Our Good News

 The link for this week's live-streamed service is here

The scriptures warn us against gossip, but they also direct us to build up and encourage one another. This week's blog is intended to build up, celebrate and encourage.

The clock pictured at left won first prize for Peter in an Island-wide carpentry contest. He used cherry, birch and black walnut to construct the timepiece. The contestants were given six hours to complete the project. Peter, being Peter, was finished well before the allotted time and spent the rest of the hours helping others. Congratulations, Peter on your prize-winning effort and for being a great guy.

    Mary's granddaughter was married recently at the foot of Mt. Robson. The bride wore a white gown, her sister's veil and hiking boots.

    Max is finally finished university. Since he did a co-op program it feels like he's been studying forever. But, now he has a month between the end of class and the beginning of his job so is taking advantage of the break to explore in Europe. He has been to Paris and Barcelona and has more destinations planned, Thanks to the marvels of modern media he is able to walk the streets of European capitals and talk with his family in Saanichton at the same time. In fact, Diane and Peter were a few minutes late on Sunday morning because they were talking with Max.

    Linda is back from her Alaska cruise. She claims the weather there was better than here but she still wore her parka. Even on a cruise ship they couldn't escape the realities of our world. As the ship came closer to the border with Russia she noticed heightened security. Sometimes we forget how close Russia is on our North Western border. She also remarked on the "internationality" of glaciers. They watched one that was half in US waters and half in Canadian.

    The Smith family celebrated Josh and Emily's engagement with a lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. They were engaged at the end of December and the wedding, with Irwin officiating, will take place in September, but they delayed the celebratory lunch until April owing to Ruth's cancer treatments. 

    Ruth is doing well now after 6 months of treatment for cancer. 
November to December was her surgery and healing process and then in January she started her radiation and chemo treatments. She has now been back at work for 3 weeks. 

    Gladys is home again and enjoying the company of her cat and watching the birds in the garden. With all this rain, the worms must be easy pickings.

    On the baseball front, Peter was called in as closer in a 7-6 game. He pitched nine strikes to give his team the win. 

    Pam is taking a break from her kitchen renovations to visit her daughters over the next couple of weeks. We'll miss her in the choir but wish her safe journey.

    Larry was away last week at his granddaughter's wedding in Ontario. He lucked out with the weather. The temperature was in the low 20's and they left just as the blackflies began to swarm.

    This Thursday, May 19, Friendship Coffee will be held in the hall. It's a great opportunity to catch up with your friends at SPPC. I can't report all the news here. 😀

   

On Sunday morning this cutout greeted us in the narthex. Gave some of us quite a start! It is a very visual reminder of the "street party" that will be held in the church parking lot on Saturday, June 4 in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. The event is intended for the entire neighbourhood, not just our congregation. So keep your fingers crossed for good weather (we'll move inside if it's raining) and plan to come and celebrate our Queen's amazingly long reign.