Thank You, God!



Trinity United Church
400 Stevenson Street North
Guelph, ON  N1E 5C3
Phone 519-824-4800 Fax 519-824-4205
E-mail: tuc@bellnet.ca

Ministers: Rev. Lorraine Newton-Comar
&
Rev. Andrew Comar

PEROGIES PEROGIES PEROGIES

Perogies will be sold at the Holly Fair Bazaar,
Saturday, November 4th
by the Trinity Council Fund Raising Group.
A baker's dozen for $4.00.
Spread the word!

Book Review

by Mildred Long

What I write can never do justice to the writing, inspirations and wisdom in this book.

Mattie Stepanek was born July 17, 1990 to his mother Jeni who had already lost three children. Not until his birth, at which time he was diagnosed as having a rare fatal disease called neuromuscular dysautonomic miloshondrial myopathy, did the doctors know from what his siblings had died. Not too long after, his mother was diagnosed with having the adult type - so had to be in a wheel chair.

In infancy, a tracheotomy was done - which was hooked up to a ventilator to breathe for him.

He was a gifted child - above average intelligence - a poet at 3 years.

Early in his life he knew that he did not have a long life span. He wanted his life to have meaning;  wanted to be an ambassador for humanity, wrote many essays and speeches on that and peace. He was invited to do interviews on T.V., spoke to groups of people.

For about five years he was well enough for the tube to be removed, thus he was able to attend school for a while - learn to swim, dive and climb, got his black belt in a form of martial art.

He had many setbacks - confounding the doctors with his recoveries.

He continued to alert people they had choices to make - to respect each individual, their religion.

At Mattie's funeral June 28th 2004, Jimmy Carter gave the eulogy  "The Most Remarkable Person I Have Met." Oprah Winfrey also spoke. He made such an impact on the world.  What a legacy.

Make peace a habit. "Peace is Possible"

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The Sunday school teacher was describing how Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, "My Mummy looked back once while she was driving," he announced triumphantly, "and she turned into a telephone pole!"

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The Nurture Committee is busy again this fall making sure that coffee hour after the 9:00 and 10:30 services is covered by volunteers. There is a sign up sheet near the kitchen door, the instructions are on top of the microwave in the kitchen and the coffee is in the cupboard. We are pleased to say we had a good response to our Congregational Pasta Lunch on September 17th, where we served penne pasta, "special" sauce, pizza casserole, dinner rolls, salads, gelato, coffee, tea and punch. This pasta lunch was served in place of the usual October Congregational Dinner as there were two other events taking place on that same busy weekend. We want to send a special thank you out to those of our Trinity family who donated, pasta, "special sauces", pizza casseroles, salads, napkins, and buns to our pasta lunch. We could not have done this without your help.

We are also looking after the silent auction table at the Holly Bazaar on November 4th and are asking for the donation of items for this auction. Our contacts for auction items are Eleanor Harrison 837-0734 and Pat Studinski 821-4838. Once again, Andy has offered his office to store any items brought to the church. A very special THANK YOU to all our volunteers for the many jobs you help out with over the year.





Somebody has said there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those who wake up in the morning and say, "Good morning Lord," and there are those who wake up in the morning and say, "Good Lord, it's morning."

School Breakfast Program

Wake Up and Chow Down, the John F. Ross CVI breakfast programme, is very pleased to be continuing our partnership with Trinity United Church in the 2006-2007 school year. Last year, our breakfast club served 1122 breakfasts, over 63 days for an average of 17.8 students per day. (This figure does not take into account the three dozen students in three classes who had access to left-overs at our school each day of the programme). October of 2005 - the first month of Wake Up and Chow Down - was the most well attended month, with over 300 breakfasts served. Now that the basic organization has been achieved, we hope to focus on developing different ways of increasing our usership yet more in the upcoming year so that our initial fantastic attendance can be sustained throughout the school year.

On behalf of the John F Ross CVI community, I would like to thank Trinity for the facilities and for the many outreach volunteers who provided so much support this year. Without the kindness of your congregation, this programme would not exist. If you would like to join us as a volunteer this year as we head into our new three day pilot programme beginning in mid-September (we will now be serving breakfast three days a week (on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), please contact the church office at 824-4800.

Again, many thanks!

 Amanda St. Jean

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PIZZA CASSEROLE

Drain. Season with garlic, salt, oregano, basil, salt andpepper.

Add 1 large tin of spaghetti sauce and simmer 15-20minutes.

Layer pepperoni slices and shredded mozzarella cheese.

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Mission and Service Letter from Mozambique

She said to her mistress, 'If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.' - 2 Kings 5.3

The 'she' here is the young Israelite captive girl working as a slave for the commander of the army of the Arameans, a tribe of Israel's enemies. We don't even learn her name. But she's one of our favourite Biblical characters. Though just a little girl, she's someone that people take seriously. Only because of her idea, Naaman the general she works for goes to the prophet Elisha, and is cured.

