Our southwest vlog continues through New Mexico at The Ignatius tri-fecta

The St Ignatius journey continues through Roswell New Mexico. Check out our latest vlog talking about our adventures at Ignatius Vlog Deux

Check out Iggy Vlog Numero Uno

Hello once again from the St. Dominic Team!

Besides the normal retreat ministry that Reach teams do, our team this year is running two youth groups. Our first youth group is in Grandview, WA, and it is a continuation of the youth group started there last year by the Reach team. The second group we have started up is in Sunnyside, Washington.

We have been ministering in Grandview since the beginning of this Reach year, and it has gone really well. We have about ten to fifteen youth who come, but in January we have an event in Grandview that will hopefully draw in more youth from the community. We have had a great time getting to know the youth, and we really enjoy hanging out with them and ministering to them.

Every Wednesday in Grandview, we go over to the high school during lunch time and we have pizza with the students. We have a decent turnout most of the time. While eating, we carry on discussions about different topics. We’ve talked about things like doing service for the church,  saints,  and what it would be like to die for one’s faith. It is really cool to hear everyone’s opinions and beliefs on the different subjects.

Our group in Sunnyside is only about two months old (we started in the beginning of November). We have been at the religious education class twice, where we did games, praise and worship, talks, dramas, testimonies, and small groups. Those have been really fun, and there were sixty to eighty youth each time. From there we have asked the youth to come to our youth group, which has had from ten to twenty youth depending on which day. Once again, we really enjoy getting to know the youth, and we look forward to ministering to them for the rest of this year.

Our youth group ministry has been a huge blessing in our lives this year. We have met so many wonderful people, and we are learning as much, if not more, from the youth as they are from us. We thank all of those in the Sunnyside and Grandview communities who have been so generous in making us feel welcome, and for those who have been helping us in our ministry there. And the youth in our youth groups- thank you so much for coming and for striving to go deeper into the faith… you are an inspiration to us.

God bless you and have a Merry Christmas!

Hello Friends and Family of Reach,

This is the St. Dominic team posting our first official blog… it’s about time! We can start from the beginning by introducing ourselves. The Dominic team consists of Joan Spring, from St. Cloud, Minnesota, Jordan Tracy from Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Tyson Chavez from Boulder, Colorado.

We have been keeping ourselves fairly busy this year so far. Our first retreat was in Portland, Oregon. It was a Catholic school retreat for 6th graders. We focused on prayer and personal relationship with Christ, and were able to finish off the retreat with Mass. The kids seemed to be receptive, and we really enjoyed them.

We did a youth night for the Lifeteen group at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Yakima. Once again, it was focused on prayer, and we had some praise and worship and a drama. We had a blast, even though we were there only a couple hours, but it was fun to hang out with the youth when it was finished.

Our third retreat was a weekend retreat for junior high youth in Couer d’Alene, Idaho. The retreat was up in the mountains at Shoshone Base Camp. It was a great place to truly enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. The retreatants were wonderful and very open to everything we did with them, from praise and worship to talks on Creation, the Fall, Jesus, and Choices… and especially open to an epic night game of capture the flag! It was pretty cold up there, but on Saturday it was sunny and nice enough outside to play a game of soccor and ultimate frisbee. Otherwise, we kept our warm clothes close to us! We truly enjoyed all the time that we shared with the youth, and it was a great first weekend retreat for us.

Since then we have had a retreat for youth in Naches, Washington after Mass for a few hours. We had about fifteen youth of various ages, the oldest being a junior in high school, and the youngest probably in second grade. We had fun playing with them, but we also discussed prayer with them. The coolest thing from that retreat was that while Joan was giving a talk, people started asking faith questions, both related and unrelated to the talk. It was neat because had some really good questions about their faith, and Joan, our theology major, was able to give them the answers they were looking for.

Our most recent retreat was in Wenatchee, Washington. The Benedict team was able to come with us to help out at this junior high retreat. We traveled up on a Friday evening and were able to relax and enjoy our wonderful host families. Then Saturday morning we started the retreat for the junior high youth. We had a really good time with them. We had talks, personal testimonies, a drama, praise and worship, and, of course, games. We also had opportunities for small groups with the youth. They had some really good questions and discussions. Some small groups talked about Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Creation vs. Evolution, and the Trinity. And then when given the opportunity for personal prayer time, many of the retreatants jumped at the opportunity. It was a great retreat, and although we had a little vehicle issue on the way home, we had a good time.

Besides retreats, we have also been keeping ourselves pretty busy with youth groups, but we will talk about that in our next blog… so watch our page, because we will be updating, and we will also be posting pictures very soon!

God bless you and have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

The St. Dominic Team

Welcome Back Everyone,

Since our last post the St Ignatius Reach team had the privilege of being able to help with the Yakima Diocesan Youth Convention featuring Tim Staples. We had the chance to help lead some games for about 150 high school youth for a weekend, and hear some incredible talks given by speakers such as Tim Staples. Not only that but we also got to meet him after the conference was over and take a picture with him.  While we were there we also got to see former Reach team members turned seminarians, Fred Lopez and Peter Berger and had the privilege of spending some time with them once the conference was over.

After the weekend we spent a day back in Cowiche getting ready for Tuesday and our drive down to Red Bluff, CA. We were able to stop on the way to and from California for a night with former Reach team member Colleen Poynter.  When we got to Red Bluff we spent some great time with the family of former Reach team member Jake Wilson, but most importantly had an amazing time with the youth on retreat. We had a retreat of about 40 high school ninth and tenth graders, and had a great day with all of them.

We are now back in Cowiche spending time with the other two Reach teams, St. Dominic and St. Benedict. We have had an enjoyable time spending time in the community here and would like to thank you all for your continued blessing and support.

God Bless,

The St Ignatius Reach Team

P.S. If you have a facebook join the St. Ignatius fan page, it’s just St. Ignatius Reach Team

dont fret young ones, more on the bloggity blog will be coming soon, very soon, as in when we get the retreat pictures and other awesome adventure pictures uploaded…..yea
SOON
GB
love, team supreme