Happy Thanksgiving

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

Thanksgiving and gratitude are a daily part of our Christian practice, but on the second weekend of October, we celebrate the harvest and the abundance bestowed by our bountiful God.
We decorate the communion table with the fruits of harvest. We sing thanksgiving hymns, we know all the words, and we rejoice in the providence of our God. It is a joyful time of worship.

Getting it just right

As usual, this year, the table was decorated with gifts from the garden and the orchard -- a bushel of apples, a dozen quince, corn stalks, dried grasses, zucchini (!), squash and pumpkins -- as well as fall flowers and preserved food. It's enough to make a body hungry just looking at it. 

Flowers in memory

Clean up finishes the decor

But, there was no excuse for being hungry this year because we had a full turkey dinner on offer on Saturday afternoon. Soup, turkey, duchesse potatoes, turnip casserole, corn, carrots -- plus all the trimmings and dessert. What a feast! 

There were places for forty guests and we had 36 turn out. 

Testing the soup

Many hands make light work

Setting a beautiful table

Welcome to the table

Joy of fellowship

Pumpking mousse for dessert

Many thanks to Pam for her organizing, cooking, planning and delegating, at this first of what may become a tradition. Thanks to her crew for following orders and seeing to it that dinner was served hot and plentiful.

And thanks also to the folk who came to the table, sharing time, sharing food, sharing stories, sharing the love of God with each other. Full stomachs are only the beginning of Thanksgiving. Full hearts, comforted spirits, hands around the table, these things fill the soul.

One more reason to give thanks this year. Our clerk of session, Janet, is now a great grandmother. Congratulations to Felicity and Ian on the birth of a baby girl, Amelia. Thanks be to God.

Hosanna

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

 Despite hail stones in the   parking lot on Saturday and   snow on the Malahat Sunday,   Easter is coming. We began   Holy Week with Palm Sunday.   On this "high" Sunday, the   choir  presented a rousing   anthem, we celebrated the

 Lord's Supper and received two sisters-in-Christ into membership of the congregation. 

Declaration of Faith

Extending the right hand of fellowship.

Relaxing over a cup of coffee with a couple of Elders after the service.

Linda has been at work in the flower beds again. She asks if anyone has extra heather or lavender plants they could donate. If that is you, please see Linda on Sunday or leave a message in the church office.

Next Sunday we celebrate Easter with an early service (8:00 am) in Cy Hampson Park. We meet rain or shine so dig out your brollies or your sunscreen and join us for a 'sunrise' service.  Breakfast will follow at the church and then our regular Easter Sunday service at 10:00 am. Please join us as we raise our Hallelujah's to the Risen Lord.

Music for a Summer's Night

 The link for this week's service is here

Raven Baroque (Larry's instrumental group) has had a busy concert week, and Thursday, they entertained at SPPC. The one's in fancy dress are the regular players in the group. They were augmented by a couple of guests.

The program included pieces by Albinoni, Corelli, Pergolese, Scarlatti, Handel, Vivaldi and Purcell, the rock stars of the Baroque Age. Kate Rhodes, who plays violin in the group, also sang a couple of songs. Worshippers at SPPC will recognize her from her guest appearance on a Sunday morning this summer. 

We didn't get much rain on Saturday but it was enough to give a little relief to the parched earth. Despite the heat and drought, we've enjoyed lovely flower arrangements from Norma's garden all summer long. I hope the rain extends the life of her plants and those flowers continue to brighten our sanctuary and our worship. 

At the church, Linda continues to work away at the flowerbeds. This summer it has been hot, hot work. Tore has increased watering times on the automatic sprinklers to try to keep things alive. 

Gardeners love to share and Linda has received offers of plants from other people's gardens. If you have lavender or heather or other ground cover you'd like to donate to the church landscape, she would love to have them. Anything that requires lots of maintenance is regretfully declined. 😀Speak to her any Sunday or give her a call.

When I heard the raindrops on the roof Saturday night, my mind flew instantly to Mendelssohn's "Elijah." It contains a wonderful chorus, "Thanks be to God, He laveth the thirsty land." We didn't get the gathered, rushing waters Elijah witnessed but thanks be to God, for the rain we did receive.

In the third year of drought, God sent Elijah to Ahab. Read

1 Kings 18, 41- 46

In all things...

by Alice Valdal

This year, wherever two or three gardeners are gathered together the talk inevitable turns to the disappointing yields this year.  The litany of complaint is loud and long.  Miserable spring, cold July, no bees, marauding deer, slugs, no sun.  I complain with the best of them, often leading the chorus.  Here it is, the end of summer and my tomatoes are still green.

In previous years, my plum tree has yielded bushels of fruit.  This year, I've got a niggardly offering that won't full one ice cream bucket.  I was ready to write off the garden as a complete failure, and then I found the blackberries. 

The bushes are laden, the berries sweet and juicy and huge!  Best of all they require little effort to grow and maintain.  I can't help considering the blackberry bushes along the roadsides as an example of God's grace.  We label them "noxious weed."  We cut them down, plough them under, trample them over.  We strip them of fruit and hack at the vines, then turn our backs and ignore them.  Yet, year after year, the blackberries shower the ungrateful with abundance, fruit fit for kings, there for the taking, no questions asked, no one excluded.


When I look at the failures and successes in my garden, I am reminded of Paul's message to the Thessalonians, In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.