So she's one of our Biblical role models for the bursary girls (bolseiras) of PEDRA. She's practical, resourceful, confident, not afraid to speak up, faithful to her God, and loving, even towards a leprous Aramean. Those too are qualities of our bolseiras. Last week when the school year ended we took them home—22 of them—to their families for summer holidays. Their parents met them at the roadsides as close as a truck could get to their farms. The parents, like ourselves, were astonished at the change in these girls in a year away from home—then timid country girls, now confident young women. They're all about 15 now. In their PEDRA t-shirts and clutching their school knapsacks they leaped from the truck and ran to their mothers and fathers who hugged their grownup girls and then burst into tears, dance and songs, as you see in the web-site photo .

They've been at school, boarding in Namarroi, the nearest town that offers schooling after Grade 5. It's less than an hour from their homes by truck, but the town is another world. Almost none of them had ever been there. We had talked to every girl's family, and many parents at first were doubtful about sending their little girls so far away. But the girls weren't there alone. A PEDRA educator met them once a week to embroider, do bead-work, talk about AIDS and any other problems. Now, seeing them one year later, all the parents are thrilled with the program and eager for their girls to continue, to stay in school as long as they can, and reach their dreams of being nurses, teachers, artists or agronomists.

It costs 70 cents a day for these girls to go to school, a sum far beyond the possibilities of a rural subsistence farming family in Mozambique. PEDRA is hoping to fund 48 girls in the next school year which starts late in January. Much of the fundraising is headed by a dynamic, dedicated woman in Pennsylvania, a physics professor and Unitarian. In the globalizing world, like-minded people can get in touch and collaborate. PEDRA also is working with the parents in each PEDRA community to start up income-generating projects. A part of the income will go to PEDRA and bursaries for girls who need them. Each village has its ideas—raising guinea fowl, working a co-op farm field growing vegetables— whatever makes most sense in their local context to help make. Starting in January, each PEDRA community will also have a group of activistas—bolseiras and their parents and others, who're being trained in HIV-AIDS, children's rights, the Mozambican Family Law. If she'd been born in Namarroi 15 years ago, instead of in Samaria 500 years before Christ, the girl in 2nd Kings who got Naaman cured would have been an activista too.

In mission and service,
Karen and Bill Butt

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A Sunday school teacher decided to have her young class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible, Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters a month to learn the verse.

Little Rick was excited about the task, but he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Ricky was nervous.

When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, "The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know."

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THANK YOU .... THANK YOU .... THANK YOU....

Thanks is extended to our many members who support the work of our ministries here at Trinity with their financial gifts, We would also like to thank the following groups for their generous donations to Trinity:

The Youth Groups made donations to the Benevolent Fund and the Nursery Renovations project.

The Sunshine Club made a donation to the General Fund.

The Volleyball Group made a donation to the Chair project and Contact Place.

The Wake Up & Chow Down Program (our breakfast program for J.F Ross High School students) gave a donation for the new kitchen floor. Through this program funds were also received for the new freezer, microwave oven, coffee maker and commercial toaster in the kitchen.

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While driving in Pennsylvania, a family caught up to an Amish carriage. The owner of the carriage obviously had a sense of humor, because attached to the back of the carriage was a hand printed sign..."Energy efficient vehicle: Runs on oats and grass. Caution: Do not step in the exhaust."

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I REMEMBER - Part 3

I remember the decade of darkness during which we almost lost our church to the banks. It all started when the small, new congregation offered a call to Rev. Merrill MacLeod. The first of our annual "Every Member Canvasses" began the Fall of 1956 with a target of $9,000 for 1957 even though we had only raised $3,000 the previous year. Members were optimistic and placed their trust in God to come through. To put things in perspective, I, as a professor at the Ontario Agricultural College was paid $6,000 in 1960! Then, we bought a manse at 207 Speedvale for $14,500.

"Money makes the wheels go 'round". To add to our debt, the Trinity church was built in 1959 at a cost of $93,030. In 1962 the new manse was built on the church property at a cost of $20,300. With the tremendous growth in the Sunday School we added the Christian Education unit in 1964 at a cost of $94,200. Our mortgage with Huron & Erie was now $160,000 and our total debt stood at $174,650. The Official Board considered selling the church and renting it back!

It took tremendous time and effort on the part of the Treasurer and Board of Stewards to keep on top of this financial burden. The congregation was solicited every year from 1956 to 1969. Three of these canvasses were conducted by outside organizations. We foolishly thought the organization would do the canvass, instead they just told us what to do and extracted a very high fee for doing so. The 1969 canvas was conducted by the United Church head office. We held a further Talent Drive canvas in 1975 but enthusiasm for these financial events had waned and it netted only $3,000.

When Rev. Legge left in 1972 the debt still stood at $145,000. Rev. Doug Plaskett, a businessman turned Minister, arrived and took on the debt reduction burden. Through Talent Nights, a pledge campaign within the congregation, and guaranteed loan certificates the total debt was reduced to $70,900 in 1977 and on November 1, 1981, there was a monster celebration as we burned the mortgage. We had been in the financial wilderness for over 20 years. It affected everything we wanted to do.

The Trinity lesson to me seems to be that a church needs a small debt as an incentive for the congregation to work together on a project. However, when the debt becomes so large that financial organizations direct the course of action then it inhibits to greater good and discourages membership. We had our dark years - but we survived.