Wasn't That a Party?

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

What a party! 

The organizers worried all week about the weather, but the rain stopped and the clouds lifted mid-morning so we set up outside. 

Then at 3:00 pm just as we were getting underway, the English weather rolled in and we had to move the food and the musicians inside. still, many hardy souls chose to stay outside under our liquid sunshine.

Very hard to estimate the numbers who attended when we were so scattered about but we think maybe 150. 

We had folk visiting from England and from the USA. 

Members of the Commonwealth Society came by. An enthusiastic  monarchist from Colwood, brought her daughter to enjoy the fun and food. And there was lots and lots of food!

We even had a stand-in royal corgi!

The cut-out image of Her Majesty got nearly as many photos as the real thing.

The party ran from 3:00 - 5:00 but the work began weeks ago and when the guests went home the clean up crew went into action.

Note the morning working outfit and the fancy dress for the clean-up!

I think is is fair to say, a good time was had by all. God Save the Queen!

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 Sunday morning we bid farewell to one of our brothers-in-Christ. Archie is moving to Calgary where his family eagerly await his arrival. We will miss Archie's big smile and twinkling eyes, but we all wish him well in this new phase of his life. 

The teddy bear is to give and receive hugs -- just like Archie.

Fare thee well, Archie, and may the Lord watch between me and thee, while we are absent one from the other. Gn: 31:49

Back to the Blue Bus

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

On Sunday, SPPC hosted the Mobile Outreach of Youth for Christ in Greater Victoria, otherwise known as The Blue Bus. This ministry serves kids and teens on the Esquimalt, Quw’utsun, Tsawout, and Tseycum First Nations and has received support from our congregation for years. That support often takes the form of cookies and snacks for the after school programs, -- and prayer, always. 

Kurt Friesen has succeeded Rick Wismer ad the program director (and driver) of the Blue Bus. He delivered the sermon on Sunday morning and answered questions during a lunch put on by our Missions Committee, and on the bus. 

No matter which committee at the church puts on a lunch,  our congregation always responds well to the offer of food! 

Learn more about the blue bus ministry here

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Get out your fascinator and your best British recipe for the "street party" in our parking lot on Saturday. Officialdom in Canada has largely ignored this milestone in Queen Elizabeth II's reign so SPPC has stepped into the breach with a celebration for her Majesty. It's a street party, not a tea party, so no need for your best bib and tucker but we encourage red, white and blue. Bring a plate of finger food to share (British recipes encouraged) and come on down. The party starts at 3:00 pm and is strictly come-and-go so set your own timetable. All are welcome. We hope the whole neighbourhood will take advantage of the occasion.

There will be music but no speeches. 

We hope for good weather, but will meet inside the church if the wind and rain are lashing -- of course, that's just good English weather, right? 

Watch her coronation

May Happenings at SPPC

 

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

Remember all those supplies we gathered in March for the Compassionate Resource Warehouse, bound for Ukraine? Thanks to Brian and Vivien we've received this report.

CRW UPDATE

Our POLAND-UKRAINE load was finished shortly before 6 pm today.
Over the last few days, some of the building supplies were loaded as they were delivered. This helped to have space inside the warehouse, and greatly reduced our loading time today. An amazing load of supplies-- plywood, sinks, doors, windows, crates of tools, plus so much more.

The back boxes of diapers were all collected and stored at Soap for Hope. They gathered these during our drive a few weeks ago. They still have more to share with future loads but they do make a colourful back door opening! Thank you Soap for Hope.

To all who have worked so hard, I hope you sleep well tonight, and tomorrow night and the next. This has been a heavy go and some very heavy days.

I am looking forward to seeing just how much this container weighs!

The consignee is already thrilled and excited to receive the load.
Thank you everyone.

This is good news indeed. However, they do not indicate they they are ready yet to receive further donations.  So we will keep checking to find out when this happens. -- Brian and Vivien

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The big wind on Wednesday did a little pruning on our the big cedar tree in the parking lot! Luckily no one was standing nearby when it happened, sometime between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm. 

It's all cleaned up now and turned into a pile wood. 

Thursday was Friendship Coffee. Good to see so many people out enjoying a visit and some goodies. I was especially pleased to see Kathy out and about and sounding like herself again. She hopes to come to service on Sunday.

      During Bible Study on Wed. morning we talked about worship as gathering together in "holy expectation." While we have all been glad of the opportunity to "attend" worship through the on-line streaming, we have missed the gathering together. 

 

Don't forget to mark your calendars for June 4, when SPPC hosts a Platinum Jubilee "street party" in the parking lot in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's seventy years on the throne. Check out the Peninsula News Review story.  We are on page A-4.

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.

 

Mother's Day post-Covid

 

Cake for Mother's Day

On Saturday there was a memorial service at SPPC. We celebrated a sister in Christ, a mother, a grandmother and a friend. On Sunday, we marked Mother's Day. The juxtaposition of these two services may seem odd but they were in fact complementary.

