Testimony from a Teen!

Hello every one. It's Shayla again from Team 5. This week we have another teen, Zack Haime, giving a testimony about what the NET team did for him this year and how God has worked in his life. We hope you enjoy this beautiful story.

"In my eyes the Net Team represents so many things. They represent our link to God, and they represent God’s peace and love and compassion shown for us. Not only do they represent it, but they show it themselves. They show the most powerful love and compassion and peace that I have ever seen, and they tell us it is only a fragment of God’s love.

They completely amaze me. In the way they came to a strange town that they have never heard of and where there were no familiar faces wherever they looked. It seemed like they should have been completely overwhelmed by it all. But when I met them they showed me such love and they were so calm and put together that it was just overwhelming to see that people could show this level of compassion for people that they have just met. It filled me with so much joy to see them love us like that.

Throughout this year they helped me build my relationship with God. I never used to go to church. In fact, I hated it whenever my dad made me go. But now because of the Net Team I am so excited to go that I yell at my parents if they even think about making me late. The Net Team gave me the key to open the door to God and I had the choice to use it.

Because of the Net Team I have made new friends. It’s like a big family and we never degrade anybody. Everyone is equal when the Net Team is around. Lifeteen is such a familiar word to me now. I love going to the lifenights that the Net Team has organized. We play fun games and we build our relationship with God through Adoration, Prayer and through them teaching us about Him.

The Net Team are just such kind hearted and loving people and they have taught me so much. I have no idea what my life would be like if I never met them, and I never want to find out everyone should have this amazing chance to build there relationship with God and with other people."

(The top right photo is of Zach and I at our 'What a Mess' Lifenight. Bottom left is Zach and another one of our teens at our 'Hands and Feet' Edge retreat)

God Bless,

Zach and NET Team 5

Real Men

Hello from Wetaskiwin!

This is Marc from team 4 writing to you, and I have been blessed to be able to share a bit about a few experiences that have been happening.

During the past few weeks Josh and I, with the help of a few of our Core members, have started a men's chastity group for teens in grades 9-12 called Real Men. Real Men is a six week long program that happens every Wednesday evening. It is a place where young men can come to learn more about God's call for us to imitate Christ, the real man.

Each week we learn more our role as sons of God, and how we are called to serve. Some other topics include learning about the differences between guys and girls, fighting for the dignity of women, and the beauty, value and gift of sex.

I have been very impressed with the questions and opinions that have come from our group, through talks the young men come to understand more about what the Church teaches and what society brainwashes us to believe.

Our group isn't just all talk though, we are men and we have done some great activities that have helped us grow in fellowship with one another such as ultimate Frisbee, video games, and physical endurance challenges, such as push ups.

We also established a swear jar, which also encompasses other wrongs such as sarcasm, lying and dishonouring women. When we first introduced the jar, I wasn't too sure how the guys would react, but over the weeks I have seen such an improvement in their positive speech. They are also very good at holding one another accountable, when one of the brothers makes a mistake, they are quick to correct.

Tonight is our last night for Real Men and I cannot believe how fast these six weeks have gone, I have seen God change hearts and men talk about their opinions and feelings, which doesn't happen very easily; it was truly through the grace of God. I know that these guys will continue to strive to be true sons of God, by imitating Christ and staying true to the brotherhood. I'd ask you to say a quick prayer for these young men knowing that God will continue to give them the strength they need to stand up for themselves and women around them.

May God bless you all!!
Love and prayers, Marc Puigmarti
Team 4 Hardcore

P.S. Pictured is Josh being a "real man" and our team experimenting with the Pyramid!

Team 2 jams with their host fams!

Howdy ya'll! It's once again time for another peek into the life of Team 2. It has been a great week; we cannot believe that we have less than a month of ministry left!

Last Tuesday we had a very small Encounter Day; we had only about 18 grade 8 students. Personally, I love small retreats because we get to know almost all the students. They were such a good group; we were all amazed at how loving they were to each other and to their teacher. Most of them had gone to school with each other for a long time so they were very close. They were open to everything we had to say and participated fully in the day.

