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Turkey Cold Plates & Desserts

Our ACW group here at All Saints’, Conception Bay South, were busy selling turkey cold plates and desserts on Thursday, May 27th. Due to the COVID restrictions, orders had to be pre-ordered and picked up at the parish hall auditorium between 11:30am and 1:30pm. It was a great success with over 200 dinners sold.

Homemade Quilt

Our ACW are hard at work again: they held a ticket lottery on a beautiful quality handmade quilt valued at $500. There were only 1000 tickets available, which sold out in a very short time. We would like to thank you so much for your kind support. As part of our fall fair activities, the lucky ticket will be drawn on Thursday, October 14th. Thank you again for supporting the wonderful ministry of the ACW.

Flea Market

ACW, the Ways and Means Committee, and the Tea Room Group participated together in planning our annual flea market. It was scheduled for July 3rd from 9am-3pm. We asked for donations and also rented out tables. Once again, keeping in line with COVID restrictions, we asked that a form be completed as a contact tracing pre-registration or that you register at the door as you entered the parish hall. During this flea market, a take-out of moose burgers, hamburgers, and hot dogs was sold. This event was also a success. Thank you to all who supported this fundraiser.

Online Silent Auction

All Saints Parish Finance Team were very excited to give heads up for our very first online silent auction. This auction was organized to help us raise a little money during these challenging Covid times. This auction was held during the week of June 14th – 18th. We asked the public for any and all donations that they would like to donate. Suggested donation ideas included ideas like gift cards, baked goods, knitted items, crafts, etc. This event was also very successful and a big thank you  to the organizers and everyone who supported this auction.

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“This campaign set a stretch goal for AFC, and no one really knew what to expect,” said Archbishop Linda Nicholls, Primate and Chair of AFC, “In the end, hundreds of donors from coast to coast to coast gave generously to Say Yes! to Kids.” 

In Newfoundland, the efforts of all three dioceses contributed nearly $12,000 to the campaign, more than ten percent of the national total: $5,000 from the Diocese of Central Newfoundland, another $5,000 donation from the Anglican Charitable Foundation for Children (ACFC), and nearly $2,000 from the Anglican East NL team effort, captained by the Rev’d Canon Amanda Taylor, AFC’s Diocesan Representative for Eastern Newfoundland.

In a statement for a June funding announcement, the Rt. Rev’d John Watton, Bishop of Central Newfoundland, said, “We like the idea of being a generative diocese and sharing in the ministry of the wider church. Whenever we can help, we want to. We cannot hold our Youth Camp this summer because of COVID-19, so we have decided to forward those funds to Say Yes! to Kids.”

Also in an earlier statement, the Rev’d Canon John Courage, ACFC Chair and Chaplain at Queen’s College Faculty of Theology, said, “At its May meeting the Board of ACFC voted unanimously to support Say Yes! to Kids. Little did Bishop Edward Field ever think that his desire to help the people of his time in the greatest need would contribute to the church’s efforts to promote pandemic recovery in 2021!”

“The tremendous support from all three Newfoundland dioceses gave us so much energy for the final weeks of the campaign,” says the Rev’d Canon Dr. Judy Rois, Executive Director, AFC, “You pushed us from milestone to milestone and encouraged donors elsewhere to support the campaign.”

At the July Celebration of Giving, Canon Rois thanked AFC’s friends and volunteers—Board Directors, Diocesan Representatives, Bishops, and diocesan staff champions—who carried the banner for Say Yes! to Kids in their dioceses. Archbishop Anne Germond, Vice-Chair of the AFC Board, spoke to the impact the Request for Proposals (RFP) arising from this campaign will have in dioceses. “All across the country, there are wonderful ministries serving vulnerable children and youth. Through this campaign they have discovered that there is both a will and a way to provide the additional funding they need.”

Grants from the Say Yes to Kids RFP will be awarded for both ongoing and emerging projects, and proposals will be accepted from September 1 to October 1, 2021. Category A grants, of up to $5,000 will be considered based on impact and how they support young people in a local context. Category B grants of up to $15,000 will be considered based on how they support the overall mission and service to children and youth in a city, diocese, or region. Eligible uses of funding include, but are not limited to, administrative expenses, equipment, technical costs, remuneration, honoraria, and food.

While the campaign is officially closed, late gifts will continue to be counted and will increase funds available for the RFP and maximize funding impact at the local level. For more information about the RFP, visit our website at: www.anglicanfoundation.org/rfp2021. To make a donation to AFC’s ongoing grant funding for youth-focused initiatives visit www.anglicanfoundation.org/kids. 

