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Jessie’s Story
Learn more about the impact the NET missionaries are making on young people in Australia through Jessie’s story.
Dear Friend of NET, Jessie clearly remembers the moment when her grandfather died on March 22, 2021. She was very close to him and to her extended family spread around the Darwin area, especially her Nana who she describes as her best friend. When she lost her grandfather, it felt like a piece of her heart was missing.
Little did she know that his passing would be a gateway to the big questions of life. These questions would lead her, two days later, to being on a retreat that her school, MacKillop College, had asked the Darwin NET team to attend.
Jessie had a very normal childhood growing up in Darwin, NT with her mum, dad, and younger sister. She was an active child who loved gymnastics and hanging out with her friends.
When Jessie was 9 her parents got divorced. Now 17 and in Grade 12, she recalls this as one of the defining moments of her life. As a 9-year-old she didn’t really understand what was happening, but within a year life kind of settled down to some kind of normal until her dad moved away to Victoria when she was 12.
“When my dad first left it was really hard on me because I was really close with my Dad and him leaving and starting a new life with a new family was SO challenging. It affected everyone in my family, but it hit me really hard. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, you’re really just leaving me like that.’ It felt like he wasn’t supporting me as much because he wasn’t there. I was heart-broken, sad, confused, angry… I didn’t fully understand. I was shocked. Why was this happening to me?! It felt like it came out of nowhere because it all seemed to happen behind closed doors.”
After her Dad left for Victoria, Jessie began dealing the pain of this experience in unhealthy ways. The hurt she was experiencing led to her falling in with the wrong crowd in year 9 at her previous high school. She was skipping class and getting into all kinds of trouble at home.
“At the end of Year 9 I went through this really rough patch where I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care about school, I didn’t care about a job, I didn’t really care about anything… I was so undisciplined about everything. Looking back now I can see that I made life really hard for my mum. She was now a single mum and trying to work everything out without my dad around, and then she had to figure out how to discipline me on top of everything she was already doing.”
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In the middle of Year 9 Jessie really hit what she would describe as a low point in her life. She knew that she didn’t want to continue down the path that she was on, but she had no idea how she was going to manage to change her behaviour while she was still hanging out with the same friends. She decided that she needed to do something drastic, so in the August of Year 9 she decided to move to Victoria with her Dad.
“I made that decision on my own. My mom didn’t make that decision or suggest it, my dad didn’t suggest it, I just decide that I didn’t want to be that person anymore. None of my family is religious, I was never baptised or anything, and I didn’t grow up with any faith, but I still knew that what I was doing was wrong, and I wanted to change. I wanted to be someone different and make something of my life.”
Through the back end of Year 9 and the first half of Year 10, in 2018, Jessie lived with her Dad in Victoria. She started two part time jobs, focused on her studies, and tried to live her life very differently than how it had been going in Darwin. She consciously let go of her troublesome relationships with the kids at her previous high school and was careful about who she hung around with at her new school.
As Year 10 progressed, Jessie got more and more homesick. She missed her mum and her sister, and she decided that she was going to move back to Darwin in August. When she returned to Darwin, she decided to move high schools to avoid her old friends and she started attending MacKillop Catholic College in August of Year 10.
In hindsight, it worked! Her year in Victoria had done exactly as she had hoped; it acted as a circuit breaker from her old friendship group and the person that she was when she was around them. She also found that when she came back that she was a very different person. Her priorities had shifted, she found that she cared about things again and her motivation for life had returned. She had never been to a Catholic school before and found that she was intrigued by the religious education that she was receiving at MacKillop.
Your gift will help young people in Australia like Jessie hear the message of the Gospel.
Visit netministries.com.au/support-us/ and donate today
Life back in Darwin in Year 11 was busy! Jessie who loves fitness was going to the gym most days before school, working hard on her assignments, working at Macca’s most days after school and still managing to maintain a social life. But she was never too busy to visit her Nana and Grandpa and have a coffee, a catchup, and maybe a sneaky shopping trip with Nana.
