...where winter is 15°C

Hello and welcome to AUSTRALIA

where water is more expensive and kangaroos total your car if you're not careful driving on country toads at night...

Emma Fradd reporting again, this time away from Team 4 and off NET; I want to share a blog about the last 10 months of my life, the present and my future!

On a team with 5 other people - you’re around them for constantly for 10 months, you pray with them, share every experience with them and they become a strong source of fellowship. Surprisingly this year, I loved not having a lot of “alone” time. I loved learning how to love my team and help them in their faith journey. And it works both ways. God really does speak to you through them and they build you up to the best you can be. This year on NET has helped me to choose joy in my everyday actions, and serving my team has allowed me to grow in serving others.

Because you grow deeper in love with God, it leads you to evangelization. You get filled and fed with God’s love and it equips you to evangelize to those around you and not just the teenagers that you see on retreat or in your parish. As my year went on, I found that I wanted to evangelize more than ever, I wanted to share God's love and message with everyone around me, in host homes, with my team, with the parish priest and especially with the youth who are searching more than ever for it.

I served on NET during August 2009 - May 2010. Thanks to NET, I still have this zeal for evangelization. I’m going into my old high school now and doing classroom presentations, sharing with the students my relationship with God and to challenge them to have one as well. I’m leading music at Mass every weekend and I am so much more confident about talking about God with others.

As music leader on my team this year, I was able to work with musicians and build up bands to play at Mass and other youth events, I really believe that music is one of the best tools available for evangelization. So that’s why in 6 weeks, I’ll be flying back to Canada to join NET’s Massive Worship team. I will be traveling across Canada, running retreats for musicians to encourage and equip them to lead worship. Other retreats include assisting parish missions and adoration services with music and school retreats. All of this proclaiming the word of God with my guitar!

NET has helped me a lot to see how important evangelizing is, and I know that it’s not going to stop after Massive Worship, I really have a passion for talking about Jesus and I think God is going to use me and this gift he’s given me to do just that in years to come!

Join me in saying a Hail Mary for Catholics everywhere that they will respond to God’s call to evangelize. As Pope Paul VI says:

“The Church exists to evangelize”

Let's hurry up and exist!

Emma Fradd

NET Alumni
Port Pirie, South Australia

So what is this NET thing anyway?

I remember confusedly asking myself this exact question about 6 years ago when I was invited to apply to NET Canada, but this past week our NET staff took the initiative to answer this popular question for the young adults in the Ottawa area by hosting our first ever "Come and See" evening at St. Maurice parish in Nepean (special shout-out to Miss Hannah Sheridan pictured here for heading up the planning and execution of it all!) It's one thing to tell a faithful young person, "Hey, you'd be great for NET, you should fill out an application!" and a whole other thing to invite them to simply get to know the ministry with no pressure to apply. What we've found after an event like this one is that once you meet this amazing ministry and get to know it's mission, you can't help but fall in love with it and desire to somehow get involved!
That's what we witnessed among the crowd attending our event. It was a great mix of people: there were some NET alumni, some NET staff, someone who was already accepted to NET, another who was in the process of finishing his application, others who were still finishing high school, and still others who were in the midst of university. We presented to everyone the heart of NET Ministries and the simple mission of it, which really comes down to young people sharing with other young people how God has worked in their lives. NET Ministries is challenging young Catholics to love Christ and embrace the life of the Church, and we do this through proclamation of the Gospel, invitation to live it out, and forming and equipping young people with the skills they need to do this.
What really caught my attention when I was considering NET was encountering the change I saw in my own brother, Peter. When I was 16 years old, Peter had just returned home after serving a year with NET Australia, and the transformation in him was undeniable; he was uniquely passionate about his faith, and he understood it! That was something I wanted so badly. That's why when it came time for me to decide where to go after high school, NET was one of my first options. But I really didn't know what NET was about just by looking at my brother.
And so it was for many of the young people who attended our event. It's easy to have heard of NET when you live in Ottawa and many of your friends are NET alumni, but it's just as easy to not really know why NET is so great and why we need young people to participate in it's powerful mission of evangelization.
For me, it wasn't until I got halfway through my first year of university that I realized I wasn't happy with where I was and where I was going. I was studying music and practicing my cello for endless hours every day, truly devoting my entire life to music. But at the end of each day, I'd come back to my dorm room feeling empty. I wanted God to be at the center of my life, but in reality my cello was! So I realized a change needed to happen, and whenever there is potential for drastic change my life, I tend to take the deepest plunge I can. I decided to apply for NET Canada, even though I had no idea what exactly I'd be doing. I just knew that I was called by God to do something great. That meant radically giving up my cello and music degree for a whole year and for the first time ever, I was okay with that. I soon realized that God was more important to me than my cello, and if he asked to do something as radical as taking a year off my music degree my only response could be, "Yes, Lord! I'd do anything for you!"
For so many young people, that kind of decision looks too scary and too intimidating, but I encourage all to adhere to the words of Pope John Paul II when he spoke encouragingly to thousands of young people at World Youth Day in Denver: "Do not be afraid to go in the streets and into public places... this is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel."

