News ‘n Views Monthly Newsletter of Banwell Community Church | Dec. 2015/Jan. 2016

Christmas at Banwell

Breakfast with Santa Saturday, Dec. 5th at 9:00 a.m.

“It All Began in Bethlehem” Cantata Saturday, Dec. 5th at 7:30 p.m. Freewill offering.

Sweet Ladies Peanut Butter Chocolates will be sold Sunday, Dec. 6th before and after the

service for $6.00 for a half pound.

Banwell Family Christmas Sunday, Dec. 6th from 5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Working Committee Meetings and Christ-

mas Party Tuesday, Dec. 8th at 6:45 p.m.

Age Unlimited Christmas Party Wednesday, Dec. 9th at 11:00 a.m. at “The Other

Place”. Tickets: $20. Please pay Madelon Kidd by

Dec. 6th.

Christmas Eve Service Thursday, Dec. 24th at 7:00 p.m.

“Your savior is born today in David’s city. He is Christ the Lord.”

– Luke 2:11

“I bring good news

to you—wonderful,

joyous news for all

people.” – Luke 2:10

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FACES IN THE CROWD

Congratulations to the following individuals who were welcomed into membership on November 1st: Jean Elliott; Viola Glos; Jerry and Geraldine Glos and Rodi Sengmany. Matthew Habuda was welcomed into membership on November 22nd. The sympathy of the congregation is extended to the following families: to the family of Richard Marshall upon his passing on Oct. 19th, to Cheryl Willis upon the passing of her father Fred on Oct. 23rd; and to the family of Roy Wicks who passed away on Oct. 30th. Roy was an early member of Banwell and the first chair of our Mission and Outreach committee. Thanksgiving Offering: We are grateful for the generous donation of our congregation in providing $2,757 to the work of Wycliffe ministries in honour of Jeff and Brandie Green. Jeff has a connection with our congregation in that he grew up at Grace Baptist Church. Sunday Night Live: Our November 2nd event was a great success as we enjoyed an evening of music, but also, were able to take quite a load of food to the Downtown Mission because of your generosity. Thank you to those who were involved; to John Goodwin and Deborah Doyle for their work on the technical side of things; to Jim Wheeler for providing security for the evening; to Ryan Richardson for coordinating the col-lection of food items prior to the concert; to Aaron Bla-ta for taking all of the items downtown to the mission on Monday; to Cheryl Lovell for providing signing for the John Denver song; and to all of our musicians (Alan Brown, Cheryl Willis, Ian McGregor Smith and Jamie Dech). We look forward to our next event in the spring.

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WORSHIP NOTES December and January provide us with some unique worship opportunities as we gather together for worship services. During the month of December, of course, the Pastor will be addressing advent themes. We also welcome a special speaker on December 6th, Rev. Bruce Jackson, chaplain at the Aspen Lake Nursing Home facility. In the new year, the pastor will be addressing a series of messages for a number of weeks into the spring entitled “Living a life of Faith in a Hostile Culture...Lessons from Ezekiel”. As well, we will celebrate our anniversary as a church on Sunday, January 31st with Rev. Deane Proctor, pastor of Queensway Baptist Church in Brantford as our guest speaker. As always, we are grateful for our church musicians under the leadership of Ian McGregor Smith, who will provide wonderful music for us during the next few weeks. May the Lord continue to bless us as we gather together for worship!

I would like to extend a big thank you to all the Volunteers and Supporters of our Christian Education ministry. We have had a wonderful fall and are looking forward to the Christmas season and all the wonderful & exciting things that this time of year has to offer.

Please take time to enjoy and share with those who are nearest and dearest to you and don’t get lost in the Christmas rush.

Merry Christmas!

Love, Marlee Page

Christmas Message From Marlee Page, Director of Christian Education

Date Message

Dec. 6th Guest Speaker, Rev. Bruce Jackson

Dec. 13th “The Voice”, (John 1:6-8; 19-28)

Dec. 20th “The Lucky One” (Luke 1:26-38)

Dec. 27th “A New Year...What to Do?” (Matthew 9:14-17)

Age Unlimited

This Son - promised by an angel, conceived by the Holy Spirit, affirmed by the unborn John, carried in the womb to Bethlehem, surrounded in birth by farm animals - was the One who would be called “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father; Prince of Peace”. Isaiah 9:6 An invitation is extended to all seniors of Banwell, spouse and friends to attend our Christmas meeting of Age Unlimited group. Our theme is “The Essence of Christmas”. This is a special dinner meeting. Location: “The Other Place” Time: 11:00 a.m. Format: Devotional “Mary and Joseph” Program: Sun Parlour Choir “Christmas Melodies”

The sign-up sheet is located on the coffee counter. Last date to sign up is Sunday, December 6th. Please pay Madelon Kidd $20.00 for the festive turkey dinner of mashed potatoes, veggies, tea and coffee. Dessert is not included. Pam Beemer is donating a Black Forest slab cake. As a special request, please contribute 1/2 to 1 dozen of your Christmas baking specialty.

