LIVONIA — Jenifer Cwiek knows the effect a NET retreat can have on young persons, because she experienced one when she was an eighth-grader preparing for confirmation.
“They are on fire and they are passionate,” she says about the young adults — post-high school through mid-20s — who conduct the retreats.
Now, at 19, Cwiek’s been selected to be one of the 120 young adults — and the only one from Michigan — who will devote nine months to conducting retreats for young persons in Catholic parishes and schools in 90 dioceses around the country.
“I love sharing my faith,” says Cwiek, who already teaches sixth-grade catechism at her parish, St. Genevieve in Livonia.
She is currently a student at Schoolcraft Community College in Livonia, and plans to transfer to Madonna University to earn a bachelor’s degree in gerontology. Having gotten a half-year ahead in her coursework, Cwiek says she should still complete the degree in a total of four years, despite the time taken to be part of the NET ministry.
She will head to Minnesota in late August for two weeks of training before being assigned to one of the 10 teams that will travel the country in 12-passenger vans, conducting retreats and staying with host families.
Like all other NET team members, she will be allowed one suitcase and one backpack for her belongings.
NET stands for National Evangelization Teams, and the ministry is was founded in 1981. Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis, a former Detroit auxiliary bishop, is president of its board of directors.
Cwiek tells how she was originally raised without any faith and had never been baptized, and only started going to church after she was adopted, at age 10, by Jerry and Linda Cwiek: “They took me to church every week, so I figured I’d better get used to it.”
But one day, while she was still 10, she was taken along on a visit to her aunt, Kim Cwiek, parish secretary at St. Anselm, Dearborn. There she came across a book that would change her life.
“I fell in love with the faith after reading St. Therese’s book,” she says of the effect the message of the “Little Flower” had on her.
That was followed by baptism, and Cwiek has been involved in parish youth groups ever since.
Linda Cwiek says her daughter has had “a lot of good Catholic role models” in their family, and notes that Jenifer’s brother Brian is a seminarian at Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
She adds that she is confident her daughter will do a great job as a member of a NET Ministries team.
Fr. Howard Vogan, St. Genevieve’s pastor, is very enthusiastic about Net Ministries: “When you see how the kids react, you can’t help being impressed with them.”
And he is also predicted Cwiek will be very effective as a NET evangelization team member. “She is an example of quiet leadership; she’s soft-spoken, but her example speaks very loudly,” he says.
Fr. Vogan says Cwiek has been a key member of the combined post-high school youth group of St. Genevieve and its cluster partner, St. Maurice Parish. And while the group does have social events, he credits Cwiek’s influence as one of the reasons its primary focus is on prayer.
He further notes that the group keeps up with all the former St. Genevieve and St. Maurice high-schooolers who are now away at college, getting them together regularly for prayer via the Internet-based audio-visual communications tool Skype.
Cwiek is also responsible for the large presence of St. Genevieve members at the Wednesday night Mass and pizza get-togethers at the Gabriel Richard Center in Dearborn, the campus ministry center for Henry Ford Community College and the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Fr. Vogan adds.
But while Cwiek passed her audition for the NET program with flying colors, she still has one hurdle to get over — NET members must each raise $4,200 in donations to offset some of the cost of maintaining them while they engage in the ministry.
Fr. Vogan is going to have her speak at all four Masses the weekend of Aug. 6-7, in the hopes that St. Genevieve parishioners will be generous. But it is anticipated that additional contributions may be necessary.
Those wishing to contribute to help Jenifer Cwiek raise the $4,200 she needs to participate, may do so online at www.netusa.org/donate/ or by telephone at (651) 450-6833, making sure to mention her name, or by sending a check payable to NET Ministries with Jenifer Cwiek on the memo line to 110 Crusader Ave. W., West St. Paul, MN 55118-4427.
