Whew! September

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

After our summer holiday, September swept through the church timetable like a whirlwind. It seems every weekend held some event that involved refreshments. Just this past Sunday was a birthday cake for Emily as she celebrates 99 years.

kitchen crew

On Tuesday, our church plays host to Presbytery, including a lunch. Many thanks to our hard-working volunteers in the kitchen who provide squares, make sandwiches, simmer soup, set out table decorations and keep the coffee pots full, time after time.

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Also on the calendar this week, is the all candidates meeting on Wednesday. For this one we only need to set out the water jugs, not make coffee, etc.  If you are a voter in North Saanich you might like to come and listen to the candidates for mayor and council lay out their vision for the future of our area. Now that municipal elections only come around every four years it is easy to lose track of who is in and who is out, not to mention who's on first.  The meeting starts at 7:00 pm.

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As Hurricane Fiona has devastated  Canada's east coast, the Government of Canada announced that over the next month, it will match donations given to the Red Cross. Our maritime family needs our love, our prayers and our resources as they sort through the rubble that was their homes and towns.

Fortunately, the storm mostly spared Pedregal in the Dominican Republic, home of the Church Upon the Rock Ministry that SPPC supports. When we send a mission team to the DR, that is where they go.  Sharon reports:

We are inland, in the mountains and our province was in the red zone of the storm.  We had so much rain. So very much rain.  Hard, heavy rains for about 15 hours.  In our area, we had minimal winds but some people near the rivers had some flooding.  We have three rivers in our area and they really rose. 

We have a little creek on our property that usually at this time of year is about 18 inches wide and maybe 2 inches deep.  Yesterday, it was a full flowing river.  In our area, everything is very wet but no major damage. 

During the storm, about 5 km from our home, a young man died a freak accident when a tree fell on top of him as he was riding his motorcycle on the main road.

On the mountain highway, there is no waterfall but yesterday there was a waterfall, about 3 feet wide coming down the mountain onto the highway. 

An overpass collapsed on the main highway at the bottom of our mountain road, about 20 km from us.

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Here, in beautiful British Columbia, we continue to enjoy God's gift of sunny days and cool nights. Let us give thanks.