Voilà que prennent fin 9 mois de travail missionnaire...

Me re-voici, pour une dernière fois, Kevin Prada, votre bloggeur fidèle, de l'équipe 3, vous adressant la parole de la ville qui accueille notre dernier séjour sur la route, Whitby, une demi-heure au nord de Toronto. Je pourrais passer des heures à vous écrire les éloges des merveilles que j'ai vues le Seigneur produire à travers nous au cours de l'année (croyez-moi, je pourrais vraiment passer des heures, si vous ne me croyez pas, demandez aux autres memebres de l'équipe...), mais à la place, j'ai décidé de vous rappeler toutes nos aventures de l'année par le biais de photos, parce que vraiment, une expérience telle qu'on a eu le privilège de vivre ne se décrit pas en mots. Ma vie a changé. La vie de ceux qui sont autour de moi a changé. Tout ce qui me reste à faire maintenant c'est de remercier le Seigneur, grâce à qui tout ceci fut possible. Je tiens aussi à vous remercier, vous tous qui nous avez gardés dans vos prières. La prière est une arme tellement puissante dans la vie spirituelle et je suis sûr qu'on a reçu plusieurs grâces de votre prière constante. La semaine prochaine, on quitte la route pour retrouver toutes les autres équipes, qu'on n'a pas vues depuis notre retour au ministère en janvier, et on se quitte vendredi prochain, lorsqu'aura lieu notre messe de clôture. Quelle merveilleuse façon de clore une telle année, en louant le Seigneur! Donc je vous laisse en union de prières.

Sincèrement,
Kevin Prada

-Les filles, en train de s'amuser, étant donné que je ne suis pas dans la photo, je ne sais pas où elle a été prise...mais je suis sûr que c'est en quelque part au Canada...











-à Sault-Sainte-Marie, on a eu la chance de se défouler en jouant un match de football









-en quittant la ville de Thunder Bay, on a pu visiter le monument en l'honneur de Terry Fox...sans tomber de la falaise







-à Wawa, au nord de l'Ontario, j'ai eu le privilège, pour la première fois, de faire de la pêche sur glace. Moi je travaillais fort à essayer d'attraper un fichu de poisson, pendant qu'Evan et Marise boivent un beau pepsi...haha







-lors de la retraite de fin de semaine qu'on a animée à Bathurst











-Une autre première pour moi fut de voir l'océan, et ce fut à Yarmouth, Nouvelle-Écosse










-Encore dans les maritimes, le village de Nackawic, ville natale de Evan, est aussi la maison de la hache la plus grande au monde...on coupe du méchant bois avec celle-là...











-Terrebonne, banlieue de Montréal, lorsqu'on venait de reprendre le chemin après notre pause du temps des fêtes








-Christiana, en pleine bataille de boules de neige, légèrement intimidant...haha










-les gars, lorsqu'on a reçu nos cravates genre Noël, de la belle famille de Christiana








-





Je n'ai vraiment pas grand chose à dire à propos de celle-ci. La photo le dit d'elle-même. C'est, selon moi, l'un des plus beaux coins du pays, Banff, Alberta.








-Nous voici, lors de la première visite de nos superviseurs, lors de la fête de l'Halloween, comme on a fait un concours de sculpture de citrouilles.











-Voilà l'une de mes photos préférées de l'année, à un lac près de Cold Lake, Alberta

NET Teams are Superheroes in disguise

"Holy Haircut Batman", this is our last blog of the year! Batman and Robin here, also known as Meghan and Adele writing to you live from our underground layer, also known as our host family's basement in Belleville, Ontario.

What a week it was, evangelizing youth in the Kingston, Ontario diocese. Tears were shed and lives were saved as we once again foiled the plans of the evil one. It started with a bang as we got into our bat mobile and headed to the Battawa ski hill lodge (BATawa, BATman, we knew God was calling us here for a reason). The day consisted of about 100 grade ten students eagerly waiting to see what a NET Encounter Day was and what we had to offer. They were really into the song and really respectful. They came into small group with open minds and open hearts. All in all it was a successful day.

