Hello from Ottawa!

 All four of us from the Ottawa team were beyond blessed to be able to go home to our families for Christmas and had safe travels back to Ottawa! After having January training with all the other missionaries, we are ready to jump back into ministry! Since being back, at Annunciation of Our Lord parish, we have started a second semester of Youth Alpha and launched the Lighthouse which is an opportunity for youth who have already gone through Alpha to learn more and go deeper into their faith. Not only are we getting the opportunity to hang out with new youth in Annunciation of Our Lord Parish, in the rest of the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall we have had our first classroom visits with the grade eights at Holy Trinity in Cornwall, a confirmation retreat with many parishes in the Cornwall area, and we put on a formation event for the high school students who are leaders in their youth ministries all across the Ottawa-Cornwall Archdiocese.

Getting to be around so many youth gives us many opportunities for the Lord to do amazing things. One of these occasions was after a classroom visit one girl came up to the team and asked, “Why do good people die?”.  After talking about that with her for a bit she told us that her father had died from a heart attack. After hearing this we asked her if she would be willing to allow us to pray with her before she had to leave. She seemed a little hesitant at first so we let her know that she absolutely did not have to, but then after she thought about it, she said that we could pray with her. And after that, when she was leaving, she had a new look in her eyes, and she had a little bit of a smile. We are so thankful that we got to experience this example of God’s grace as a team.

God Bless You,

JP, Bernadette, Zacheriah, and Claire