Giving

      I remember as a little girl taking a very small amount of money and putting it in the offering plate at church on Sundays. I think that that was how I realized how churches operate; that churches needed our money to heat the building, to pay the minister and to buy the cookies for after the service. When our girls were small, they too brought a quarter or two to put in the collection--- in fact, it was a very important job to carry the offering plate from Sunday School around to the back of the church and then to proceed up that long aisle in the centre with the adults that were carrying the church collection, and to hand it up to the server to be blessed with everyone else's donation. Our daughters longed for it to be their turn and felt very special when doing it. It was a big, exciting opportunity that probably felt less big and less exciting the older they got or the more they did it....
     Still, some things have not changed. Churches still need our money to heat the building, to pay the minister and buy the cookies. The difference now is that our church holds services four times a week, not just on Sundays, as well as having a daycare in a portion of our church hall five days a week, AA meetings several times a week, music lessons, Girl Guide Meetings, and social services from our local non-profit community resource hub a day a week. We also offer a Senior's Lunch once a month as well as a Baby Cafe' every Friday morning. There are innumerable meetings that go on as well as many other groups and committees, praying, arranging flowers, knitting, studying, cleaning up, having meals, practicing songs and rehearsing music....it truly is endless! And thanks be to God that it is endless because it is doing what churches are supposed to do. According to Google: " A church fundamentally is a community of believers and it exists for worship, fellowship, teaching and service, uniting people to grow spiritually, support one another and share their faith and compassion with the world." How better to do this that to open the church doors wide, as wide as we can and invite this sometimes broken world inside, as often and whenever we can? And we do. This is why I give and will always give whatever I can to our church. Because our church is always giving. My small, regular gift is made so much bigger. And for that I am thankful.

Tuition

     I made our final tuition payment yesterday although I did not frame it in that way in my mind until after I had talked to our younger daughter. It feels good to know that we are in the last of the deadline-filled, stress inducing years and onto something hopefully more relaxing, wider in scope: The Next Chapter. Whether that means further education, finding that elusive job or a gap year of travel, we are pleased with where our daughter is in her life. University years have matured her, made her more resilient and broadened her skills. Dormitory life and then life with roommates has also opened her eyes and shaped her values. We are immensely proud of the adult person our youngest has become over the last five years. It’s such a formative, shape-shifting period and she navigated it with grace and intelligence while also maintaining a terrific long-distance relationship with a wonderful young man. And her marks were good! That is not to say that there weren’t hurdles and challenges; there were some terrible difficulties. But she made it and is still pursuing her last semester with the same energy as she did her first.
   She has also supported herself financially throughout this entire experience except for tuition and I am thrilled that she will start her next phase without any student loan debt hanging over her. It's a luxury that none of us have taken for granted! We were fortunate to have been able to put that money away when the girls were babies and to have family help as well. So not only will it be a new chapter for her, it will be a new one for all of us. And we are thankful, so grateful for all of our blessings, her being one of many....

Oakley

     Who do you pray for? We have a young friend who is battling cancer and whose bone marrow transplant took place about five weeks ago. There are good signs and we are hopeful. He is a boy who is already coping with challenges but who has a brave and strong set of grandparents who do a wonderful job of looking after him. His name has been on my lips for a couple of months now and prayers are said for him constantly, by me and others, at church and at home. We happily attended his and his grandmother's baptism and have thought of him every day since. We miss him but we can imagine him at the hospital, entertaining the nurses with his smart and funny conversation.

     A retired minister who preaches at our church from time to time said last night in his sermon that he was not sure why bad things happened to good people but he was sure what good people do in bad times: they pray, they act, they do what needs to be done. Sometimes it's hard to know what that is. When we heard that our young friend was sick, all we could do was pray. And so we have, day after day.  We hope only that he is healed and with us very soon. See you soon buddy!