So it has been quite a while since my last blog post and boy has a lot changed since then. To put it in a nutshell, I am not currently in Dominican Formation but I am still in Ireland. How?
Well here's the story...
It was back in Easter week this year that I was so fed up of everything in the novitiate, people were heading off for a few days of easter vacation but I decided to stay behind since once the other novices weren't around, that'll be pretty much a vacation. The day before everyone left, Fr Maurice told me that there were some young people coming to stay in knockadoon for the week, and they were young missionaries, so he asked me if i could help him to look after them. I figured, why not.
When I met them, however, I was so inspired. I found out that they were the Road Team of an Organisation called NET Ministries of Ireland and they travelled all around ireland doing youth ministry mainly by putting on retreats in schools and parishes. The team truly touched and changed my life in so many ways over that week that as they were leaving on the Friday, I decided there and then that this was worth taking a year out of my Dominican formation to do.
Things of course were not as simple as that. Basically, the options I was left with was don't do NET and stay in the order or, do NET and leave the Dominicans. I figured that God put this in my path for a reason and after a lot of contemplation I decided to take another leap of faith and on August 17th I took off my habit and left the novitiate to head to Derry, where NET training was to take place.
I have to say that training was one of the best experiences of my life and was able to meet some of the nicest people I have ever encountered. The way NET is structured is that there is one road team which travels around Ireland putting on retreats, and so on, but there are also three local teams which run ministry from a certain local area. About two weeks into training, teams were announced and not only was I placed on the Road team which was the largest team but I was put as the team leader.
After six weeks of training, we hit the road. Ten of us in a Ford Transit van driving from place to place depending on the generosity of people to provide us with food and shelter. It was a challenging but rewarding couple months. I could write a lot about the months here but it would just be easier to just put a link to the road team blog
http://netirelandroadteam.blogspot.co.uk/
So that leads up to now where we are just about to wrap up this first part of the year ... so yeah it's been real, and I am totally enjoying it. I'll try to keep posting as best I can.
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