Mission and Service

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

Lots of excitement at SPPC on Sunday morning. Our mission team was commissioned for work in the Dominican Republic. They leave on Wednesday, taking with them suitcases filled with medical supplies, children's vitamins, OTC pain relievers and the prayers of the congregation. 

This is the fourth time a team from SPPC has joined with others on the Saanich Peninsula to deliver labour and supplies to the House Upon the Rock Ministry in the Dominican Republic. It would have been our fifth, but for COVID. In 2020 we had a team just days away from travelling with the pandemic hit and international travel was halted. 

For a small and elderly congregation to be able to send so many into a foreign mission field is surely a sign of the Holy Spirit at work. This year's team includes Rev. Irwin, a first for him, and Jerusha, also going for the first time. Joan and Diane are old hands at this, Diane having been on all three previous trips and Joan on two of them.

maternity kits

We can't think about the DR without commending Joan for her bottle recycling committment. Every week she hauls away bags and bags of bottles and cans and cartons to sort, organize and deliver to the recycling centre. The money from this effort has gone a long way to paying for airfare and supplies for our travellers. 

Joan's back yard on collection day

Vitamins, pain relievers

The team is the pointy end of our mission work. The congregation that supports them with cash, gifts in kind, and prayers is the bow that sends them on their way.

The commissioning service on Sunday morning underlined the community aspect of missionary work. Knowing they carry the good wishes and prayers of the congregation strengthens and encourages our team as they head off into a time of hard, physical labour, new connections, shared goals, and an openness to following God's will.

The choir anthem, Consecration, by John Ness Beck, used the words of the old hymn, "Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord to Thee." The poet, Frances Ridley Havergal, offered her all -- her time, her hands, her feet, her voice, her lips, her silver and gold, her intellect, her will, her heart, and her love.  A good summary of what it means to serve the Lord. 

We crave your prayers for our missionaries as they spread the Good News and pitch in as a helping neighbour.

Breaking Bread Together

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

An exciting morning at church on Sunday. Paul and Sharyn Branson, and their children, of House Upon the Rock Ministry, were guests with us. Paul delivered the sermon using faith in action as a theme.

Since our own mission team has only recently returned from their trip to the Dominican Republic, it was a bit of an "old home" weekend for them and the Bransons. 

As SPPC is a keen supporter of  The House Upon the Rock, and has sent mission teams three times to help with their work, you can browse through this blog to find previous posts on various aspects of their ministry, including the medical clinic and sponsorship opportunities.  

Of course, being SPPC, we marked the occasion with lunch after the service. It seems to me I'm writing about shared food week after week on this blog, so I wondered, 

why do we, as a congregation
spend so much time eating together?

• Perhaps it is because we are hungry after a sermon. 
• Perhaps it is because we don't feel like cooking. 
• Perhaps it is because the food is really good.

Or perhaps we are following the practice of the early church, Acts 2:46-47, meeting and eating together.

We are in good company with other congregations. Particularly in rural communities, church suppers are synonymous with fund raising The whole neighbourhood, church member or not, comes to talk and eat and laugh and learn together. Communities are strengthened and the church coffers get a boost.

The scientific world has taken notice of communal dining, especially a research team from Oxford University in England. They found " that the more often people eat with others, the more likely they are to feel happy and satisfied with their lives. ... communal eating increases social bonding and feelings of wellbeing, and enhances one’s sense of contentedness and embedding within the community."

In another study the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) collected from nearly three quarters of the world countries. One of the conclusions of that study was that the truancy rate for fifteen year olds was about 15% throughout the world, but rose to 30% when pupils reported they did not eat meals with their families. 

If we need further proof that the early church got it right when eating together, a Cornell University study of 50 firehouses across a 15-month period found that firefighters who eat together, network and build social relationships around the shared table that greatly bolstered workplace morale and satisfaction. As a result, those who ate together had a vastly superior workplace performance outcome than those who dined alone.

Even without the scientist's research, we know from our pandemic experience that eating alone was among the most forlorn consequences of lock-down.

Breaking bread together has physical and mental benefits for people of all ages. Over a shared meal we tell our stories, build relationships, try new foods, learn from each other, and create bonds of friendship that contribute to our overall quality of life.

