October Ministry Update

Hello from Ottawa!

We, the Ottawa Discipleship team, are very excited that we have been chosen to stay in the Ottawa-Cornwall area to journey with the youth of Annunciation of the Lord parish and of all
the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall! We have been doing ministry for about a month and a half and we have had beautiful experiences and conversations with the youth of Annunciation of the Lord parish as we get to journey with them through the alpha program with them. We’ve also had the great joy of being able to help lead music at various masses. With the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall, we have made some very exciting plans to reach the youth throughout the whole archdiocese! A few weeks ago we were able to help host and take part in Pastoral Day at the Archdiocese where we were able to take part in discussions with parishes about how we will unite in moving forward with the archdiocese mission to Go Out, Go Deep and Go Together.

While our ministry looks different from many other NET teams, the Lord is still very present. At Annunciation of the Lord Parish, we have been leading small groups during the 9 week high school alpha program! One amazing story of how the Lord has been moving is that one evening we were doing an exercise with our small group where there is a picture of a pool with many different people in and around it all doing different things: some people are coming, some are going, some seem to have no intention of going in, some are ready to dive head first, some are standing in the pool and some are completely submerged. After studying the picture you point out which person best describes you if the pool represents faith/your relationship with God. While Claire’s small group was doing this exercise, the girls in her group were very honest about where they were in their faith life and they all admitted that they wish they were deeper in their faith. Afterwards Claire was able to follow up with one of the girls in her group and asked her what was stopping her from going deeper into her faith and she answered very honestly, “I don’t know… I guess I’m just scared.” After this she allowed Claire to pray with her. When Claire was done, the girl had a huge smile on her face and gave Claire a big hug and thanked her. It’s beautiful to see some of the ways the Lord chooses to use us!

God Bless you,

JP, Bernadette, Zachariah, and Claire