That was until Year 12 and the of March this year when her grandpa died. He passed away on a Saturday and then on Tuesday of that week she found herself on her Year 12 retreat with MacKillop College. Helping to facilitate the retreat was the Darwin NET Team and Tammy Botha, a NET Alumnus, and the Campus Minister at MacKillop College.
On Thursday, Jessie left the retreat to attend her grandfather’s wake and then came back later that day.
“When the retreat came along, hearing the NET team share their stories made me understand my faith more deeply and made feel something stirring inside of me.”
Jessie didn’t exactly know what the stirring was, but she had this feeling that her grandfather was somehow still with her and that he was leading her to something.
She knew that she needed to talk to someone about it. So, on Thursday night, she grabbed Elise, the female Team Leader of the Darwin NET team, and Tammy and started sharing her heart with them.
“I realised that day on retreat as I was struggling to process my grandfather’s death that I wanted to have faith, that maybe I had faith all along. When I spoke to Elise and Tammy it was like this weight was lifted off my shoulders. They were such good listeners and they had such amazing advice for me. I wanted to make Jesus a bigger part of my life, but I didn’t really know how, and I had so many questions like, ‘what’s happening with my grandpa now? How do I pray? How do I get involved with my faith? They didn’t give me cliché answers, they actually took the time to explain to me what prayer is and that there’s so many different ways to pray. It wasn’t just like, ‘kneel down and talk to God,’ but they described to me in-depth, in a way that I could understand, what prayer is actually like. I really needed that because I didn’t have any kind of faith background. After this, they took the time to pray with me right then and there. They didn’t just leave it up to me but prayed out loud with me and showed me what prayer could be like. That moment was amazing!”
Your gift today will help support Netters like Elise in their mission so that young people like Jessie can hear the life-changing message of the
Gospel. Visit
netministries.com.au/support-us/ and donate today
After that moment with Elise and Tammy, Jessie returned to her room where she was staying with her best friend, Grace. Although Grace and Jessie had known each other since they were 3, they had lost contact through middle school until they reconnected in Year 10 when Jessie moved back to Darwin. Jessie knew that Grace had faith in her life, but they hadn’t really talked about it much. That night they stayed up late into the night talking about faith. Jessie didn’t really know anyone else that had faith as something important in their life, so she was so grateful that she could now share this aspect of her life with Grace.
“Since the retreat I’ve been journaling and praying a lot at night-time. My life is so busy, so when I have 10 mins just to sit down and connect with myself and God it’s so peaceful. I really want keep learning more about my faith and keep praying. I’m so much more open-minded now about spirituality and I’m excited to keep taking this journey of faith! I’m so grateful to Elise and Tammy and the whole Darwin NET Team for what they did for me on that retreat.”
For me, this story demonstrates so many principles that helps NET teams be effective in their mission. Young people need regular formation from their families, their schools, and their parishes if our Catholic faith is going to be passed on to the next generation. NET provides this in such a practical and powerful way for young people, both the students that our teams minister to like Jessie, and the missionaries themselves, generous young adults like Elise and Tammy.
Our team members walk beside and build relationships with young people, answering their questions about the faith in a way they can understand, and even more importantly, showing them that what faith looks like lived out on a daily basis. It’s in this place, in the context of relationship, that true evangelisation takes place.
Although the global pandemic has slowed us down, it has not stopped us, and we remain on mission! We are more committed than ever to proclaiming the Gospel message in a way that is compelling and relevant for young people of all ages.
We need your support to continue to bring our Catholic faith to more and more young people. Please consider a life-changing gift in support of Australian young people today!
God Bless,
Mark Doyle
Executive Director
PS: Your gift will help young people in Australia hear the message of the Gospel.
Visit http://netministries.com.au/support-us/ and click ‘Donate Now’ today!
PPS: If you would prefer not to donate online, please mail back the form on the bottom of the next page or call us on 07 3217 5299 and you can make your donation over the phone. Every donation, no matter how big or small, goes to our vital mission.