winter road repair

Sometimes winters feel far too long and far too cold, but what a joy when spring is finally in the air. Give us a couple of sunny days and warmer temperatures and we already start to feel better. A sure sign of spring for me are the terrible road conditions… the winter thaw plays havoc with the roads and potholes seem to multiply by the hour; some are so big they can swallow up a small import (some GM folk might say that’s a good thing… lol). Then there are the road heaves; dips that form in the pavement that cause a roller-coaster effect… if you’re going fast enough you can actually get airborne! When the weather turns nice we feel that since the snow and ice are gone we can drive at full speed again, but the effects of the cold winter still linger. Driving at full speed will damage your car; ever hit a deep pothole at 80kph? not good. The roads need to be repaired by the municipal road crews (hence the saying Canada has two seasons… winter and construction). Sometimes life is like that too, we survive the cold winters and storms that come up but then as circumstances change and we start to feel the warm sunshine again, we think all is well. However, sometimes there are some potholes left and sometimes there is deeper damage under the surface that has to be repaired before we can fully appreciate the warm spring days again. At Hope Fellowship we will be offering 4 healing services to deal with emotional, spiritual, financial and physical needs, and through prayer try and repair some damaged roads. e-mail me if you want more info. peace, m

looking back, looking forward

greetings all... well, when all was said and done it was a pretty good anniversary party! Great food, great entertainment (a shout out to the Great Wooden Trio, even though they have 4 members, job well done guys!) and great friends! Hope Fellowship is 10 years old now and it was fun to reminisce and share stories of packing up chairs every week, or setting the sound system over and over, and thinking back over some of the wonderful worship services or fabulous pot-luck dinners we have shared. It is good to look back sometimes, even at some of the stuff that wasn't so great... as a church community we have had some tough times too but all of it, the good the bad and the ugly as it were, has made us what we are today. I mean it's no different than your or my personal life, our past experiences help shape who we are. But we didn't really dwell on the past too much, we were challenged to focus on looking forward, and I think that's wise. Now to bring in the truck driver analogy... looking back while driving is fine to keep an eye on what's around you or what's coming up to pass BUT if you don't look forward at all you'll end up in a mess of trouble! Looking back over the past 10 years was a fun time, looking forward to the next 10+ years is exciting! peace, m

OH, here's a collage pic from the grand opening concert... featuring Peter Slofstra, Stonesthrow and the DeVries Family

post celebration let-down

greetings all, I know it's been a while since I've updated this thing... my apologies. I spent a great deal of time preparing and participating in our big grand opening event here at Hope Fellowship in early Feb, which I have to say was a blast and a great time was had by all! But have you ever noticed that after a special event you're left feeling somewhat down, especially if you put a lot of energy into it. You know after a great vacation and you come home and then you get back to routine... it's a bit depressing. Or if you're an artist or performer and you rehearse for a big event and your adrenaline is peaking and you're on an emotional high during the event but then when the lights go down and everyone goes home you start to replay things and start to focus on your mistakes (musicians and artists are by far their own worst critics... most of them anyway, although I know a few who think they can do no wrong... ever watch American Idol... but I'm getting side-tracked... sorry). Well this is the long way around to my excuse for not updating... even after our big event here at Hope I still felt a bit of the post celebration let-down... BUT a great cure is the encouragement of others and then focusing on what went really well, and a lot went really well at this past event. So if this ever happens to you, take time to look back at what went well, look at the positive and celebrate... and forget about the post let-down thing! Oh btw this coming weekend we are celebrating our 10th anniversary as Hope Fellowship... more opportunities to celebrate the positive! peace, m