Wednesday, August 28, 2024

The last week of summer break is upon us with kids back to school next week and labour day weekend coming up in just a few short days.  I was talking to some of our new members from Nigeria and Ghana and they don’t understand summer break as we do here in Canada.  Back home church doesn’t take a break.  It continues the whole year through – and they are looking forward to the resumption of our children’s programming and seeing more people in church again – and the choir starting up again, the thrift shop re-opening and other programming as well.  Wilhelmina Gould will be starting a Bible study this fall and another Bible study will be available through Conrad Grebel College.

This fall will be a little different at St. Andrew’s.  Nexus church will be starting to hold services and programs within the building.  As we have said this will be an adjustment for all of us, as the church space will soon be busier on Sunday mornings than we're used to, but hopefully we will settle into a new normal before long.  The people of Nexus have expressed a desire to join us as we try to address issues of clothing insecurity and food insecurity in the downtown core.  Interesting and helpful conversations will follow.

As you may know, St. Andrew’s has hired an Executive Assistant to the Lead Minister / Office and Facilities Rental Manager.  These three roles will be undertaken by one person and her name is Kaitlyn Pipe.  Kaitlyn begins on Tuesday September 3 but she is in the office today undertaking some orientation with Judy Hight who has held this position on an Interim basis for the last 8 months.  Kaitlyn has over 10 years experience in administration and customer service, social media and marketing manager and calendar management.  Kaitlyn interviewed extremely well, being the first choice of all the interviewers.  Kaitlyn loves interacting with people, creating relationships of trust and confidence.  She values inclusion and the powerful concept of love for everyone.  Kaitlyn will be a real asset to our plans and visions moving forward.  She will make a great addition to our staff.

Part of Kaitlyn’s responsibility will be to procure and manage partnerships that enable us to use our building more effectively while at the same time enhancing our outreach into the community and helping to address our annual deficit.  The session and congregation have adopted this plan of using the building for these purposes and Kaitlyn will help us to achieve this vision.

In all of this, Kaitlyn will need the support of all of us.  I warmly welcome Kaitlyn to St. Andrew’s and pray that all of you do the same.

Take good care,

Marty

Rev. Marty Molengraaf (he, him)
Minister, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church