Friends, like we did last year for Verity Lebeter, who served this year with NET  ministries and now returned to serve in the parish, we’re once again asking for your generosity/investment in two of our young parishioners who have been selected to serve with NET Ministries in 2023.

Hi everyone, our names are Emily Noyes and Erin Osborne and we are two of the young adults here in the Caloundra Parish. We have felt God calling us for something more in our faith-lives and have been accepted to serve with NET Ministries Australia next year. NET is a peer-to-peer youth ministry that seeks to encourage young people to love Jesus and embrace the Church. Our Lady of the Rosary Parish had two NET teams here previously: one in 2020 and another in 2021. The witness of these teams ultimately led us to pursuing a year of voluntary ministry.

The two NET Teams that we had in the Parish have had an influential impact in my (Emily) life. After hearing the testimonies of their faith, I realised that I wanted to have a personal relationship with God and grow closer to him. From there, I went through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults process with other adults who wanted to build a    relationship with God and become Catholic. On November 21st, 2021, I was initiated into the Catholic Church which was such an exciting day. At the beginning of 2022,        I became a children’s liturgy leader at Sunday Mass and a youth group leader on Friday nights with our youth group, Kingdom Youth. Through my involvement in these ministries, I have already begun to experience a connection with God, but I can’t wait to deepen that    relationship next year as I serve a year of NET.

I (Erin) had a deep desire for growing closer to God, but never took that next step until the NET teams were placed in my school (Unity College). Through getting to know these young people, I was given the opportunity to seek out a personal relationship with Jesus and realise that He has so much in store for me. For the past two years, I have been helping with Kids Club on Sundays and have recently became a youth leader in Kingdom Youth, growing in my faith and actively sharing how God can transform our lives if we let Him.

The two of us are required to raise a minimum of $6400 each to help cover some of our expenses for this year – and this is only half of what it takes to send out each missionary. Through your support, the two of us will get the opportunity to serve with a team full of young people who have their hearts on fire for Jesus. Not only will we be able to encounter hundreds of young people during our mission year, but we will also develop new ministry skills which we can apply back home, here in OLR Parish.

If you are in a position to financially support us, there are two ways to give. Firstly, next weekend on the 10/11 December, we will speak at the end of all OLR and Unity Masses, and invite  donations – we would appreciate your support. Secondly, please click on the NET sponsorship page and make a donation (when donating, please enter our full names in the Sponsorship For section so NET knows which missionary the funds are going towards – Emily Noyes and Erin Osborne).

We are both so sad to leave the parish for a year, but we know that it will be beneficial in getting to share our love for Jesus to young people around Australia and New Zealand and bring back what we’ve learnt to continue serving in our parish in 2024. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Emily and Erin