Hello all!

My team and I have started making our home in the beautiful state of Ohio! We have been doing ministry work for roughly two weeks, and it is already amazing to see what God has done.

Thus far we have stayed with 11 different host homes, put on 10 retreats, and have ministered to 843 youth. I have personally ministered to 65 young women who have been in my small groups. By Saturday the 10th of October, my team and I had ministered to over 1,000 young people. 

God is already using us (the NET team) as instruments of His love and His mercy, and it's so incredibly wonderful yet humbling at the same time. I would like to just share with you the joy and hope Christ brought me through the presence of one little 6th grade lady.

It was only our 4th retreat, and we were nervous; we were scheduled to have 142 youth on retreat (150 is the max amount allowed on one retreat at a single time), and this was the largest group we had yet to see. I was giving the talk and I had a small group of fourteen 6th graders.

My small group and I met after the talk and a drama (a visual representation of the Gospel message), and we started discussing how we could live a life to the full if we base ourselves on Christ and we unite our every waking moment to glorifying God in all we do.

As we were discussing, I noticed one of my girls was starting to tear up. I asked her if she wanted to share, and she burst into tears. Over the summer, she said, she hung out with friends who are not Catholic, and she started questioning if Catholicism was the true Faith and the true religion. She said that the talk helped her to realize the importance of the Catholic faith and how if we live our lives as if God is the most important thing, then we will live a full and happy life. She found fulfillment in knowing that God truly is there for her. No matter what.

Shortly afterwards we transitioned to a time of prayer. During this time the retreatants receive two pieces of paper: one recapping the talk, and one that is put together from different sections of Scripture, and designed as a letter from Jesus to you. At the same time, the small group leaders went from person to person in their small group and said a silent blessing over each youth.

As I prayed over this young lady, I felt her shoulders shake as she started crying. I offered her up to God and then took a step back and let Him do His thing. After a few moments, she laid down on the ground, and as she was not disrupting anyone, I let her be.

When the time of prayer was over, I asked her how it went for her, and she said that she had been overwhelmed with the sense of belonging and of peace and love. I asked if that's why she laid down and her response was so simple, yet so elegant.

She said "No, I laid down to talk to God because that's what me and my best friend do. We lay around on the floor of my house and talk. And then, I was so happy and content to just be with God that I didn't want to get up."

This is the Faith that we as Catholics are called to have: the Faith of a little child. We are called to delight in the Lord as He delights in us.  We need to be open to the love that Jesus wants to give us.

The only question is,

Will you let Him love you?

Until next time,

In Christ through  Mary's Immaculate Heart,

Michaela Donovan