BY Ryan McDougall | May 3 | 
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NET Ministries celebrate a ‘brilliant’ year of missions
The Scottish branch of an international evangelisation organisation is celebrating the end to a ‘brilliant’ nine months of mission in which the team helped 7,000 young people grow in their Faith.
Scotland’s National Evangelical Teams (NET) Ministries volunteers have hosted 112 retreats in 32 high schools across six dioceses in the past nine months.
They concluded their successful year with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow in their office on Monday April 29.
“It’s been a brilliant year,” director John Jackson said, adding that the number of retreats held by NET has increased every year.
“We were fully booked and couldn’t really take on any more than what we did this year—the teams were in five days a week.”
Sharing the Gospel
Every year, young volunteers leave their jobs, studies, family and friends to devote nine months to NET, travelling the country to share the Gospel with other young people.
Their retreats involve games, socialising and creating dramas centred around the Catholic Faith.
The unique form of evangelisation aims to inspire the children and young people to become more involved with the Church and with God.
Growth
With the reputation of NET Scotland on the rise, more families have offered the young ministers a place to stay as they travel around the country, with 47 households in 2018-2019 hosting team members.
“Last year we were struggling to find enough families to cover, but this year we’ve been getting more and more Catholic and non-Catholic households signing up to take in missionaries,” Mr Jackson said.
Future goals
He said NET is hoping to build on the success and is seeking two new members of staff—one to promote and increase the profile of the organisation and another to recruit missionaries.
They are also set to launch fundraising campaign ‘500 for 5,’ which aims to raise £30,000 per year to help their mission grow in Scotland.
One 17-year-old high school pupil who took part in a NET retreat said: “Before my retreat I hated everything. Everyone. Now I see the light at the end of the tunnel. God is there. He’s on my side.”
A priest who works with NET added that a retreat he had been on was the ‘most profound experience that I’ve had as a priest.’
“I was genuinely blown away by the efforts of the NET team. Every Catholic high school deserves a taste of what these guys do,” he said.
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