Stories of Hope

  The sabbatical/vacation for Pastor Peter and Marja included 18 Sundays, 10 guest preachers (including our own Bernice Baker, Mike Broersma, Gary VanderMeulen and Lisa Guillaume Koene), and 2 video sermons (the second one will happen next week) for Hope Fellowship. Pastor Peter & Marja chose the summer because church life is quieter in the summer, and it would mean the least disruption for Hope Fellowship. So was it quiet while they were gone?

  From time to time I have the opportunity to bring a person with a need together with someone who has the resources to fill that need. It feels like I am a cog in a machine – just a small part of the process of doing God’s work here.

  We were coming home from our weekend errands, when we saw a few toys on the curb; the national symbol for “please take our unused items”. I am always on the prowl for lightly used toys for the church nursery so we stopped.

Things Fall Apart   It was a week of things coming apart. A line from W.B. Yeats ran through my head on repeat: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

  We will not soon forget the fascinating characters that we encountered on our sabbatical in Hawaii.

  A drunk street person created a stir on the bus when he kept taunting another passenger. Everybody kept their cool until he got off. The man sitting in front of us then said, "I felt like popping him one!"