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But then I get a gentle reminder from Editor Emily that the September column is due shortly. That’s when my reflection kicked in.

My planned giving ministry with the Anglican Church began in the fall of 2000, and as I enter my 22nd year, I reflect on the many people who have encouraged me and blessed my work over the years.

On the national level, I have encountered three Primates—Archbishops Michael Peers, Andrew Hutchison and Fred Hiltz. Each of them was very encouraging. I also have to thank follow development colleagues such as David Rushton, Glen Mitchell, Geoff Jackson and Bishop Douglas Hambidge—a giant in the world of stewardship.

On the local level, I have to thank Bishops Cy, Geoff, and Sam in Eastern Diocese, and Bishop John in Central. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Archdeacon Neil Kellett who was instrumental in my being hired, and has been a source of great encouragement to this day.

Archdeacon John Robertson was my national mentor who invited me to join the national team of planned giving consultants. John is an unsung hero in my opinion for the advancement of planned giving for the Anglican Church. He set the bar high in the creation of many gifts for the various arms of the Church.

My work has been made all the easier by the support of the clergy and laity in this diocese and beyond. They have endorsed the ministry of planned giving as a significant tool in the financial support of our church. Because of their endorsement, we have seen a tremendous growth in the realization of the many gifts from our faithful.

Finally, I have to thank my wife Kay, who has served as my best critic over the years. I have been richly blessed.

When I began my ministry in 2000, I set a goal of one planned gift a month to be discovered or created. I am happy to report that the realization of 12 gifts a year has been surpassed for the last number of years. This year, we have witnessed 15 gifts worth close to $300,000. Information about these gifts was passed along to me by rectors, and for that I am grateful. 

Let’s hope and pray that this next year is a good one for the church and its faithful. And, let’s keep in mind one of my favourite quotes from St. Francis of Assisi:

Remember that when you leave this earth
You can take with you nothing that you have received-
Only what you have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.

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The Parish of Bonne Bay North Prayer Quilt Group was approached by Karen Hynes, Nurse and Patient Care Co-ordinator at the Bonne Bay Health Centre in Norrris Point, to make a Daisy/Dignity quilt for the Health Centre. 

The Daisy/Dignity quilt is placed over a deceased person’s remains as they are taken from their hospital room to the hearse on a gurney. With a beautiful quilt (such as the one pictured here) draped over a loved ones remains as they are rolled through the corridors of the hospital to the hearse, the hospital has a way to ensure dignity even in death. The Daisy/Dignity quilts are approximately 56” x 102” to allow them to fall nicely over the remains and the gurney.

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But no one has said ‘I can’t wait until the pandemic is over and I don’t have to wash my hands again,’ or ‘I can’t wait until the pandemic is over and I don’t have to stay home from work when I’m sick.’ We know that there have been many social developments that have been definite improvements and ought to be kept long after the crisis is over. Some people have found innovative ways to be flexible and work from home. Others have realized that sometimes travel for meetings wasn’t really necessary, when video or even teleconferences will suffice. The convenience of ordering online for curbside pickup can be an improvement in many contexts. And church online is not about to go away any time soon.

Did you know that as a search term, ‘Church Online’ is more popular in Newfoundland than in almost any other province? There are plenty of reasons why people will continue to need their church to be online long after mask mandates end and social distancing dies away. Some people will continue to be wary about going out in public. Many will still wear their masks, even when they are not required. As a church, we need to care for everyone, not just those who have the same comfort level we do. If people still wear masks to church, they need to feel welcome to do that, and not be dismissed as alarmists. If they aren’t yet comfortable worshiping in person, we need to continue to give them opportunities to do so.

Sometimes, it’s not a question of whether they feel safe in public. As life returns to normal, the risk of regular, non-COVID sickness will rise again. Some people will want to go to church on Sunday, but will stay home because of the head cold they’ve caught, and which they quite rightly don’t want to spread. Others will stay home due to bad weather or road conditions (especially as winter sets in). Still others will stay home because of age or mobility issues. For some parishioners, the emphasis on online worship during pandemic has been a blessing. They could never go to church before, and now their worshiping community has had to take the effort to be accessible online. Having given them the opportunity to worship from home, are we now going to take that away from them, just because we think going back to ‘normal’ has to mean going back to ‘the way we used to do it’?

In case we start to think that church online just means broadcasting Sunday services online, we need to remember that church in-person means so much more than that as well. Parishioners have taken great strength from a sense of community that has developed in online ‘coffee hours’, and have grown in their faith from online Bible Study groups. While these opportunities to be a part of the life of the church can never be the same as the in-person versions, they are still important ways for people to remain connected to their faith communities when they can’t physically be present, whether because of age, sickness, infirmity, being uncomfortable driving at night, or having moved away.

