Dear Church Family,

I do believe summer is here. This will be a summer to explore the world close at hand. But you can go to church – in a virtual way – all around the world. It’s a good opportunity to visit other churches and worship with them without having to leave your armchair (you can visit Pastor David & Margaret in Vernon or a friend or relative in another country). I hope that you will also continue to worship at Augustana. This is one way we can continue to be together as a community of faith.

I would like to thank the Augustana St. Timothy choir for their help with singing in our worship services. Each of the singers individually records themselves singing along with a recording that Deborah Buck has made and sent out. Deborah then puts all the voices together into one recording and sends it to Bryan Tastad. Greg Fowlie-Neufeld and I and the worship assistant meet at the church to record our portions of the service and then we pass these recordings on to Bryan. Bryan weaves it all together and posts our worship service on youtube and provides us all with the link. WOW.

I am also thankful for the work of Luminhos especially in the last three months when I have not been allowed to visit in the hospital. Pastor Michael Diegel (a member of Augustana) is the acting chaplain for Luminhos and he has continued to be able to visit in the hospital. Here is the link to the current Luminhos newsletter: https://www.luminhos.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/June-2020-Caregiver-June-25.pdf

I have been giving you weekly “assignments,” but now I would like to give you an assignment for the whole summer. At the top of our summer edition of the newsletter (attached to this email & accessible through our website) there is a line that says:

WELCOMING CELEBRATORY INSPIRIING ADVENTUROUS IN MISSION

In the coming months I would like to explore how we can still be all of those things beginning with WELCOMING. How can we be a welcoming community while we are apart? How can we be a welcoming community when we gather for worship wearing masks keeping 2 metres apart? Along with continuing to keep in touch with each other by phone, text, and messaging your task this summer is to come up with ideas and Bible verses & stories on how we can do this. I am looking forward to hearing your ideas.

May the peace of Christ bless you all.

Pastor Marilyn

Link for worship this week: https://youtu.be/LtCygzaoDoc