority of our time was with their watching us on retreats, and chatting with us in the vans. We can't wait until they come again.

In other news our team traveled out to Peggy's Cove! Peggy's Cove is a lighthouse, surrounded by rocks and big waves; you may have seen it already on a post card. I was hit by a wave, within only five minutes of being there, so I was soaked the whole time we were there. We all enjoyed it so much, we ate lunch there with several Net Alumni from Nova Scotia, fed seagulls and bought souvenirs.

Stay tuned next week when we will be in Toronto Ontario. Hopefully we will meet up with the French team!

God Speed

Sean Milan

Team 1

Team Five is Alive!

A BIG hello from Team Five-Alive!

This past Sunday was a really busy day for our team. We had to get up at 7:00 am to start our day because it was so busy. It started with environment set up for our life night, then a pancake breakfast with the Knights of Columbus, we were on a float in the Smiths Falls Christmas parade, then went for dinner at a previous host family’s house, and then finally ended our day with the life night.

While the day may have been busy, it was so much fun. The pancake breakfast was amazing, and filling! The Knights were so welcoming, giving us all big hugs, and then giving us freshly made pancakes with breakfast sausages, and there were homemade beans too. Here’s a funny story. Last week, our team went to a prayer group with one of our past host homes, and there was this Knight there, and he picked on Rebecca for not wearing any socks. So, at the breakfast he approached Rebecca while we were eating and gave her a pair of socks!

After being stuffed with pancakes, and goodness, we headed to the arena in Smiths Falls to see the float that we’ll be on. It was the Knights of Columbus float, and get this, we won ‘Most Religious Float’. As we were waiting to start the parade, it was nice to look around at other floats, and the one in front of us was playing some Christian music. One of the songs was ‘Days of Elijah’. It was so loud and catchy that our team couldn’t help but dance to it and do the actions. I was thinking, “Yeah, that’s right, cheer for Jesus!” The rest of the parade went really well, and the rest of Sunday.

On Thursday we had a retreat for the Gr. 9’s at St. Luke’s CHS. They came to our Parish at St. Francis de Sales to have mass then after mass, our retreat began. Danica and I were the ones leading the games, some of the students weren't that into it but by the end those same people shouting out how they loved it. The whole retreat was full of surprises like that. It really made my day.

Well that’s it for Team Five-Alive this week. We’re praying for all you other teams out there on the road.

God Bless,

Shayla

Team 5 – Smiths Falls/Perth

50!

G’day, G’day to all!

Well this past week has been super busy and super awesome, let me tell you why. We had our first ‘Exalt’ night in the parish on Tuesday, where we had an evening of Adoration, praise and worship and a talk on Fidelity. A large group of people attended and they loved it so much, we’re gunna do it monthly, Woohoo!

Then on Wednesday night, a couple of more people came out to band jam, and we even had our first teen play with us at mass on Saturday, he's a drummer and he did fantastic! And we can’t wait to teach him more and more songs!

On Friday night we had a record 50 TEENS show up to our night on crazy Olympics, 50! It was crazy amounts of fun; everyone had a blast, congratulations to Team Sunshine who took over in the end. We’re hoping the same amount will turn up this Friday for our night on the Ten Commandments!

On Saturday we got to spend our day with Team 2! This was epic amounts of fun also, we started the day with prayer and spent the majority of the afternoon playing Mafia, ending the day with a mass at Sacred Heart Church, it was sad to say goodbye again, but our time with them was filled with fun, laughter and reminiscing.

On Monday night, however, a lovely host dad of ours named George (Tato) shouted Marissa and I to go see an OILERS GAME! This was pretty much one of the greatest things I have ever experienced!Our seats were in a great position and we got to see people moving so fast and there was fighting, and the Oilers ended up winning 4 – 0, sweet huh? I have never been so intrigued at a sport in my life!

This coming week is the beginning of Core and Crew training. Core and Crew are the people who live in the parish who help out with our Edge and Lifenights. Crew are usually in grades 10 – 12 and Core are people who have graduated High School. So over the next 2 weekends Team 4 will be training them up on how to lead nights, small groups, games and all of the things an Edge or Lifenight will entail. We are so excited to get to know these people better and spend more time with them.

Anyway, a quick blog this week, hope you fellow readers are doing well, thanks again for your prayers/support.

God Bless ya,
Emma,
Team 4, Wetaskiwin

Team 2 bids farewell to beautiful British Columbia

Hello All! Team 2 has had a pretty exciting week! On a personal note, I experienced my first hockey game on Wednesday. Lauren and I attended a Kelowna Rockets game with our host family and I thoroughly enjoyed it. They were playing Portland, Oregon; no, I did not cheer for the American team!

On Thursday we experienced a slightly different type of ministry. We did a retreat called Freedom for young adults and high school students. We were a little nervous about it, because it was so different than our usual routine and because some of us were giving talks for the first time. It ended up being a very powerful evening. Most of the time was spent in prayer and reconciliation; our team could really feel the presence of Jesus in the church. Afterwards, we had an open mic time and several people expressed how they had been moved.

On Friday we left the mountains of British Columbia and traveled to Edmonton, Alberta. We experienced a good bit of snow in the mountains, as you can see from our picture. It was a long day; it took us nearly 14 hours to get there!

We were very excited to be able to spend Saturday with the Wetaskawin team! It was great to see them and exchange ministry stories. We prayed with them, then spent the afternoon playing games. In the evening, we attended their youth Mass; it was awesome to see their minstry in action.

Now, for the best part of all, on Sunday we had a day off! Most of us spent the afternoon at the West Edmonton mall. I was amazed at just how huge it is! Katie, Meghan, and I experienced the rollercoaster called the Mindbender, which gave us quite an adrenaline rush! It was so intense that Katie lost one of her earrings! I lost my courage as soon as I got on and closed my eyes the entire time. Katie was also very excited to see all the Christmas displays in the mall.

Well, that is our week in a nutshell. We have another busy week, and we are all starting to get excited for Christmas! We head back to Ottawa in about two weeks!




Until next week, God Bless!

Signing off,

Claire Labish

Team 2