On Wednesday we traveled to Stratford, home of our lovely Katie Doyle. The next day we did the Confirmation Encounter Day for Katie's parish. The prayer time was awesome because we had confession available and there was a long line of students that wanted to go. Since the students are required to go before Confirmation, we really encouraged them to receive the sacrament. Even though some of the students were nervous and unsure, a lot of them still went which was amazing to experience.

After the retreat, we traveled to Essex, ON, which is the home parish of staff member Caitlyn Bondy and NET alumni Heather Verbeek. It was great to see Heather and catch up and some of us also got to stay with her and her family. We also had the privilege of meeting another NET alumni, Martin Skipper, and got to spend some time with him. The Bondy family had the whole team over for a barbecue; we had a nice time getting to know them.

On Friday we traveled to Alliston, ON where we stayed with some really amazing host families! Once again, I was struck by the generosity of the people we meet. The girls stayed with two families who each had several young children. Even though they had very busy schedules, they welcomed us in and were so happy to have us there. They were a beautiful witness to the Faith and to family. One of the families had all of us over one evening for a jam session. We had four guitars going and played everything from oldies to worship music. It was great to share our love of music with the families and to bond as a team.

We had a team day on Sunday and celebrated Paul's unbirthday. We went to a video arcade and had some fun trying our best to win as many games as we could. At the end we combined all of our tickets, which totaled to about 2000, and bought some prizes. Happy Unbirthday Paul!

Well that's a little bit of Team 2 news, hope you enjoyed!

God Bless,

Claire

Un-Birthday, and Reatreat!

Hello! This is Shayla from Team Five.

Man, are we ever busy this week! We have a Life Teen retreat starting today, and we're all here in the office doing last minute things, and practicing talks, and everything to be prepared for this weekend. Because of the business this weeks blog consists mainly of pictures. These pictures are all from our team day last Friday: We went to Ottawa for James' Un-Birthday. We visited the NET office for team prayer and then headed to Petrie Island to have a water balloon/water gun fight. It was quite cold, and you can tell by the pained looks in our team picture...

I hope you enjoy these pictures and have a

great week. Next week You'll be able to hear about this retreat in the next blog. Pray for us!

God Bless

Shayla & the rest of Team Five-Alive

Glass Alabaster

Hey!

This is Marissa from Team 4!

I get the honour of writing the blog this week and sharing with you some of the continued goodness that is happening in Wetaskiwin.

A few weeks ago, Erica and I began Glass Alabaster. Glass Alabaster is a women’s chastity group for girls in grades 9-12 that meets every Wednesday night. On our first night we only had one young lady show up. We were a bit discouraged, and couldn’t figure out how to get more women out. You see, in Wetaskiwin we seem to be getting more men to our Life Nights.

There is an abundance of men at our events but we are having trouble finding the beautiful ladies of the community. I am simply delighted that the men in Wetaskiwin are rising up, and choosing to follow Christ. Our hope is that the men would begin to bring out their women friends to our events.

For our second Glass Alabaster meeting it was getting late and it seemed like no one was coming. We were surprised to see two girls show up for the night. I really enjoyed the night! We had a talk on being a Bride of Christ and even made wedding dresses out of toilet paper. By the third night we were getting more confident in having a few young women out. We ended up having six young women show up! I could not believe my eyes and I was secretly dancing with joy when they weren’t looking (seriously). Last week we had a movie night and a whopping 9 girls came!!!

It seems that every time I doubt God and the work He is doing, He gently shows me that He has things under control. It’s so easy to become discouraged if things are not going the way you had planned. I’ve come to realize that God’s plan is way better and more exciting than any plan of my own.

Say a quick prayer for all the young women in Wetaskiwin that God would touch their hearts and put a desire into their hearts to come out to our Women’s Group

This past week we had our Supervisor visit with Ian and Sarah. We went to Lacombe (an hour away from Wetaskiwin) to put on a retreat for grade 7 and 8’s, spent Sunday night playing dodge ball in our 80’s get up for our Life Night, and we even had great swap lunches ( The ladies went with Ian and the men went with Sarah. We had a chance to ask our supes about anything). Our supervisors encouraged us to keep on giving our all into the ministry until the end, and we as a team are ready to give all we have, and then a bit more.

Godspeed,

Marissa

Team 4