November newsletter
A long farewell to Barbara
At the June Council meeting, Barbara Faught announced her intention to retire from her role of Minister of Pastoral Care at the end of 2012. This will mark the end of 10 years of ministry in this official role at Parkdale. However, Barbara’s work with our congregation dates back much farther; she was an active volunteer in pastoral care before she took on the (paid) staff role.
Barbara is a true renaissance woman who has blessed Parkdale with her considerable talents over the years: in the visitation of our members requiring pastoral care, through her wonderful pastoral prayers, in her preaching skills, as well as in the ability to feed the multitudes with her cooking, or to transform a room in the church with a discerning eye and flick of a paintbrush.
We have been extravagantly blessed also in that Barbara has been a “package” deal – her husband, Arnold, their children and spouses, as well as their grandchildren, continue to enrich most aspects of our church’s life and ministry.
With her wisdom and foresight, Barbara has given us the benefit of a long good-bye as she prepares to change roles in this congregation. The preliminary steps of the replacement process have begun; Ottawa Presbytery has been formally advised of Barbara’s retirement plans, and we await the appointment of two Presbytery members to a Joint Needs Assessment Committee (JNAC). The other members of the JNAC will come from our own congregation.
This group will be tasked with carefully examining Parkdale’s needs, and making suggestions about what direction further staffing should take. When this work has been completed and the committee’s report has been approved by the congregation, a formal search process for a new staff member will begin. There are many factors that influence the timeline for hiring, but historically these processes tend to be lengthy.
What are you being asked to do at this point?
Firstly, continue to uphold Barbara in your prayers as she completes the last year of her staff ministry.
Secondly, give support and consideration to the JNAC process. Be prepared to share your thoughts about Parkdale’s future needs. You may even be asked to join the JNAC group – or better still, why not volunteer!
Thirdly, start thinking ahead to how we can celebrate Barbara’s ministry amongst us. We love parties, and Barbara’s ministry has so much to celebrate.
And, finally, let us all consider some good advice from the Good Book: (from Hebrews 13:17, The Message)
“Be responsive to your pastoral leaders. Listen to their counsel. They are alert to the condition of your lives and work under the strict supervision of God. Contribute to the JOY of their leadership, not its drudgery. Why would you want to make things harder for them?”
Ellen Andrews
Council Chair
MISSION, OUTREACH AND JUSTICE
Friday Night
“Stories and Images”
On the last Friday of every month (except December), the Mission, Outreach and Justice Committee (MO&J) presents two hours of entertainment and fellowship called “Stories and Images”. The series is intended to help build a sense of community as participants come together as family to share in the spiritual growth engendered by sharing our diversity, and to foster learning and comradeship that comes from travel such as the ‘pilgrimages’ to Israel, Turkey, and Germany, in recent years, that involved some members of Parkdale United Church.
The first of the new series was held in the Ladies Parlour and started with a sumptuous dinner prepared and served by MOJ Committee members (Daunett Tucker, Faye Beaufort, Carolynn Trites and Janet Taylor) served at 6:00 pm, in the parlour rearranged with a café like setting with ‘card tables’ and soft lighting to add an ambiance of relaxation and some expectation of a show with desert and coffee to follow. (Gloria remarked that she was not intimidated because the environment was friendly and made her feel relaxed.)
And then the show; at 7:00 PM. Janet Taylor – the organizer of the series - introduced Gloria Goodine, the presenter for the evening. In doing so Janet said, ‘I really do not know much about your background’ and that was a good way to start the program
because it illustrated how the series was conceived in the first place—to help people who may go to church regularly to get to know each other and help each other to grow in faith in whatever way we can.
Gloria’s title was “A Pilgrim’s Journey” and it soon became clear why she chose that title. She used photos for a slide show and also used artifacts and books to illustrate some of the key points in her personal journey. She started by saying that her presentation would touch only very briefly on some of the key points in her 57 years of travel that have taken her around the world and that she would stop only at the key life-changing points in her journey. She began by reciting a poem by Enya, called the “Pilgrim”.
To start at the beginning, she showed her baby picture. She was born in Shanghai, grandmothers Chinese, grandfathers English, and then moved with her parents and siblings to Hong Kong as a baby. With a series of slides she introduced her Baby-Amah who was like a second mother, taught her Chinese and was most loving to her. A photo introduced her family and she mentioned that her Dad was a Deacon, her Mom. the Church Secretary and the three girls sang in the choir at the Kowloon Baptist Church. As a teenager Gloria was inducted into a special training program for girls that focused on missionary work and religious teaching. This up-bringing and grounding in the Christian Faith laid the groundwork that has endured to this day, she says. That is also why she readily accepted an invitation to travel to Honk Kong almost immediately after her presentation to attend ceremonies celebrating the expansion of the church in which she grew up.
