Hi there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Churchville residents seem to be happier these days with their village\nlife. Over a dozen years or so we have\nbeen anxious about the busy traffic flow. \nWhen out mowing our front lawn, I would often count 40 plus cars per\nhour zooming past our house on their way to work in the morning or returning\nhome at the end of their day. Our road\nwas used as a shortcut probably due to road construction in the area. Then last year because of the placement of\npermanent speed bumps in four spots and no left turn signs from Steeles onto\nChurchville between 6-9 a.m. and 3-6 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, life became much\nquieter. The City of Brampton got it\nright thankfully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is nothing compared to the world quietness suddenly and unexpectedly\nforced upon us all with the COVID19 health crisis since January. Sometimes I feel like we are blindly\ntiptoeing through a field of cow paddies! \nThat is really hard to do without some nasty repercussions. Social distancing (maybe better labelled\nphysical distancing) is the norm leading to isolationism, fear or boredom – all\nnot very healthy for the soul. Someone recently\nposted a cartoon on Facebook, entitled \u201cYour Choice.\u201d It was a picture of a man lying on the ground\non his back six feet from another person with an additional picture of the same\nman lying six feet underground. Our best\nchoice is to abide by important restrictions that our governments have put in\nplace through difficult decision-making. \nOn the bright side, more parents with their children are out walking\nthrough our village getting to know each other better. We also don\u2019t hear noisy airplanes flying by\nwhich often causes conversations to be disrupted in the backyard. And Sunday\nafternoon a Zoom meeting (better than Skype) occurred with 21\/21 of our\nimmediate family members. It was neat to\ncatch up with everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Churches seem to be stunned throughout the land with this deadly virus that has caused service cancellations.\u00a0 Pastors are scrambling to figure out how to preach to a quiet, empty auditorium.\u00a0 Many find it hard to go on camera.\u00a0 Some have been asking for Gary\u2019s advice on how to develop a Zoom meeting or how to improve their Internet performance (one suggestion: raise the computer on the desk to eye level by setting it on a box).\u00a0 As to our Hillside Church, since East Side Marios is closed to our Sunday meetings, we have moved to the living-room in our home.\u00a0 Gary is conducting an online service – facebook.ca\/hillsidechurchmilton – for our church members as well as those who happen to click on our website whoever they are. (Sadly, last Sunday he didn’t hit the record button and it didn’t work. Always something! He will redo it today.) Recently, we have applied to the government for summer student employment funding to help us with our outreach program.\u00a0 Please pray that it will be approved by May for July\/August, that we will be able to hire students for this important task and that the virus will have abated by then.\u00a0 It could be that our new friends in Milton will now be more responsive to hearing about our new church start and what that can mean in their own personal lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One morning after breakfast Gary and I came upon Psalm 23 in our Bible reading. I particularly like the first three verses, \u201cThe\nLord is my Shepherd \u2026 he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.\u201d Maybe God is allowing this quietening virus to\nget us to pause and reflect on our phrenetic-paced lives for a while and even\nbecome creative for His Sake and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take care of yourselves and stay healthy. It\u2019s time to do some\ngardening!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wendy<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wendy.carter@kainos.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi there! Churchville residents seem to be happier these days with their village life. Over a dozen years or so we have been anxious about the busy traffic flow. When out mowing our front lawn, I would often count 40 plus cars per hour zooming past our house on their way to work in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendycarter.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}