Hello everybody!
My name is Sebastien Saber, and I am in my second year of Electrical Engineering at the University of Ottawa. I was born and raised here in Ottawa. Whenever I have free time, I enjoy watching movies or shows, often with friends or family, going on bike rides, especially near the Ottawa River or anything surrounded by nature!
I first heard about CCO during my second semester in first year through a friend and was honestly unsure about joining as I was not really involved in faith much anymore. I grew up raised Catholic, specifically Maronite and never really felt any connection to faith. Some of that influence was that I never really understood scripture as it was being spoken out in a language I did not speak. I was often told to do things a certain way because we must, but never got an explanation as to why it is a must, so everything always seemed unclear to me. I knew, however, that many of my values have not changed over the years and many still aligned with the teachings of Jesus, so I set myself forward and perused what I thought was simply a study to learn more about Jesus and oh was I wrong. This seemingly small first step ended up changing me inside out, I rediscovered Jesus like never before. Never thinking it possible, CCO has guided me into accepting Jesus into the center of my life.
Why do I want to be on Mission?
I want to go on this mission to experience what life is like committing my entire days to Jesus. That to me is so important, because at the end of October I went on a Fall Retreat with CCO, where we talked a lot about personal prayer and how to develop our relationship with Jesus. I had heard many things about these retreats, and I went to it not thinking anything would happen to me. The second the retreat was over, and I went back to my regular day-to-day life is when I realized the impact it had on me. One of those impacts lead me to lead a discovery lesson this semester and originally, I never thought I would this early on, but here it happened. I never thought I would enjoy leading one, but so far it has been one of my favorite experiences. Looking back at myself 5–10 years ago, never would I have thought to see myself getting back into faith let alone preach it/lead others. That being said, I have a similar attitude towards mission. I might not currently see what’s in store for me, but I believe that the proper way to find out is by experiencing mission.
