Minute-to-win-it!

Hey Peoples!

This is Infuse 2 here to tell you about how great our ministry is going so far.

We’re off to a great start. We’ve been visiting the high school and junior highs once a week. We show up just before lunch starts and we just kind of hang out with the students. At Notre Dame, the first junior high we visited, I met an awesome group of grade six guys and we hung out in the cafeteria playing an epic game of “ninja”. When their lunch is over we head over to the other junior high, St. Mary’s, and I got to join in a game of football, which was awesome! At the high school, McCoy, the team put on a popcorn survey. So, basically, we cooked up a bunch of popcorn in the front foyer and then we wandered around inviting everyone to help themselves because it was free. We also handed a little survey full of nonsensical, useless questions about their favorite colour, tv series, and stuff like that, and then (very very sneakily) snuck one innocent looking question in about what they do Sundays 6-9pm....(that’s when we have our high school youth night...Sneaky! ).

Our supervisors came down for four days, and they planned our team day and it was awesome!!!(We went CURLING!).

We’ve also been able to start our youth groups off with awesome first weeks. We’ll be running three youth groups this year. “Equip, St. Pats”,“Equip, Holy Family”, and, “Unchained”. Equip, which will be run as two separate youth groups at the two parishes, is for the junior high students, namely, Grade 6 to Grade 9. Unchained is for high school age students and is being mainly run through Holy Family Parish. (The reason for the name is Acts 12:6-17, where Peter is arrested, but then through the awesome power of God, his chains are broken and he is free to evangelize, and tell how he was set free).

We had the same awesome theme for all three opening nights.

MINUTE-TO-WIN-IT!!!!!!

We played some intense games like “A bit dicey” and “paper dragon”, as well as being able to finish the nights off (thanks to some volunteers from the parishes) with snacks. Overall our introductory nights went over really well and we’re absolutely STOKED for next weeks themes. Unchained is going to be based on the lives of the saints, and "what is the communion of saints?".. and Equip is going to be a “Mythbusters” theme. It’s going to be awesome.

God Bless!

LOVE(!!!) - Isaac Sullivan

P.s. We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials - St. Teresa of Avila (so don't lose hope)

A BANJO-IN' YOUTH RALLY!

Hello people!
These past few weeks have been filled with much music... I mean lots of music. Music practice, band practice, more music practice...etc. There is a well known saying "practice makes perfect". Although we practiced a lot I wouldn't say that our first Youth Rally this past week in Ottawa wasn't completely perfect, perhaps better, however, i am giving it the title of 'epic' and as a result I have decided to change that well known saying.
So for future reference... "practice makes EPIC".


The evening consisted of; praise and worship, a talk, drama and testimony as well as a fun musical moment highlighting a fiddle, a melodian, and a banjo. Yup, you read right, a BANJO... how EPIC is that. Not only was the music fantastic, the crowd of grade 7's 8's and 9's loved the different instruments and the evening itself. It was a great evening of music, praise and most importantly Jesus. I spoke to several teens after and they expressed that they were so glad that they had come!

The following morning we packed all of our belongings, instruments and gear into a trailer and we hit the road. It's really interesting traveling in a seven passenger van with seven fully grown people and multiple backpacks. I guess you could compare it to cramming the seven dwarfs into one of those red wagons you see kids pulling down the street. People look at it and wonder "how did you ever fit all of that in there"? The answer is simple. Only by the grace of God. :)

Well, it's late here in Saskatchewan where we are right now and my body thinks that we are in Ottawa, so I should probably hit the hay.

Many Blessings,

Erin

P.S. PRACTICE MAKES EPIC!

Scarborough!

Hello from Encounter 1!

We have been all over the Southern part of Ontario recently, now when someone tells me something about a place in Southern Ontario, I will not stare at them blankly! Hurray!

Last week our whole team got to stay at DJ's house in Essex, ON. It was a great experience and his family made all of us feel right at home. While we were there we did a couple Confirmation retreats in Tecumseh, then headed back up to Chatham for a Spirit Day on Saturday. Spirit Day is basically a rally for all the youth receiving the sacrament of Confirmation this year. Although our team wasn't running it, we did the skit to start off the day, then our team was divided into two groups to do three prayer sessions throughout the day, each with a different group of youth. We got pretty good feedback for our work.