Doran McToggart leads the Sun Parlour Chorus. This group will provide entertainment in the form of Christmas melodies. Joy is our December gift of the Holy Spirit. An invitation has been sent to the North Pole to Santa. Make your reservation early to enjoy a memorable Christmas Fellowship.

“This wishes you a Christmas that is truly heaven-blessed and a new year that will be among your very best and along with all these wishes comes a special, loving prayer that God will bless your every day and keep you in His care”.

We wish you the joy of a Merry Christmas and extend to everyone a Happy New Year. Henry Nurse, Coordinator Submitted by Joan Fulmer

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CHRISTMAS

THOUGHTS

Are you ready to

receive what God is

offering this Christ-

mas?

Are you where God

wants you to be this

holiday season?

What’s at the top of

your list this season?

AGE UNLIMITED JANUARY 2016 We have experienced the wonder of the Christmas season and now commence a New Year 2016. Age Unlimited, the Senior ministry of Banwell Community Church will meet on Wednesday, January 13th at 11:00 a.m. in the Chapel room. We will continue with the same theme: “A New Begin-ning” on our “Incredible Journey”. Henry Nurse is our group coordinator. Dr. Moir is our spiritual advisor. Donna Wilcox pro-vides music for our hymn singing. We complete the morning with a delicious lunch. This is planned, purchased and prepared by our gracious hostesses: Yvonne Eberle, Penny Bain, Madelon Kidd, Pam Beemer, Dorothy Allan and Carol Middaugh. To cover food expenses, we invite you to give a freewill offering. Doreen O’Brien will be our special guest speaker on Wednesday, Jan. 13th. Doreen has travelled extensively and her topic is “Treasures of St. Petersburg”. She travelled to see historic sites in Rus-sia. Doreen was also a Red Cross volunteer and went to New York City after 9-11. She also volunteered in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. She received the Order of the Red Cross in 2009. Invite a friend to this informative presentation. “Faithfulness” is our gift of the Holy Spirit for January. We wish each Age Unlimited member and our Banwell Church family a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year. Henry Nurse, Coordinator Submitted by Joan Fulmer

Kids Zone The Kids Zone Leaders will meet on Thursday, January 7th for a planning meeting. Kids Zone will resume on Thursday, January 14th at 6:30 p.m. Kids Zone is our children’s midweek program for children in JK - Grade 5. All are welcome!

Christian Education Hour Our Christian Education will finish up for this year on Sunday, December 13th and will resume on January 10th. Pastor Alex will be teaching the Adult class beginning in the new year.

St. Petersburg, Russia

FIRST IMPRESSIONS By Grant Fairley

The Banwell ministry connection at First Baptist Church (FBC) (710 Mercer at Tuscaro-ra near the old Waterworld on Wyandotte) continues to touch lives in the heart of down-town Windsor. Grant and Cari Fairley from Banwell serve as the ministry leaders at FBC as the church develops its plans for the future.

The free community breakfasts are an important outreach every month. We have up to 100 guests from the neighbourhood come for pancakes, eggs, sausages, toast and coffee They are often homeless or facing addiction problems. Sometimes, they are the families with children who have just run out of money. Some are teens living on the streets. We are grateful to the “missionaries” from Banwell who have come to help prepare the breakfast and to greet our guests. Opportunities for prayer, testimonies and conversations happen – feed the soul as well as the body.

The Sunday services at 11 a.m. were blessed by Donna Wilcox from Banwell playing the piano for many months. We are grateful for her help and know that she will contin-ue to be a blessing at Banwell as she returns. The members have been encouraged by the many who have come from Banwell and elsewhere to share special music.

The church will now be one of the locations for an AA meeting beginning in January. On a practical level, a number of repair projects at FBC have been done by the men of the Banwell Men’s ministry and friends. This has improved the look and safety of the church – and encouraged the congrega-tion. FBC has also received valuable advice from our Banwell family on insurance and other finan-cial topics for stabilizing the church. We have also appreciated financial support from some of our sister churches and donations of specific items to help us in our ministry activities. Improving all these areas have strengthened the ministry downtown. As many of you know, FBC is in the heart of the most challenged area of Windsor. The needs of the community around us are intense with poverty, drugs, crime, new Canadians, unemployment and despair. The prayer of the FBC family is that we will be both a lighthouse and a safe harbour for those in need downtown. We welcome your input and participation where possible. Most of all, we thank you for your continuing prayer support as the challenges and the opportunities are great. FBC regularly gives thanks for Banwell and our other sister churches – and we pray for you too! For up-dates on what’s happening, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. For more information on how you can help, please email or call Grant & Cari 519-969-3388 or fairley@strategic-seminars.com – or leave them a note in their Banwell mailbox #29. Love and greetings to all of you from the church family at First Baptist Church.

