Salvogesis

  Last year here I spoke about Human Trafficking and the workers at San Group. They said they paid between $20 000.00 and $30 000.00 to come here to work for a wage in excess of $30/hr. They said they never received that wage. They said they were subject to unsafe working conditions: working with toxic chemicals without proper protective gear, working long hours, many days in a row. They were afraid for themselves, and they were afraid for the safe transportation of their family. They showed us where they lived. They explained to us how they lived. They asked us to help them flee.   fifteen of the 16 workers were taken out of town to a secure Salvation Army facility in Victoria where they could have their physical, emotional and spiritual care needs met and where they could get the legal and other counsel that they needed.   The years prior I spoke here about our Emergency Disaster Services work and pointing people to salvation from natural disasters. This was really on m...

 Forgiveness and Mercy I believe are central to all of Christianity and without it there is no future. To experience the joys of the Kingdom of God we need to live in a world of forgiveness. Jesus says, Luke 6:27-30: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back;” Luke 6:35-37: “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do no judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” ...

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it Mark 8:35    I’ve got a test for us today: Famous Quotes. Let’s see who can name the speaker of each of the following quotes:[1]  1) “Hi Ho Silver, Away…”  2) “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto”  3) “I am not a crook”  4) “While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight, I'll fight to the very end!”  5) “Up, up, and away!”  6) “I’m strong to the finish ‘cause I eat my spinach; I’m _________ the sailor man.”  7) “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but for whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it.”     T...

James 4:13-15: 13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”   Luke 12:20 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’   We were in Ottawa for a memorial service. This reminds us that indeed we never know when our time will end here, when we will be called home or – as we used to live in Ontario and our job is what it is - even when we will move to a new appointment, a new community. We never know when will be the last time we will see someone we love. I have friends I used to see everyday in different towns we used to live whom I haven’t now seen for years and I...

As this is camp day, I have a camp story. This one is from a men’s camp we went to on the prairies years ago..   We men, as you know, can think of ourselves as fairly organized and when I was in teacher-training many years ago we learned that while women are generally more skilled at the creative side of things men have a much higher aptitude for math and such. So here is a math question for you. If you start off with 1 Officer and 5 other men from one town and you add 1 Officer and 4 other men from another town, how many men do you have? (11)   Good. Now if you subtract 1 person from the second town (who will get off the bus in Saskatoon) and add 1 person from the first town (Who will get on the bus in Saskatoon) how many men should we have on our bus as we leave men’s camp? (The one person we are going to add in Saskatoon is ‘David’, he is Major Ed’s son) How many people should we have on our bus at the beginning and the end of the trip? Do you think we could get tha...