On Sunday we headed to Scarborough, where we did four Gr. 11 retreats in a row. The students were so thirsty for God's message, so it was a blessing the at we got the opportunity to bring it to them. The retreatants got a lot out of everything we presented them. Their teachers were really impressed with how much their students invested in the day. They couldn't thank us enough for showing Jesus' love to these youth, many of which come from broken families, or just hard lives in general. I know God worked through us each day and I believe He will continue to work in their lives in the future. We got a picture taken of our team, and we were told it would be put in their yearbook! How exciting! We even got a tour of the school, then a bunch of the teachers and the principle took all of us out for lunch. Our team felt so loved by all the students who attended our retreats, and we really didn't want to leave Scarborough. The ministry has been going really well, but please keep us in your prayers!

In Christ,

Silken Neutelings
Encounter Team 1

A Massive Year of Worship

Yo peeps!
Erin here from Massive Worship. This year is going to be massive and full of Worship! Our team of seven can hardly wait to cram into the van and begin traveling across the country proclaiming Christ and his kingdom through music. We are still in the midst of Massive worship training and will have our first official youth rally in the next couple of weeks. So pumped!
Last week we did our first practice retreat. It went well! We had a full band setup in a church basement  for the retreat and as a result the church janitor, secretary and a bunch of random repair men had quite the musical day. The retreatants also enjoyed the prayerful tunes, they were singing and dancing along and by the end of the day they were Congo lining it up.
Prayer time with the grade six students was particularly moving. When we entered into the church they were reverent, respectful and prayerful. Many of the students wanted prayer and some of them were praying the rosary and reading the bible during prayer time. All in all, the day went really well and our team is looking forward to starting ministry full time.
For now, we are still training in Ottawa. More updates to come.
Many melodies,
Erin

heres what they had to say...

Greetings from Encounter Team Two! We are currently in

Alberta, enjoying our team day with our supervisors. Retreats have been going well over the last two weeks. Rather than tell you how retreats have been, I would like to share with you what the youth say about retreats.
At the end of the day, we asked them how their day was, and ask them to share their experience. Here’s what they had to say:

“Favorite part: Church, chapel. AMAZING!” – 14 year old
male, Kenora, ON

“It was really fun, I loved that they told us about how
Jesus frees us, not holds us down. By learning that, it was really easy to be
honest and to be myself in prayer time.” – 14 year old female, Kenora, ON

“It was an amazing rollercoaster ride into Christianity
filled with fun, excitement and learning.” – 13 year old male, Cold Lake, AB

“I had a lot of fun! Today really helped me get closer to
God. I thought what you guys did was amazing and nothing was wrong. Keep it
up!!!” – 13 year old female, Cold Lake, AB

“My experience with NET was quite interesting. This
experience made me interested in the NET program. NET made me think about the
real things in life and things we’re surrounded by. I liked the experience… I
enjoyed myself.” – 14 year old male, Kenora, ON

“I liked everything in the retreat especially the prayer
times and games. I now know how I can talk to God on my own as a friend. The
NET people are friendly and entertaining, they have showed me a lot. I had the
best small group leader… I would like to go to more of these so I can get
closer to God in my own way. Thank you NET!” – 14 year old female, Cold Lake,
AB

“I think it was a lot
of fun. It was a good way to learn about God while having fun with your
friends. I liked how they used humour to soften up the serious stuff. I really
liked all the group activities (all the games). It was an awesome experience,
bringing us closer together and to God. Thank you for your help and support,
and thank you for helping us open our eyes and see God in a new perspective.” –14 year old female, Kenora, ON

“Loved the games, especially the penny one. I liked how open
everyone was, it made me feel trusted and that I could trust in return. Loved
the skits before and after prayer time, the one about Jesus on the cross really
struck somewhere inside of me which is harder to do than you’d think. I felt
connected to God, myself, and everyone else when we were praying in the church.
Thanks so much for praying with me. Keep being awesome!” – 14 year old female,
Kenora, ON

“The NET encounter day was a great experience. It’s good to
get youth to reflect on and develop their relationship with God. If you haven’t
guessed, my favourite part was prayer time. It’s not that I didn’t like the
rest of the day (it was amazing), but it was not as personal and eye-opening as
prayer time. The skits were hilarious and entertaining… and the song that Matt
Sullivan same in the top part of the church – well, I LOVED it!!! That and the
skit up there was absolutely fantastic! Thank you, NET team for sharing that
with me, as well as the rest of the school. I certainly won’t be forgetting
this day anytime soon! Thanks again!” – 13 year old female, Dryden, ON

“Today was a very exciting day, I did have an encounter with
God, even though I already believe and already go to youth group. You guys
today made me believe even stronger, and today, I realized that there is more
to live for, that God is always there for you, to be with you and to help you.
Today, I dedicated my life to God.” – 14 year old female, Kenora, ON

God Bless!

Katie
Encounter Team 2