On Sunday, we shared a meal together to offer hospitality to Paul and Sharyn. Other times we celebrate a birthday or mark a holiday. Whatever the reason, we thank God for the privilege of sharing wisdom and laughter over a cup of coffee or while sharing a feast.

Give thanks my soul, for harvest, 

For store of fruit and grain;

But know the owner giveth

That we may share again;

Where men are lone and hungry,

Or little children cry,

With gifts from god's rich bounty

May thankfulness reply.

Life at SPPC

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

After looking at the church calendar for May, a friend remarked, "what a busy church." 

At a memorial service on Saturday, one of our stalwart kitchen helpers showed up in running shoes. 😲

So, I took a look at the calendar and discovered they were right. We have been and will be very busy at SPPC over several weeks.

First, we have our regular SPPC events: 

• Service on Sunday mornings including choir and streaming
• Session on the first Wednesday of the month and Bible Study, morning and evening, on the other three (4 in May) 
• 
  Choir practice every Thursday evening
• Worship Committee on Friday morning

Then we have all the congregational extras

• Sunshine lunch on the first Monday of May--our running shoe lady is key to this event
• A presentation from the team that went to the Dominican Republic on Sunday, May 7. There will be a lunch too.
• Mother's Day Cake
• Visit from the leaders of "House Upon the Rock" and lunch
• Food Bank Sunday 
• Memorial services --two in the past three weeks
• Presbytery visit --hours of preparation and two days of meetings
• Friendship Coffee at least once a month
• Bottle collections ongoing with money going to missions
• Volunteer cleaning and grounds-keeping weekly or more
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Other Users -- our facilities are used by other 

                          organizations

• Stratas - Eagle Ridge and Summergate regularly hold meetings in our building. While not a church event, volunteers from the congregation are needed to set up tables, chairs, water jugs, and microphones. Someone has to run the sound system and be on site to answer questions and troubleshoot, then take down the tables, chairs, etc. and lock up the building. 
  
  
  
• Genealogy group meets once a month in the lounge
• Parkinson's support group meets once a month in the whole building
• Jesus is Lord congregation meets every Friday evening and Sunday afternoon in our sanctuary and uses the kitchen. Next Saturday, a special training session will use the building for the whole day. 

I may have missed some events, but I've listed enough to illustrate that our congregation is a-doing, even if we don't all wear running shoes. 

After COVID-19 restricted our communal life, it is a sign of hope that the place is hopping with activity again. 

To conclude this post I considered the hymn "Work for the Night is Coming," but on second thought decided this one was a better choice.   "Many Gifts, One Spirit."

And . . .they're Off!

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

Sunday morning, we commissioned a new mission team to travel to the Dominican Republic. I can't help but remember we did the same thing in March of 2020 only to have everything cancelled by COVID-19.  I guess it is a sign that the pandemic no longer holds us in its grip, that, this time, there is no cancellation. 

For the past several months we've been collecting and storing supplies at SPPC. On Saturday, they were all hauled out and organized in preparation for packing into suitcases on Sunday after service.

The pictures at right show the wealth of school supplies donated by the congregation and the community. 

The pictures below show some of the medical supplies the team are taking to restock the medical clinic in Pedregal. In a lovely bit of synchronicity, many of those items came from the Compassionate Resource Warehouse, an organization that is supported by our congregation. The goal of the CRW is to get supplies to places in the world where they are needed. Often that means paying freight. In this case, our mission team will 

carry the goods in their bags, saving the cost of freight. It's a win-win-win. 

Note the lovingly assembled maternity kits. There is a package for the new baby including diapers, receiving blankets and a knitted cap and toy. A second package contains supplies for the mother, including some of those cotton dish clothes knitted so assiduously by members of our congregation.

I had to include this set of photos. Note the package of Tim Horton's coffee. How Canadian is that?

Volunteers can be few or many, but no one works well on an empty stomach.

There are six people going from SPPC are joining with volunteers from other congregations to form a large team of helpers. 

Packing -- Packed

Like the volunteers before them, our team expects to work to build brick houses, so much more durable than wooden ones, and to assist in the medical clinic. 

We wish them God speed, safe travels and the experience of a lifetime.