The next point in her story was King George the Fifth School (KG5) in Hong Kong, hence her British accent, and sound grounding in English. She showed photos of her first journey on her own, to Nepal, and described the feeling of elation she experienced when she took the picture while flying over the world’s highest mountain in a small aeroplane. Then she ‘fast forwarded’ her presentation to a wedding in the Isle of Mann, where she was Maid of Honour for a school-mate from KG5, Irene. Next she showed photos of a visit to Irene and Peter in Papua, New Guinea, and she will visit Irene and Peter in Sydney, Australia, on her way back from Hong Kong.
While working in England she saw an advertisement for a job at the World Bank in Washington D. C. Sounded good she thought. Get away from the rain in London. As always, she said she prayed about it and seemed to be ‘good-to-go’, if only she could pass some skills tests. However, the watch she got from her parents on her 21st Birthday, and wears to this day, stopped; she was late arriving and wondered why this could happen. Were the prayers wasted, she wondered. First she turned away from the closed doors—then she tried the door and it was not locked. She was allowed to take the test but failed and was about to leave when one of the recruiters stopped her and gave her a different test, more advanced, and she passed.
She then went off to the World Bank and eventually another wedding picture. This one of Gloria and Ike—Gloria claims that it was really only at that stage that she fully understood that this was part of God’s plan for her. She and Ike were soon off to Kenya, where she says she enjoyed life for some time until culture shock set in. Ike had a job; but not Gloria. Gloria says this was one of the few times she experienced being cut out of meaningful interaction that seemed important. Is this really what I prayed for, she asked herself. Then it dawned on her again. “Our gifts are all from God.” To make a long story short, she showed a picture of their beautiful daughter, Claudia, born in the Nairobi Hospital and shown with her Baby-Yaya (Nanny) who went with them to Washington and who taught Claudia Swahili.
Fast forward to the Philippines; more culture shock. This time using God’s gift of singing helped to make new connections as shown in the photo of a group singing at a Canada Day celebration. But there were other shocks as well, including the “Coup” and takeover of their area of Greater Manila where they lived, and the eruption of Mount Pintoubo. Ever resourceful, the Filipinos even turned the ash to good use as shown by the statues of Mary and the baby Jesus, part of their Christmas manger scene, which she showed us. Other photos show ash in Manila, and the Goodines, standing on the roof of a Church buried by the lahars that flowed from the mountain.
Next they were sent off to Barbados, the beautiful Island where they set up home once again. “God is a Bajan”, they were told, by way of explaining that the Hurricanes pass by but do not make land fall there. By now, they know something about culture shock and also know that God gives them gifts that they should use. So she started singing, this time with the Hilton Choir, mostly specializing in ‘Bajan’ folk songs. It also helped to learn the local version of the English Language. When her Choir mates spoke to her they used her form of British English, but when chatting among themselves, she could scarcely understand them. She travelled to Barbados recently and acquired some books which are based on Bajan English, which preserves much of the language that goes back to the early 1600s.
Gloria says that she was happy in Barbados but she was still not yet at “home”. Her next stop was Ottawa, and with a little encouragement from Ike, she joined Parkdale United Church. About five years ago Gloria became a Canadian Citizen and is learning to enjoy walking in the snow, just not quite as much as on the sand of a tropical beach—yet.
Gloria feels blessed that she was able to join in the trip to Israel, and yet again to go to Oberammergau, Germany, with friends from Parkdale.
Gloria’s presentation was informal and sincere and it is clear that she speaks from the heart. She knows she has had a blessed life but showed that it has not always been a bed-of-roses. She has no hesitation in saying that her Christian faith has been her anchor in the past and continues to sustain her. She showed her energetic nature and sense of humour during her presentation. Everyone was fascinated as we journeyed along with Gloria and, it is fair to say that she made an excellent start to the series. Many commented that they had seen Gloria in church over the years, but now they feel they know her.
The presentation ended with playing the song, Pilgrim, by Enya.
Submitted by: Faye Beaufort & Ike Goodine
Editor’s note: the November evening in the series will be held on November 25
Thoughts on the Economy and Riding Camels to the Vineyard
By Julee Pauling
When Jesus spoke about calling workers to the vineyard, it wasn't customary for them to ride camels to get there.