Well, 2015 has slapped me in the face with the reality of life. From the death of my grandson Nick's grandfather Wayne Cassidy on June 22 to the death of my Mom on July 12, to my Dad's passing on October 22, it’s been six months filled with shock, tears, funeral homes, cemeteries, emptiness, pain, worry and disbelief coupled with planning and packing and boxing up belongings. It's been hours of fingering through the most personal parts of my parents’ lives - a very uncomfortable and painful task to have to accomplish. It's been having to regain composure and concentration and sensibility in order to do the things in life that we all must do. Like work. And maintain a home. And ‘go on with life'. It's been a time of realization for me; the realization that life is so very short and can be gone as quickly as we can blow out a candle. Once that candle goes out it's too late to say what we should have said, or take back those things that never should have been said at all. It's too late to make up for lost time, or to tell or listen to one more story; too late to make plans or to look forward to 'next time' or 'next Christmas'. I've also realized that when someone loses someone who has had such an impact on their lives - that grief - those powerful emotions, are very personal and are so individual that they cannot possibly be understood completely by anyone else. At the end of the day, even with all the kind words and well-meaning friends, we are left alone to deal with our own grief and it's not easy to do. Not alone. Someone told me that strong people ask for help. I did, and I can't say enough about the Windsor Chapel's Grief Recovery Program, without which I would have had a much more difficult time. Learning how to live a full life 'in the absence of the physical presence of the ones we have loved', is a process. We can never underestimate our grief...it's 100% our own...and it's not even a straight line, but a roller coaster of ups and downs that more than likely last a lifetime. Surviving grief is WORK. Hard WORK. The 'normal' way of life is forever changed and we have to strive for a sense of 'renewal' which at the beginning seems impossible to do. The myths we hear like 'you'll get over it', 'You should be thankful...', 'Just takes time, that's all'...

make it more difficult to deal with our own personal grief experiences. Now that I have learned that I am not losing my mind... that the things I have been thinking (and not thinking) and feeling (or not feeling) are all a normal part of the process, I can begin to think more clearly about living my life in the absence of my mother and my father. I'm not so sure how long it will take for that to happen, but I do know that in my effort to search for renewed meaning in my life now that they are gone, there is help out there - there are people who know how to help me on this difficult journey and I am so thankful. My great desire is that I will be able to someday help others on their journey in some small way. Sincere heart-felt thanks go out to everyone who helped with my Mom's (Marlene Willis) and Dad's (Frederick Willis) memorial services. Your generosity and availability was so very much cherished and I speak for my whole family when I say THANK YOU very much. Thanks too for all the prayers sent up from so many of you for our family and all the beautiful cards and calls and notes. My parents were excited to belong to this church family and both of them were so sad when they couldn't continue any more. They loved Banwell - and Al, of course. :) Through all of this I know that God has been with me. It's obvious that Jesus felt pain and sorrow when Peter betrayed him (Mark 14), and when He wept over the death of Lazareth (Luke 19). We know how sad and sorrowful He was in Matthew 26. I know He feels my pain too and that He wants me to live the life that He has designed for me. Elisabeth Elliot was a missionary in Ecuador in the 1950's. Tribal members killed her husband and she spent two years after that being a missionary to the very people who killed him. She says, "In my own life, I have realized that out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God." Wow. I so want that to be true in my life. This Christmas I, with help, will strive to honor my parents by remembering that they made me who I am and how they became anchors in my life , and who instilled in me important values that have shaped me. Thank you Banwell Family, Merry Christmas to all of you … Cheryl Willis