To cheer your spirit;

• Last week I dropped my Smile card outside of Thrifty's. When I realized it was missing, I called the store, but without much hope. As it turned out, some honest soul had found the card and turned it in, with the balance intact. How's that for an antidote to the endless bad news on our television sets?
• On Thursday this week, Friendship Coffee will be held at the church at 10:00 am. Come meet old friends, discover new ones, and enjoy a time of fellowship.
• Bible Study resumes at 10:00 am and 7:00 pm on Wednesday

Our mission team is ministering with the House Upon the Rock. To learn more about them follow this link. http://houseupontherock.net/  

Packing for the DR

Our mission team is busy with last minute details for the trip to the Dominican Republic. They've had their shots, found work clothes and shoes that they can leave behind and loaded their suitcases with supplies for themselves and gifts from our community. 

Among the items going from SPPC are over twenty knitted teddy bears -- Hazel has been busy,

44 packages of pencils, along with pens, crayons, notebooks and as many school supplies as can be packed into extra suitcases. 

Clothing and hats of all sizes will be welcome. 

Medicines not easily available in Pedrigal have been purchased and will be used to fill the shelves at the medical clinic there.

Of course, the most precious gift we send is our people. On Sunday morning Benjamin, Darlene, Diane and Joan were commissioned by the minister and congregation to carry not only supplies, but the love of God and the love of this congregation to the people of the Dominican Republic, particularly those associated with the House Upon the Rock Ministry. 

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:35 KJV

We hold these members of our church family in prayer, and commit them to God, praying for their well-being and the success of their work.  We wish them God speed and many wonderful moments on their trip. 
We also pray for their safe return to the embrace of their families and Saanich Peninsula Presbyterian Church.

Pray for Missionaries

by Linda Cliff

If you have been reading this blog over the past 8 months you know that I promised my friend that I would write a blog for her each month.  Over the past month I have read two articles on missionaries and will try to summarize what I have learned.

An article I read in MSC, which is a Canadian Missions based organization, spoke of how missions have changed over the past two decades.  It used to be that if you worked in the mission field you would go to one place overseas in a foreign culture for a long time, usually until retirement.  Today there is generally much less freedom for a missionary to stay in one place long term.  Now creativity is required to even get access into a country and stay for any period of time.  Hence, mission workers must commit for shorter periods of time to a single place.  They may access a country to run a business, work with NGOs and nonprofits, or teach English.  
Some workers serve multiple nations for example in refugee camps or may work cross-culturally here in Canada. 

What hasn’t changed about missions is that even though the world is ever changing people continue to need the Gospel and the changed lives that the Gospel provides when it is embraced. 

Given that Missions are changing with the times, an article from the House Upon the Rock newsletter seemed very timely.  A quote from “Pray for Missionaries” by Global Operations Team has the following suggestions for what we should pray for missionaries.

• Prayer requests
• Love for God
• Genuine Love for Others
• Deeper relationship with God
• Spirit controlled lives
• Fruit of the spirit
• Wisdom and knowledge
• Courage
• Receptive hearts
• Disciples
• A strong faith
• Steadfastness
• A strong family
• Protection
• Material needs
• Health and strength

When I was typing this list I realized that we should be praying for such support for ourselves as well as the missionaries who serve God in the mission field. I encourage you to include SPPC, our minister and our leaders in your prayers.

Dog Days of Summer?

We're having a heat wave.  It's the middle of summer.  We should all be looking for a hammock in the shade.  Instead, our Sunday was a-happening!
During the worship service we had a baptism.  SPPC is delighted to welcome Peter Andrew Napier Whale, into the Church and into the fellowship of this congregation.

A baptism is plenty of reason for excitement, but we had more.  Sharyn  and Paul Branson, of the House Upon the Rock Ministry visited with us.  Paul preached the sermon. 


 After service we had a magnificent lunch.

While we ate, Sharyn presented a slide show, and talked of  their work in the Dominican Republic. 

Their visit was extra special to the members of our congregation who have gone on mission trips to the Dominican Republic.

Since Friendship Community Church has spearheaded those mission trips, we invited that congregation to join us for lunch. Their service ends an hour later than ours, but there was plenty of food for all.  

Of course, a great lunch doesn't happen without the kitchen brigade. 

While mortals may look at summer as a time of relaxation, the Holy Spirit is always at work.  Romans 6:3, 1Thessalonians 1:6, Romans 15:13, 1 Corinthians 2: 10-13