Outlining a meaningful lifestyle is no easy task in the face of so much economic strife and uncertainty. What choices we make, thinking we are acquiring and spending the essentials for good living, when really we are buying into a loaded economic myth, may put both our overall well-being and spiritual goals a distant second to unnecessary standards of living. These are frequently neither healthy for our communities nor for us.
For various reasons, high lifestyle choices increase our dis-ease within the world. Consumerist values encourage us to accept lifestyles of high consumer debt and a rigid dependency on monthly incomes. However, if we took a hard look at it, we could view this as enslaving ourselves to non-essential to-do lists, bills, belongings, errands, and expectations that sooner or later we take for normal.
What should we hold up as a reasonable standard? The promising appeal of the two-income household is currently being debunked as merely keeping up with the incomes of our parents’ generation. Meanwhile, the new suburban starter plan includes two vehicles, daycare, creeping communications bills, industrial kitchens, iPads on top of computers, and annual trips to the Caribbean. Yet we so easily believe it is normal to buy whatever we want whenever we want it, to have the homes we see in the magazines, the vacations we view on the billboards – and all this while carrying the load on credit.
Jesus didn’t intend us to be dependent on the fruits of the material world for a full and meaningful life. Rather, leaving behind worldly treasures for the treasures of God’s kingdom were the hopes Jesus had for us. Through apostleship, community, hospitality, holding up the poor, sick, and oppressed, and generally using our limited energies for the righteous exercise of any talents we possess, we can apply our economic means in pursuit of equity and justice. We can love the Lord our God with all our hearts and minds, and our neighbours as ourselves, better … with fewer iPhones and industrial hood vents.
May a return to more constrained standards and lifestyle expectations be an opportunity to redefine normal and seek Jesus’ way in our daily lives.
Doing Outreach by Reaching In
By Ellen Andrews
Parkdale United Church’s vision statement reads: To form followers of Jesus in such a way as to transform our community and our world. What a challenging mandate we’ve been called to follow. How can we possibly form followers and transform?
Part of the answer certainly lies in one of our ministries: faith formation and Christian education. We know certain things to be true: We live in a secular age. Children learn about God, Jesus and the stories of our faith in very few places. Sunday School and youth programming is the primary one for most of the young people who come through our doors.
We also know that growing, vibrant, successful, forward thinking churches place tremendous value on their young people. In a truly God-inspired “least shall be first”, children, and particularly teenagers, are seen as a congregation’s wealth. None of this nonsense about children being the future: they are the present and they are actively nurtured by their community.
Parkdale has been generous in some aspects of our commitment to children’s ministry; our offerings have funded a full-time staff position for several years. And yet, despite the very healthy number of young people in our congregation, we struggle to commit enough time and volunteers to that which should be our primary ministry: faith formation.
For instance, this year, through a variety of circumstances, we have lost our youth volunteers and they remain un-replaced. We also have ongoing vacancies in our teacher roster. The reasons for these labour shortages are myriad. We are pulled in many directions in our personal lives but also in our church life. With so much going on, our focus on our teaching ministries has wavered.
However, we are blessed with a core of leaders who feel pretty joyful and passionate and optimistic and spirit lead. How can we expand this ministry? How do we build a congregation that puts faith formation at the top of its agenda? How do we help busy families make a meaningful commitment to faith formation? Perhaps a little prodding from our wonderful kids would do the trick. Perhaps finding a mentor or a buddy to take to share leadership would make teaching feel more manageable. Perhaps just being asked is what it would take.
Parkdale is a congregation which has always invested passionately in outreach: the Queensway Preschool, Ottawa West Community Services, In From the Cold, mission trips, refugee sponsorship, advocacy initiatives. However, as society has changed, “in-reach” is rapidly becoming just as necessary as a focus for ministry. Those who need to be supported in their lives, and as they find God, are right in our midst. Let’s reach and teach together.
Ellen Andrews
Chair of Council
WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO PARKDALE?
Adeline Colley, since 1970
Once upon a time, a long time ago (early 1970), I was a member of Parkdale and a Sunday School teacher. We had moved here from Sault Ste Marie and lived in a part of Ottawa where all of my children’s friends had everything that money could buy. We wanted our children to meet other children who did not have everything. The mixed community at Parkdale met our needs perfectly. At that time, Jim Lawson was the Minister.