GOOD AND FUN THINGS
ARE HAPPENING AT ST. JOHNS!
This month I would like to focus on two fellowship events that I had the great pleasure to be a part of.
The first was organized by our very own Rector, Darren, and was for many of us a once in a lifetime trip to Alaska. There were in all 23 of us that went on the trip. Most of us started the trip with a visit to the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, where we were able to rest a bit before setting sail. We visited the magnificent Stanley Park and the Vancouver Harbor, as our hotel was right on the water. We took a side trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island on the day before the cruise and visited some of the most beautiful gardens in the world—The Butchart Gardens. They were magnificent!
The cruise left Vancouver on July 19th. The cruise ship, Holland American’s Volendam, was quite nice, with wonderful food and nice amenities and lots of great little spaces to relax and enjoy. The nightly shows featured singers and dancers, a magician, a comedian, and my favorite, a pianist (who had done his master’s degree at U of M). Even my two daughters, who were the youngest of our group, seemed to have a good time. Our first stop was Tracey Arm, a fjord with several glaciers. The morning was calm, overcast and misty, but the water, turned milky from glacier run-off, filled with some of the most beautiful chunks of ice from the glaciers (small icebergs) that looked as though someone had purposely spilled blue food coloring all over them just for our enjoyment. As a matter of fact, a lot of the glaciers themselves are bluish, caused by the compression of the ice in them.
Our first port was Juneau, the state capital. It is a town of 31,000 people that obviously expands with tourists during the summer months. Many of us went on a whale-watching excursion, where we saw about 20 humpback whales. They were spectacular! Our next port was Skagway, population 6500, where the braver of us took a train ride to the top of a mountain and then bicycled back to town, including our Rector! We made it back basically intact. One interesting fact I learned is that the average price of a home is about $225,000 in these parts of Alaska. The same homes here are in the $80-100,000 range. To think that the economy is based on tourism, salmon and oil, makes me feel a little better about Saginaw. Skagway was the starting point for many gold-rushers, so there was a lot of history to enjoy and explore there.
On the way back, we spent a day at Glacier Bay National Park, where we marveled at the natural beauty that God has provided for us to enjoy. In fact, Alaska is full of natural beauties that are just amazing—snow-covered mountains, lakes, fjords, rivers, waterfalls, whales and bald eagles just to name a few. How anyone can think that this is all there merely by chance needs to have their head, if not their heart examined. We had a lovely Eucharist led by Darren + in Glacier Bay with a beautiful backdrop of one of the glaciers that was probably the highlight of the trip for many of us.
Our final port was Ketchikan, the “Salmon Capital of the World”. I can’t wait to go back there to fish. Ketchikan felt even more crowded than the other two ports, with 76 jewelry stores, but there is a famous Episcopal Church there, named “St. John’s” of course, that was famous for its missionary work in the late 1800-early 1900’s.
Our second fellowship event was the second annual Cedar Point trip on August 2nd organized marvelously by Michele Hoeppner. This year we took two bus loads down there. Since I had so much fun last year, I decided to share it with my entire office staff and their families. For a relatively inexpensive, and care-free trip (because none of us had to drive) this is one that I highly suggest you make every effort to attend next year. My staff is still talking about it. You don’t have to be young, just young at heart. And you don’t have to go on the rides to have fun, either. I think watching the faces of the people riding is enough entertainment for a lot of us. Your Rector and I made an effort to go on just about every ride there was (at least the ones that don’t spin you all over the place). We even braved the “Dragster” that shoots you out from 0 to 120 miles an hour in about 3 seconds, then goes straight up 120 feet (with a twist at the top just for good measure) before plunging straight down the same 120 feet (with a twist at the top for another good measure), before coming to a screeching stop. Wow! I think I definitely saw God up there, and enough people were saying “Oh my God” that it was nice to have shared the ride with so many Christians.
With over 72 people, everyone clearly had a great time. God provided us with beautiful, warm weather, and we were able to cool off in the water rides provided by Cedar Point. We had treats aplenty for the ride down and back.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of good and fun things happening here at St. John’s. We are about to embark on a journey together to define who we are, and why we are, over the next year or so. I’m excited about the visioning process that we are starting under the expert guidance of Christine Reinhardt. I invite you all to attend either as part of the Vision Committee itself or as advisors on one Sunday a month at our Community Gathering Sundays so that we can accomplish our goal of making St. John’s a warm and inviting place for all, with programs to meet our needs and outreach to help serve the needs of our greater community. I believe that there are great reasons to continue supporting St. John’s with your time, talent and treasure and it will take all of us working together to further develop St. John’s into the church we need to be for a new day.
Tony deBari
Sr. Warden