Loss of Loved Ones

CHILDCARE SCHEDULE /// DEC/JAN 2016 Date Nursery Little Lambs

Dec. 6th Pat Cowie Tracy Doyle

Carol Middaugh Gayle Marsh

Dec. 13th Christa Braccio Claire Cameron

Barb Stephens Camryn Stephens

Dec. 20th Beth Gellner Marlene Wray

Dawn Michelle Brown Bryana McCarthy

Dec. 27th Heather Doyle Mupanga Ngamangulu

Suzan Harper Macy Doyle

Jan. 3rd Pat Cowie Tracy Doyle

Laurie Beemer Mary Ann Adlam

Jan. 10th Christa Braccio Claire Cameron

Carol Middaugh Gayle Marsh

Jan. 17th Beth Gellner Marlene Wray

Barb Stephens Camryn Stephens

Jan. 24th Heather Doyle Mupanga Ngamangulu

Suzan Harper Macy Doyle

Jan. 31st Pat Cowie Tracy Doyle

Laurie Beemer Mary Ann Adlam

Date Junior Church JK - Gr. 1 Junior Church Gr. 2&3 Junior Church Gr. 4&5

Dec. 6th Dawn Michelle Brown Macy Doyle Vlatka Kralik

Rachel Brown Claire Cameron

Marlee Page

Dec. 13th Linda Moir Ema Kralik

Kodi Page Kyrn Page

Aaron Blata Ruben Kralik

Dec. 20th Linda Moir Kyrn Page

Meryl Lynn Linda Ogea

Stay in Worship Service

Dec. 27th Linda Moir Marlee Page

Linda Moir Marlee Page

Linda Moir Marlee Page

Jan. 3rd Linda Moir Macy Doyle Vlatka Kralik

Marlee Page Marlee Page

Jan. 10th Terri Prevett Danijela Kralik

Meryl Lynn Linda Ogea

Aaron Blata Ruben Kralik

Jan. 17th Beth Adlam Ema Kralik

Rachel Brown Claire Cameron

Cindy France

Jan. 24th Marj Rusling Saundra Plummer

Kodi Page Kyrn Page

Stay in Worship Service

Jan. 31st Bonnie Hammond Betty Ann Brown

Kathy Freeman Emily Andrews

Dawn Michelle Brown

The News ‘n Views staff

wishes you all a Merry

Christmas and a Happy

New Year!

Kids, enjoy coloring this picture!

My Back Pages

The Thanksgiving weekend this year brought a special opportunity to celebrate an important mile-stone with some special friends in our Baptist family. On Sunday October 11

th Linda and I, along

with our church clerk Dorothy Allan, attended a special banquet at the Ciociaro Club celebrating 40 years of ministry for our Windsor Chinese Baptist Church. Since these dear folks began their jour-ney as a congregation by meeting in the facilities at Temple Baptist in 1975, I thought it would be important for us to have some representation during this weekend of festivities. I have been blessed to have some contact with these brothers and sisters through our years in Windsor. I became good friends with Rev. Stephen Chow while he served the church as pastor, and Linda and I were blessed to spend some time socially with Stephen and his wife Loletta. I was pleased to be asked to conduct the wedding ceremony for the daughter of two of the church’s very active members Mr. George Ing and his wife. And many of you remember Alice Liu and her sons Jack and Dan. They all ended up at Banwell (as well as Alice’s husband, who worked overseas) but started their faith journey with the Chinese church. If you have kept any important papers from the early days of Banwell, you’ll notice Dan’s artwork in the letterhead that he designed for our young congregation. He was also the early drummer in the praise band! I was pleased to see that Alice was able to make it to this special weekend. However, besides the great food and excellent fellowship, there was something else that caught my attention about this event. The Windsor Chinese Baptist Church is not one of the largest churches in our city … yet this banquet filled one of the larger rooms at the Ciociaro Club. Since my social greetings were dispensed with fairly quickly, I was able to take some time to gaze around the room and observe. This was a wonderful homecoming for these folks … and they came from so many places around North America, some even from overseas. In spite of the relatively modest size of the current congregation, our Chinese church has had a tremendous influence in hundreds of lives throughout its forty year history. At times, of course, there was a bit of a language barrier, although pretty much everything was translated for the benefit of us mono-lingual folks! But there came a point where no translation was needed, when a collage of pictures, chronicling the history of the church, was shown on the screen. From worship services to Vacation Bible Schools, from the church basketball team to musical en-sembles, the richness of this faithful congregation became so evident. Dorothy, Linda and I were in attendance to honour our Chinese brothers and sisters in Christ … but I really had no idea the breadth of influence this congregation has had through the years, as former members of this church have blessed so many Christian causes beyond Windsor. It got me thinking as to how valuable each and every congregation is in the grand scheme of the Christian mission. We can’t all be part of a high profile church, whether in our city or with one we may read about or see on television. And yet there is some wonderful mission work going on in some great churches that never have their story told. Let us all continue to “grow where we are planted” … and let God work through us in advancing His kingdom, wherever that happens to be. Devotedly, your pastor … Alex

NEWS TEAM MEMBERS Editor/Journalist: Jim Wheeler;

Journalists: Zelma Horvath & Donna Soper; Proof-reader: Zelma Horvath; Typist & Designer: Debbie Ebel;

Spiritual Leader: Pastor Alex Moir; Production Staff: Deborah Bevington