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In May, I wrote briefly about the seven days of creation (Genesis 1:1-2:3). In this and subsequent articles, I would like to comment on some aspects of the creation story.

Some people believe that, “the universe has always been and will always be. It is ungenerated and indestructible. … It contained no place for God.” (James Montgomery Boice’s Genesis, Volume 1, 1999, p. 13). If the universe has no beginning or end, then there is nothing for a creator to create. Atheistic scientists are in favour of this view.

Some Bible passages seem to tell us that the universe is expanding (e.g., Isaiah 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15). An expanding universe does not negate the story of creation in Genesis. Most scientists support the idea that matter did not exist prior to the “Big Bang” theory. At the moment of creation, time, space, and matter began.

In 1919, American astronomer Edwin Hubble formulated “a law for an expanding universe, which pointed to a moment of creation” (Boice, p. 14). He found that galaxies are moving away from each other, suggesting that they were once closer together. The universe is indeed expanding. If the universe is currently expanding, then, at some time in the past, the universe had a beginning of creation  This is confirmed by Genesis 1:1 which tells us that in the beginning God created the universe.

The universe is not eternal. Only God is eternal and has no beginnings at all (Boice, p. 17).  Boice wrote: “Science can take us back to the big bang, to the moment of creation. But if that original, colossal explosion obliterated anything that came before it, as science suggests, then nothing before that point can be known scientifically, including the cause of the explosion.” (Boice, p 17) God was the only eyewitness of creation. No human really knows how God created the universe, nor when. Regardless, Christians believe that the universe does have a beginning of creation.

However, Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and atheist, claimed that the universe never had a singular moment of creation. The January 2012 issue of New Scientist reports that on Hawking’s 70th birthday, Alexander Vilenkin (born 1949), Professor of Evolutionary Science and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University, gave a lecture in his “honour.” Apparently, Vilenkin declared: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” It was the worst birthday gift ever for Hawking.

God is the creator. No one created him. Because God created everything, everything is His.  He has the right to rule over us. One day, God will create a new heaven and new earth and they, like him, will continue into eternity. We who belong to Jesus through faith will continue through eternity as well.

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PWRDF’s Summer 2021 Project—“A Light for Every Birth”—is helping mothers and babies in Mozambique by raising $300,000 to install 50 more solar suitcases in rural medical clinics without electricity. This project builds on the 30 We Care Solar suitcases installed in 2016 in collaboration with EHALE, Mozambique’s Association of Community Health. Dr. Laura Stachel, founder of We Care Solar, explains the suitcase at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeLRxfsq2d8

These suitcases are wall-mounted units connected to a roof-mounted solar panel, and ably provide:
• medical quality lights to ensure adequate lighting for surgeries such as C-sections
• portable LED headlamps to allow wearers to target lights where needed
•a fetal Doppler to monitor a baby’s heartbeat, in pre-natal visits, and also during birth
•phone charging ports to ensure power for emergency phone calls
•an infrared thermometer to allow for COVID temperature checks at clinic entrances

The solar suitcases, which provide light, save lives, and use clean energy:
• bring both moms and dads to clinics for pre-natal visits, curious to hear their baby’s heartbeat
• allow health care providers to resolve obstetric emergencies
• help moms have safe, clean births at night
•reduce maternal and newborn mortality rates
• provide safe, affordable power

A lifesaver for mother and baby:
For Domingas Joaquim, 38, of rural Mozambique, the solar suitcase has truly been a lifesaver. She credits a solar suitcase installed at the clinic where she gave birth in 2016 with saving her life and that of a baby that needed to be resuscitated. She says, “Without lighting, it would not have been possible.”  Your donation can help women like Domingas have a safer childbirth.

Donation Options:
• online at https://pwrdf.org/solarsuitcases2021/
• a donation to your Anglican parish designated for the PWRDF solar suitcase project
• a donation to a Ride for Refuge organizer at https://rideforrefuge.org/charity/pwrdf
• by purchasing Dr. Ian Simpson’s new book, Through Sheila’s Eyes, As I see it, from the poems and paintings of Sheila Simpson” for $20.00, available at The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist office (PH: 709-634-2373) or online from:
chapters.indigo.ca  All proceeds will be given to the solar suitcase project.

Each suitcase—assembled, shipped, and installed, plus a replacement battery once
every five years—costs about $5,800. Donations for this $300,000 project will be matched dollar for dollar up to $100,000 until September 30, 2021.

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