This weekend I begin my summer holidays, a month off for spiritual and physical revitalization. Ministry can be an intense calling. Working Saturday to Thursday with a Friday Sabbath is a good routine but it is augmented by something called holidays – and I’m deeply grateful for this time. This summer we’ve had our grandkids staying with us, so these weeks allow me to join Sara in our daily activities to keep them “entertained”. Also, Sara will head to High School camp to help in the kitchen, and I’ll head to the Okanagan to spend some time with my mom. Additionally, Sara-Lee and I will be celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary. Our honeymoon was Montreal and Quebec City. So, we are returning to the old city of Quebec to embrace this celebration. Looking forward to being back for Labour Day weekend as we return to double services at 9 and 11am and commissioning our kids in their return to school as students.
Today I welcome Sam and Aliya to CLA! They are our sponsored refugees. A very practical illustration of transformation of lives is through sponsoring refugees. CLA does this! Over a year ago we brought a young man from Iran to our Maple Ridge Campus and reunited him with his family. It was an amazing new beginning for a Christian Persian. To watch him get a job, find a place to live and settle into new Canadian realities was fantastic. He is doing so well and is a blessing to our church. Now, we get to do this again! For four years we have been working to bring a Pakistani Christian family out of persecution and into freedom. After leaving Pakistan they have languished in “the UN system” in Malaysia for over a decade. Can you imagine? Having no identity, no hope and no future. Our CLA refugee committee fought for them through political channels. I personally advocated for them. We sent friends and partners to visit them. We prayed. Then finally, last week they arrived at Vancouver International Airport. We are embracing them with love, shelter and help to start a new chapter. During their stay in Malaysia, Sam had an infection and had to have his leg amputated. This was a devastating tragedy. When you see Sam, he will be in a wheelchair. Surround this new couple with love. Next week you will hear more about them and how you can help through our Beyond Our Walls video.
This week I met with our manager, the Board treasurer and two representatives from Controllership Plus (our outsourced CFO). We had the fiscal year end reports in front of us. In many ways, we work for 364 days to get to June 30 and see how we all did financially. More will be shared at our AGM, but we had a good June and finished with a slight surplus. Our tithes were up over 3% year to date, missions brought in just over a million dollars and we have accomplished a lot this year. We paved our parking lot, replaced a boiler that heated the church since 1977, and a rooftop unit that failed, and bought a new screen for our auditorium. We also paid down about half a million on our $700,000 conference hall mortgage through matching funds. We have saved money to launch our Abbotsford Campus and allowed all our campuses and Langley congregations to “Gather, Grow (discipleship), Serve (leadership development) and Go (outreach). Thank you for your consistent financial support that allows us to transform lives.