On Saturday we heard of a woman who loved and was loved by her family. She offered them fun and adventure, wisdom and nurture, encouragement and discipline -- sometimes at the end of a wooden spoon. Despite the tales of pranks and mishaps the important  memories were those of a happy family and their mother. It was an uplifting service. One to honour a woman of faith.

There are many mothers mentioned in the Bible, --Hannah, Rebekah, Naomi, Elizabeth -- but two stand out to me. 

• Sarah, who laughed at God's promise, and became the mother of a nation in her old age. Genesis 21. 
• Mary, the teenager, who bowed her head and declared "be it unto me according to Thy word," and became the mother of Jesus. Luke 1: 26-38. Despite living in a patriarchal society, these women were chosen to be instruments of God.

Scripture also uses maternal metaphors to describe God. In Hosea 13:8 God is described with the fierceness of a mother bear defending her cubs. In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we find the reference to a mother hen gathering her chicks beneath her wings, sheltering them from danger, keeping them warm on a cold night. 

While the Presbyterian Church in Canada recognizes the second Sunday of  May as Christian Family Day, a more inclusive concept, we all know it is really Mother's Day. We offer special prayers for mothers and others who fill that role. Those who nurture the young and care for the sick and elderly. Those who guide and teach and give of themselves. Those who pray for peace in the world. 

So, the service of remembrance for a beloved mother held so close to Mother's Day is fitting. May God bless all mothers and all families, especially those who are missing their mom this week.

Busy Bees

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

waiting for the bus

We've had a busy week at SPPC. After two years of avoiding the virus and each other, we moved back to normal with a vengeance.

On Friday, to celebrate our first no mask trip since the outbreak of Covid, the Fellowship Committee organized a bus trip on Friday to the Imax to see the movie "Ireland."

Fourteen people indicated their intention to come but the day before four people cancelled because of Covid!
Any how, nine of us caught the bus to the Imax.
Once there we were joined by another 5 people and so we were up at fourteen people again! 
The movie was wonderful and enjoyed by us all.

Following the movie, 10 of us went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch before returning to the bus back to Sidney.

                                                                        -- Janet S

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On Saturday, there was a cleaning bee in the morning. Again, fourteen people showed up to "sweep the Lord's House clean." We did more than sweep! We dusted and vacuumed and moved furniture and scrubbed the Venetian blinds. Rev. Irwin cleared all the excess from the pulpit and gave it a scrub with Murphy's Wood Soap. 

The storage area in the Molloy Hall was emptied so the spider webs hiding in corners were cleaned out. Tore filled gouges in the walls and touched up the repairs with a bit of paint. Door knobs, light switches and baseboard heaters got extra attention. Pam did yeoman's duty in the washrooms.

For a small space, the quiet room sure has a lot of hidden corners. This shot of the space behind the couch is an example. 

To be fair, that couch weighs a ton. It took four people to push it around. On the other hand, we found a dime so the church's coffers were enriched by ten cents.

With so many helping hands the work was accomplished by lunch time. And there was plenty of laughter to go with the coffee and cookies set out to fortify the labourers. 

Huge thanks to all who toiled. A volunteer effort only works if there are volunteers! If you weren't able to come this time, I'm sure there will be other opportunities.😀

 Ed. Note: thanks to Janet for her pictures and write up of the Friday excursion. Contributions to the blog are always welcome.

Rites of Spring

 Link to live-streamed service here

In the spring gardeners return to the garden, cyclists return to the trails, and, at SPPC, folks return to Friendship coffee. This used to a regular event in our congregation but, like everything else, was upset by COVID-19. Last summer there were a few outdoor gatherings but we didn't return to visiting in the church building until late in the fall. There was a gathering for St. Patrick's Day in March, and, last Thursday, there was another, in what we hope will be a return to biweekly meetings.

I wasn't able to attend personally, but I've gathered reports from those who were there. During the hiatus there has been a change. The tables were made up of men and women instead of the segregated situation in the "before" times. There were fewer present and no one was knitting. Now that charities are accepting donations again, maybe the knitters will get out their needles in time for the next gathering.

 

Coming up this Saturday, April 30, is another rite of spring, a cleaning bee!

When the pandemic closed our doors, we ended our contract with a cleaning company. Instead, a few dedicated volunteers kept up with vacuuming and dusting and scrubbing the kitchen and bathrooms. On Sunday mornings the church is clean and inviting. 

But busy spiders make webs in hidden corners. Crumbs can slide under the fridge and stove. Windows are smeared by grubby fingers. Walls get marked by chairs and tables. Light fixtures trap flies. Blinds collect dust.

Hence our spring cleaning bee. Extra hands mean all the extra tasks can be accomplished. There is a list of individual chores posted on the utility closet door and there will be folks from the property committee to help lay out the tasks. 

The church has lots of cleaning supplies, but you might like to bring your own rubber gloves or any favourite tools, like a vacuum. Work begins at 10:00 am and continues until we are finished. 

There will be coffee and tea, elbow grease and laughter as we 

"sweep the Lord's house clean."