A two-year stint with NET Ministries took Andrea Sidloski across Canada, enabling her to meet and share her faith with youth in both small and large schools.
Now back in Weyburn, she shared her experiences with the board of trustees of the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Board on Wednesday evening, of which her father Jerome is a board member. Andrea attended all of her schooling in Weyburn at St. Dominic Savio and St. Michael Schools, and graduated from the Weyburn Comp.
In her Grade 12 year, a NET (National Evangelization Team) Ministries team came to Weyburn, and a second team came during her first year of university, and after getting to know a number of the members, she felt this was a ministry she would love to give her time and efforts to.
“I got to know them really well, and I found them really refreshing. They came in and wanted to know me as a person,” said Andrea, chuckling as she related that for a long time, she vowed she would never be a part of such a team.
“I just finished my second year with NET Ministries. It was really good. It’s been hard at times, but it’s been really good too,” said Andrea, noting that as a part of a team, she’s been speaking with high school students throughout the year.
“Being raised as I was, I just accepted everything I was told about my faith, and I never challenged it. When I met these people (with the NET team), they encouraged me to follow my faith and make it my own,” she said.
Over the two years with the ministry, she has been billeted in 160 homes, and has taken part in about 175 retreats and rallies in that time, “which is quite amazing, as in my second year I wasn’t involved in retreats very much.”
On average, they ministered to around 50-60 students, with the largest group around 450 students and the smallest one had four students.
“I definitely got to meet young people all across Canada. We were more eastern-based, as we went to Newfoundland and PEI. It was beautiful and amazing, and I loved it. Also, it was amazing to see how all these different people lived,” said Andrea, adding that in her second year with NET, she was more involved in a school board ministry, including with the Christ the Redeemer School Division in Calgary, with time spent in nearby communities like High River, Okotoks and Canmore.
She said when they visited a school for the first time, the students there were sometimes afraid they’d be “Jesus freaks”, “but they saw us as regular people as they got to know us.”
In one school, this was the third year a NET team had worked with the students there, and this made it difficult because the students knew what they were about, so it was hard to make inroads with them.
“We had to find different ways to reach out to them, and we did a survey with them about what they wanted to hear about our faith. Some schools kept their answers really basic, while others had really challenging questions,” she said, noting she mostly worked with high school students, while the NET team who was in Weyburn worked with elementary and junior high-aged students.
At a number of the schools, Andrea found a large number of the students in Catholic schools are not practicing Catholics, while those students who were strong in their faith were usually newly-arrived families in Canada.
“It kind of opened my eyes a little to see what our society is like, and what our culture is like,” she said.
One of the schools she enjoyed working with the most was a school in Calgary that was half private and half Catholic, with a small student body. “It’s an incredible school. What I saw there kind of restored my faith, and it’s a really small school,” said Andrea, noting they had a full-time priest with an office in the school, a chapel time, and there were times when the students could come in and talk to the ministry members if they had questions.
One of the places her NET team visited was at Sandy Bay in northern Saskatchewan, an aboriginal community that her church, St. Vincent de Paul, had supported over the years with clothing drives and other donations.
“That was such an eye-opener. We did a lot of retreats in these tiny communities, and at this one we invited students from Grades 7 to 12. We had everyone come out to it, from 2 to 84 years of age. Our church sent out clothes and so on to Sandy Bay for years, and I ended up there doing a retreat with my team, so it was interesting. There’s a lot of brokenness in that diocese. It was kind of scary at first, but they really wanted us to be there and couldn’t stop thanking us. We had been expecting to be pushed away and not accepted, but they really appreciated everything we had to offer them,” said Andrea. “That was the most incredible part of my experience, was going there.”
She noted that due to the need and the response, there will be a full-time team there in Sandy Bay next year from NET. “It’ll be challenging for them,” she said.
Asked if she might have any advice for schools related to encouraging interest in the Catholic faith, Andrea said, “It’s kind of tough, because every student is so different. The biggest thing is to have an environment where the students aren’t afraid to ask questions, or if it’s an environment where students feel comfortable about doing that more. You have to try and get it started somehow,” adding that she found large schools “intimidating”, while smaller schools were more receptive to them.
Board chair Bruno Tuchscherer noted that NET has had a good impact in Weyburn, as in addition to Andrea being involved, Rekina Browatzke has just finished a year in Ireland with the group.
Andrea said she will now be working in an administrative position at St. Vincent de Paul Church. Board members expressed the hope that she might be able to help them if they want to hold any programs or activities for the students at St. Michael or with the youth group at the church.
