For the second year now, our Pickering community has served hot chocolate with sprinkles and a “Merry Christmas!” at the City of Pickering’s Winter Nights, City Lights event.

In June, Youth Pastor Brent Baggett took 15 students to downtown Toronto for Youth: REMIX, a five-day event for youth to practically experience and learn how to live missionally, connect with others, and share the good news in the streets of Toronto.

According to Youth Pastor Brent Baggett, youth needed to raise $13,500 to make it happen, and God answered – through a large bake sale, donations, and a few sponsors, Sanctus Youth raised over $21,000 in funds to cover the cost of the trip for everyone who signed up. The rest of the funds will carry over to next year’s trip.

“The first time I went, I described it as life-changing, and I would say the exact same thing now,” said Mackayla Holt, who attended in 2024’s REMIX trip and decided to go again to “learn as much as possible” about missional practices, and building upon the strong friendships she gained in the trip last year.

“I got so close to my friends on that trip, and it’s felt like I’ve had kind of an inseparable bond with specific people ever since,” Mackayla said. “God truly did move in miraculous and transformative ways for everyone that attended.”

Each day of the trip followed three steps: training in the morning, a missional experience in the afternoon, and an evening of worship.

”On the 2nd full day, we went to the Westwood Mall in Mississauga, and we met a man named Brother Richard, and Brother Richard has become a big inspiration for all of us because he was so on fire about the gospel,” Mackayla said, “he wasn’t scared at all. He would go up to people and he’d just be smiling because he’d be like, ‘This is the good news, brother.’”

Many youth take part in powerful worship and transformational moments, Brent says, including one moment during last year’s REMIX trip – as he lay exhausted during one of the trip’s many prayer nights.

“And this might sound crazy, but I could see Jesus in the room, and I watched Jesus go up to each student, and He was interacting with each student in a unique way.” Brent said. “In my mind’s eye, as I could see Him, I realized by about the third student that maybe I should write this down – because this seems to be something.”

Brent said he told every student about the interactions afterwards and realized the Lord was meeting each student exactly where they were at in life, and guiding them in their journey as Christians.

“Pastor Brent came up and he had like a word for everybody in our youth group who was there, and I feel like everybody’s just matched so well, it was mind blowing,” said Charis Strong, who went on both REMIX trips, “Mine was like: ‘God loves you like a dad is proud of His little girl and it’s her birthday, and He’s like throwing her up in the air because He’s so happy that she’s His daughter and that that was like, wow, how could Brent have known how perfect that was?”

According to Charis, she spent the night before asking if God loved her, and learning how much God He was willing to show me how much He loved her was “life-changing.”

“I was overflowing with God’s love and ever since then, for like, months and months, I was excited. I got butterflies in my stomach because I was like, wow, God loves me so much.”

Out of the 15 students who attended the 2025 trip, 5 of them now want to be baptized, Brent says.