You Can Lead a Horse to Water… — UFFT #24

Sometimes you just have to let God do His work.

We’ve probably all heard the old saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink!” used time and time again throughout our lives; I know I have. More often than not, people tell me that often-used cliché while I’m venting about a failed attempt at trying to convince, persuade, or teach someone to think like I do.

It’s really frustrating to me when I’m in conversation with someone and no matter how solid my evidence is, no matter how believable and accurate my facts are, and no matter how much I point out the tiniest flaws in their argument, they refuse to side with me and think how I think or believe what I believe. Being the logical person that I am, this sort of stubbornness just doesn’t make sense to me!

It’s even MORE frustrating because lately we, as Catholics, have been called to a “New Evangelization” to try and get the word out about the Good News of Jesus Christ that’s found in the Catholic Church, the fullness of truth! But it seems that no matter what, I can’t seem to get people to fall in love with the Church, no matter what I do! I can bring them to Youth Group, talk them through the Mass till I’m blue in the face, and even answer their never-ending questions about transubstantiation and the Saints, but at the end of the day, I can never get masses of people to learn to love the Catholic Church!

Better Than the World Cup

Our Arrival in Brazil

Exactly a year ago, I was in the midst of preparing. Preparing for the pilgrimage of a lifetime, and meanwhile, I was dreaming. Dreaming about what Brazil would look like, feel like, smell like, and thinking about all the wonderful things I would experience. But wow, even in the sweetest dream, I couldn’t have dreamt what my experience in Brazil was actually like.
I love hearing all the news and watching all the games of the World Cup. Well first off because it’s an awesome event, and second, it brings me back to when I went to Rio de Janiero, Brazil last year for World Youth Day. When I see all the news coverage and all the places that they show on TV, I miss it. But I don’t only miss the beautiful country of Brazil, I miss my overall experience as a whole.
World Youth day was an event created in 1986 by JP 2 for all the Catholic Youth from all over the world to come together in one central location to celebrate and learn more about the faith. The event has continued to draw catholic youth together every 2-4 years ever since. I could go on and on about all the little details of my experience….seriously forever! We climbed trees to see the pope, slept on the beach, and rode jeeps through the jungle. Oh, and I can’t forget the fact that I was constantly surrounded by millions of my closest Catholic friends from all corners of the earth. There’s a lot to talk about! So email me or message me if you would like to know more, however, I am going to give you a recap of 3 very important things that I got out of my pilgrimage.

Oxymoron

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Note:

Wassup my brothers and sisters? My name is MC. Yes, I do rap. And that’s what this post is about: rapping. But not just any rapping. Catholic rapping. YESSSS! So anyways, the point of this little author note is to give you a heads up on the blog/piece/whatever. I was able to interview the 2Pac of Catholic rap: C2Six for this article I did in English class. The man is a true inspiration. Anyway, I’m showing ya’ll my article/whatever because to me, Catholic Hip-Hop was a major step in my Faith life. It’s a great evangelization tool to reach the youth. Like 65% of youth listen to rap. Imagine if we replaced all the negativity in this music with positive messages… Catholic rap has helped me sooo much. But sadly it’s often overlooked. If anyone is interested, I’ve posted some links at the bottom. Some of the sites have cool Catholic apparel shops (Check out JMJCat3.com for dope hats.) Anyways, I’d love to work with Unleavened Ministries in the again in the future if ya’ll will have me…You guys are awesome. Now to all the readers: You guys are awesome and God loves you! Keep the faith alive! May Mary watch over you! God bless! Viva Christo Rey and AMDG!!

 

The NET challenge: Ten Thousand Dollars, Twelve Short Stories, and Three Months

 

It’s not often that you find yourself writing a story about a cult of evil bananas in order to try to bring people closer to God.

But that, ironically, may be just what I’m doing over the next three months, because I’m raising ten thousand dollars.

This coming school year, I’ve been invited to serve with NET Ministries.
After an intensive five week training program, NET sends 150 young adults in teams of 8-12 across the country to give retreats and share their faith with youth, offering them something better than what they might find in broken homes, unsupportive schools and peers, and cultural pessimism.
In a word, Evangelization. (A big word, but still just a word.) In case you don’t know that word, it basically means to spread Christ’s love, especially through actions and how you live. (In this context.)

I hate to wake up and hear somebody talking about how this kid just committed suicide, or that guy came into school with a gun. It stinks to live in a culture where we just seem to accept insane divorce rates, teenage depression, substance abuse, and twelve year olds addicted to drugs and pornography.

I think you hate it too.

But if we don’t have anything better to offer, we can’t fix the problem at its root.

We do.

My name is Samuel Wong, and I’m going to go travel the country, sing, perform skits, carry furniture, subsist on parish charity(apparently something called “eggbake” is particularly common), and generally make a fool of myself to attack that problem. The problem of people not even knowing who Christ is, not realizing that someone really does love them. I want to share the good news. I want to share how God has worked in my own life.

And you can help.

NET asks us to raise five thousand dollars to cover the costs of lugging someone around the country for nine months. That’s about a hundred retreats, and seven thousand young people reached- -by one single NET team.

Over seventy thousand young people are going to be able to experience a NET retreat this year, and you can help, with any kind of donation, be it money, sharing this with a friend, and especially, prayers.

We aren’t just gonna leave it like that: we’re gonna have some fun.
I pledge to you, the reader, that for every thousand dollars raised, I’ll write an epic short story- if you need an example, check out Death of the Flies.
If you need another example, check out The Worst Decision.
If you need another example go donate so I can post more stories.

When we hit ten thousand dollars, I’ll post an awesome semi-anthology thingy with all ten of those short stories, plus:
Two bonus stories by me.
Two bonus ones by guest authors.
Cool bonus artwork by the Unleavened Ministries’ Olaf.

I think that we can totally do ten thousand dollars.
Don’t just sit there. Click here to donate. (Takes just three quick steps!)

Then share this opportunity with someone else who cares. Because that’s what it’s about.

Thanks for your time,
Sam Wong

P.S. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly at my email, astoolamongchairs@gmail.com ( I read anything and everything you guys send!)

 

Samuel Wong is a homeschooled Senior in Highschool who creates a plethora of evil plots. He enjoys writing stories, eating, and singing badly.

 

UFFT #007 — Flaming Tongues?

The Spirit is all around us, sometimes we just need to know where to look.

“And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.” -Acts 2:2-3 (NABRE)

This weekend I was blessed to have seen an act of the Holy Spirit take place in my midst. I was with a group of other Catholic youth from all across my home diocese and at the end of the day we all gathered to spend some time together in prayer. We all settled into a small room right off of the hall where we were meeting during the day, each of us spending a few minutes in quiet, personal prayer.

After we had all settled down and spent some time ridding ourselves of the stresses of the day, as well as any worries that we had on our minds, two of the adults who were there began to strum on their guitars. Quiet strumming slowly turned into soft singing, which in turn became louder and louder until eventually the whole room was filled with the voices of many people praising the Lord as loudly as they could.