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To view upcoming programs at the Tatamagouche Centre please click here.
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Fundy St. Lawrence Dawning Waters (FSLDW) Committee Interest form.
Advent Message from the President of Fundy St. Lawrence Dawning Waters Regional Council
Please click here to read the Advent Message.
Executive Minutes
Book Launch in memory of Alison Etter
You Are Loved — the children’s book in Alison’s memory — will be launched on Tuesday, December 17, at 12:15 p.m at the Cape Breton University Beaton Institute. There will be lunch and a reading. Illustrator Tammy Krasniqi will be present also. Everyone is welcome.
We will also be doing a lunch/reading on the South Shore at the Voglers Cove Community Hall on Friday, December 20, at 12:15 p.m. Everyone is welcome.
All of the royalties from the book will go to the Rev. Alison Etter Memorial Fund at AST to support alumni with in-community projects or continuing education that carry on Alison’s spirit, work, and values.
What’s all the fuss about Basic Income/Guarantee Liveable Income? Find out more!
The Guarantee Liveable Income working group in the 3 Atlantic Regions is looking for 3-5 congregations/pastoral charges who (in 2025) will join our first dozen pioneer learning churches. We can offer you an excellent package of learning materials for your use, including worship resources, sermons, info sheets, and more. Your task is simply to offer a learning event of any kind: a Sunday morning service, an after-worship something, an evening or afternoon gathering…to focus on learning more about Basic Income/GLI. That’s it! No further obligation, and no costs.
If you have any interest in being one of our learning churches in 2025, or have any questions, please contact Rob Fennell at rob.fennell@astheology.ns.ca
Stewardship Update – December 2024
Please click here to read the Stewardship update for December.
Webinar – Coffee with Jim Simpson & Sarah Charters
Mark your calendars for “Coffee with Jim Simpson & Sarah Charters” on December 12, 2024, at 12 PM EST!
Join us for a special year-end edition of our “Coffee With” webinar series, as we reflect on the past year and look ahead to what’s in store for the United Church of Canada Foundation in 2025. This half-hour session will feature Jim Simpson, Foundation Board Chair, and Sarah Charters, Foundation President, who will share insights on the Foundation’s progress and future plans.
Register here.
Greetings Growth Seekers from Growth Animator Sharon
You are a library of knowledge, skills and wisdom ready to be shared! What are the skills people have in your community of faith that you can share with others, even if you can’t personally do them as easily as you once did, you can still mentor others? Using a sewing machine, knitting, crocheting, quilting, simple mending, painting, drawing, flower arranging, wood working, carpentry, using power tools, simple house repairs, pie making, cooking, baking, canning and preserving, navigating social media, using apps on a cell phone, creating blogs, using spreadsheets, creating PowerPoint, gardening wisdom, how to play various card or board games, are just a few ideas to imagine what you can help others learn. Team up with local high school or big sisters/big brothers, or Scouts or 4H groups, local youth groups or other agencies in your neighbourhood to ensure legacies of learning move forward. One clergy told me this week “every time an elder dies, we lose a library.” Share some of your library of wisdom to keep a living legacy of lifelong learning. You can reach me by email at sballantyne@united-church.ca or by phone 705 875-8837. Let’s grow together with deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice.
Greetings of Peace from Regional President
Hello/Bonjour,
This is the Advent week of PEACE. Here are some thoughts about peace sent to me recently by Rev. Steve Berube of Riverview, NB, who had read my Regional Advent letter. He writes:
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Bethlehem reminds me of greater Moncton…I was last there in 2018 and arrived on time for the lighting of the Christmas Tree in Manger Square. I was one of the very few tourists in the crowd estimated at between 15-20,000. The vast majority who gathered were Muslims who joined with their Christian neigbours to celebrate. The relationship between Christians and Muslims in Bethlehem reminds me of how easily Francophones and Anglos now mix in this area. It was a great night and I felt very, very welcome.
…Today the Christian population has shrunk to at best 10,000…Most of the shops in the city are shuttered because there are no tourists. The economy is in shambles and the people are suffering immensely. There is also an increase in settler violence directed toward Christian sites and innocent Palestinians on top of the violence and repression they face from the occupying forces – just as the people faced Roman occupiers in the time of Jesus.
You wrote about a very pregnant Mary riding a donkey. Donkeys are still used and I imagine these days when people can’t afford to drive their cars that they are more heavily dependent upon these gentle animals.
Even though I see similarities between the time of Jesus and now there is not a direct throughline between the two.
Many people say to me that the people there have been at war with each other forever. Meanwhile the reality is that from the time of the crusades until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW I the region was one of the most peaceful in the world – especially in comparison to Europe.
It wasn’t until 1948 when the people of Palestine began to face settler-colonial violence with the creation of the state of Israel. The Israeli leadership’s disregard for the UN mandate caused the Nakba and created the largest refugee crisis in the world at that time by displacing 750,000 Palestinians and razing about 500 communities.
Bethlehem prides itself on being the birthplace of the Prince of Peace. Now they ask, ‘How long O’ God must we wait for the return of peace?”
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Dear readers, let us pray for peace in our homes, in our communities, across our great country and for Peace on Earth.
In faith/Avec foi,
Sue LeMaistre