Another Mission that stood out to us was in Trenton, Ontario. We knew as soon as we started talking with the youth that God would make His presence known, and that He did. During the prayer time I (Adele) went up to one my small group girls and asked if it was ok if I prayed with her, she told me I could but asked me if I could do HER a favour, she asked if she could pray with me, I told her that would be great so I said I silent prayer for her first and following my prayer, she held out her hand and put my hand on top of hers and said a beautiful prayer out loud for me. It was such a blessing to experience God working in her heart and at the same time reveal Himself to me through her. While this was going on, the line for confession was nonexistent until one boy stepped up to the plate and went to confession. After that, the line for confession started to grow immensely, YAY GOD! At the end of the Encounter Day one of Meghan's small group girls came up to her and said that she didn't want us to leave and that she really enjoyed the day. We really feel like God has been speaking through us to the youth and vice versa, we have been truly impacted with the way God has used the youth to impact us.

Saturday brought us the lovely city, and my home town, Ottawa,Ontario, where we put on an Encounter Day for 6 youth who were being confirmed. It was really nice because we got to know the youth a little bit deeper. They were really great to talk with and we shared many laughs with them. We traveled back to Kingston, Ontario that same night where we stayed with the Sisters of Providence. It was such a marvelous stay, we got to have great conversations with the sisters and after doing God's work and saving the world from the evil one, we celebrated Christians unbirthday! His unbirthday included lots of sunshine, the beautiful waterfront and the building of epic sand castles. Christian really enjoyed the day and we all really enjoyed getting wicked tans, or in my case, a wicked sunburn!

Happy unbirthday Natalie!! We spent a lovely evening in the park, painting with water colours and playing frisbee. It was nice to be able to relax and spend our time together enjoying God's beautiful creation.

We can't believe it's already been a year, time sure does fly. We are all very sad to be wrapping up our ministry and having to leave each other will be very hard. It's true what they say about your team being your family. Even though we will be parting, through God we will always be united.

Thank you for all your prayers. God has truly blessed us with wonderful people who are supportive of our ministry.

God bless!

Da na na na na na na na Batman and Robin. (Team 2)

Enjoying Life in its Busyness!

Hello all! It's Shayla, and as most of you know, our year on NET is coming close to an end. This week has been extremely crazy; from a crazy dodgeball lifenight to our last Glass Alabaster and Real Men, to us having like no office time because we're so busy.

I'll start with the dodgeball Lifenight. Man was that ever fun! Well, it wasn't really a Lifenight, more of a hang out because our lifenights are only every two weeks. Either way we had a bunch of teens come out to hang out. We split off into two teams, and each team had to make a team name and a team cheer. My team was pretty simple...Team Shayla. The other team was Team Boogaloo. Now, us being the NET Team, we find it impossible to keep things just fun...we have to make it intense! So, we gave everybody glowsticks to put around their necks, and we played dodgeball in the dark (more like dimmed lights for safety). We played rounds with time limits, and basically at the end of the round, the team with the most players alive wins. We did half court games, full court games, swtiched teams, and just had a ball...literally! It was just so much fun. OH! I forgot to mention that my family gave me a surprise visit for my mom for Mother's Day. Everyone showed up except my oldest brother. I guess they made dodgeball feel like there was a lot of people because it added like ten more people.

The last Glass Alabaster and Real Men was lots of fun. We started by having our men's and women's sessions. Little did the women know, but the men spent their time decorating a room and baking snacks to honor the women. The women spent time talking and being romanced by Jesus. It was pretty powerful because in our women's session, the girls shared some of their testimonies from us being here, and how God worked in their lives this year. After this, the men and women came together for snacks and "back affirmations". This is when you put a piece of paper on your back and every one goes around writing affirmations on everyone else's papers. It was tons of fun.

This week, along with the Lifenight, Glass and Real Men sessions, we've been busy with people visiting, going to the school for presentations, and things like letters and stats that we have to complete before leaving. We're also really excited for this weekend because our teens from the Edge crew are putting on a retreat for us! Actually, I think we're more like really, really, really, really excited...just to exaggerate. I know! It will be starting on Saturday evening and ending in the morning on the Sunday. Next week we also have a lot of cleaning to do in our office before we leave. Like getting rid of all the paper that randomly finds a purpose throughout the year even though it actually really serves no purpose. Not to mention all of our personal stuff that finds itself in purge in our office too. Yup, it's going to be CRAZY!

Well, we are praying that you have a great week filled with showers upon showers of God's blessings.

God Bless,

Team Five-Alive