I get to watch a bit of cricket soon as the u19 Cricket World Cup is coming to Queensland. England play Australia and Ireland next weekend and it is just down the road from my house. Should be a good game.
Anyway......,
Training last year was mad. I had no idea what to expect from it. I did not really know what I had let myself in for when I signed up for this 'NET' thing. We were put in dorms, boys with boys and girls with girls (obviously) and we started to get to know each other. Meal times and free time were spent chatting and hanging out. We played a lot of backyard cricket to pass time between sessions. More about cricket later!
The days started off with personal prayer, which included adoration, reconciliation and however we wanted to pray. It was a struggle at first because I was not used to the regular personal prayer. I had never been asked before to commit to prayer for one hour every day. That's right, I have to pray for one hour every day! I did not know what to do so it varied from day to day. Music, guitar, bible, journal, adoration, sitting and contemplating (a long word for daydreaming in my case), it was a challenge that took most of the year for me to really grasp hold of and see the power of daily personal prayer.
Every day there was some sort of teaching or session. This varied depending on the theme of the day. There was so much thrown at us by so many gifted and wonderful speakers that I would simply miss out to much or not do them justice if I tried to explain all of them so here are 2 examples.
1) Holy Spirit - NET is a Charismatic Catholic Youth Ministry. It means that as a ministry we/they exercise and use the gifts of the Holy Spirit within our lives. I didn't really know what that meant for me. The only 'charismatic' prayer I had experienced had been at Celebrate (Christian conference in England) with Sion and through my good friends Sarah & David Beresford. I knew praise & worship (living my hands, singing freely and praising God essentially) and a bit of being led by the spirit to hear words, see pictures or find scripture. The Holy Spirit is not something that had ever been taught to me much. Yes I did confirmation but I don't remember anything that I was told or it was nothing like this. The Holy Spirit is someone I can call on to help me, comfort me, protect me, strengthen me and a lot more. In my life I can use the gifts that God has given to me through the Holy Spirit to pray, listen and live a better Christian life. The day finished with a massive prayer time in which some incredible musicians led worship and we were taken on a journey to inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives and experience the power of God through the HS. Incredible!
2) Testimony - Our time on NET is focused on sharing the Good News of Jesus with young people, and a way that we can do that is to share our story. We had a day where we looked at our lives and wrote a 3 minute testimony which we would share eventually share with young people. It was a great way to look at how God has worked in my life and was really special to hear how He had worked in others.
NET training flows from looking at our faith, what we believe, having separate sessions for the men and women to look at what it means to be a man/woman of God to being put on teams to practising material for retreats and learning about each other and how to live with each other. 5 weeks just flies past and I can't believe that it was a year and a half ago now. I had a great time and I cannot wait for my next one. Thats right I will be spending a 3rd year in Australia but as a NET Staff member (more on what that is some other time).
So Cricket! There has been a tradition (3 years of it) that the Australians on NET play against the Internationals on NET in a 40over game of Cricket with a few different rules thrown in. I came onto NET after seeing our wonderful England cricket team smash the Australians in the Ashes and I was very loud about it, any heckling brought on some Barmy Army style banter! So, I was pieced to be captain and I had a huge task ahead of me. It turns out that the Australians had never won this competition before and I had to keep that tradition going! Being captain, I went around got people interested and we had a massive team of 14 (ish) who were willing to give it a go. We had 2 POMs, some Kiwi's and 2 South Africans (we were the only ones who knew anything about cricket) we had some Americans and Canadians (who mostly knew nothing). Cut a long story short, it was hot, it was fierce, it rained just before the match started so we had wet patches and the tarp we put down did not keep the strip dry but WE WON! by around 5 runs! The internationals were victorious! Was a great day and a lot of fun!
After training we headed down to Brisbane to have 2 retreats for real which was scary and exciting, and then we were commissioned by the then Archbishop of Brisbane John Bathersby (ABJB). Before I knew it I was on a plane heading to Melbourne to work in a an all boys school with 1400 students!
Next time: Mazenod College, Melbourne, AFL, Team life!
Please keep me in your prayers and be assured of my prayers for you
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you--guard it with the
help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
(2 Timothy 1:14)
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