Dear Church Family,
The newsletter came out this week and I will not duplicate all that information. I do hope that you will take on the “Walk from Syria” challenge and will invite friends and neighbours to do so as well.
I do want to share some insights from Friday’s town hall with Bishop Sid and Pastor Ali. We will be worshiping on-line at least until the end of February and likely longer. There is hope ahead, but the need to be careful remains. A number of the participants in the town hall expressed the fear that people would not return to church when the pandemic is over. Bishop Sid reminded us that the church tends to do poorly when it is rich, but thrives when it experiences adversity. I would, once again, like to remind us that the church is not a building, it is the people. Many voices spoke to this anxiety and the common theme was to trust that God walks with us now and in the time to come.
I am glad we are talking about this anxiety. This week many have added the phrase “Let’s talk” to their facebook icon and it is good to talk about mental illness. It’s good to talk about what bothers us, it’s good to talk about fears and anxiety. Partly it’s good because then these things no longer hold the power of secrecy over us. And partly it’s good to have a listening ear to help us wade through our thoughts and make some sense of them. I hope you have some good listening ears in your life. Parish Nurse Carol and I are also good listening ears.
Information from our Sask Synod town hall also highlighted that the high numbers of covid right now are driven by youth and young adults. I don’t want to minimize the stress of pandemic and isolation for those who are older, but I think the younger generation is dealing with some unique daunting challenges. For one thing this pandemic has taken over a greater part of their lives. If you are 10 years old this pandemic has been part of almost 1/10th of your life. Those of us on the other end of the age spectrum have more life experience to balance that out. However, all ages are united in our need for kindness and care. Given that, your assignment this week is to contact someone from a different generation to offer your kindness and care.
In Christ,
Pastor Marilyn
Link for worship this week: https://youtu.be/amovEUjRvHQ
Worship by Phone: 1-306-205-1168