Shannon Doerksen

Advent is a season of waiting, and waiting is something we are all very familiar with this year. We have waited in lines to get our mail and groceries, we have waited to see our loved ones face-to-face, we have waited for jobs and classes to resume and for life, in general, to move back into a familiar shape.  We are still waiting.

Usually, all the advent waiting ends us in our familiar Christmas celebrations. This year, ‘familiar’ might not be the way we describe our gatherings and concerts as many of them will be cancelled outright or attended remotely. 

All of us respond differently to these things.  Some changes may be met with relief as we find ourselves less overstretched during what is usually a very hectic season, or disappointment and grief as we miss our usual ways of celebrating with friends and family, frustration and anger at all the things we do not know and cannot change, or some combination of feelings rendering it all the more difficult to understand what’s going on when they surface in uncomfortable ways. 

I hope we are gracious this Christmas with people who might make things complicated or inconvenient for us – from the stranger who nudges into a parking spot ahead of us to the relative who responds to COVID regulations in a way that makes us uncomfortable or frustrated.  I hope we allow other people to be tired or overwhelmed or sad and that we are similarly kind to ourselves.  I hope we emulate the kindness of the God who came near when we cannot be [physically] close to one another, ourselves.

Despite raging to the contrary, Christmas cannot be cancelled.  The Incarnation is not somehow dependent on our recognition or celebration for its reality.  God became completely and irrevocably human whether we wish one another “Merry Christmas,” some other holiday greeting, or nothing at all.  We may (and do!) miss the usual corporate gatherings to celebrate, but their absence is not His absence.  Whatever our strange pandemic Christmas looks like, we can be assured that however we feel about it, whatever we experience, this too Jesus identifies with because he knows the gamut of human emotion just as well as we do.

I often find that the answers I come across (or that find me) when I am struggling, are to a question I haven’t thought to ask.  I might be asking “how am I going to get through this?” or “why me?” or a myriad of variations on those themes, but the answer usually is “you are not alone.” This answer doesn’t lift me out of the reality I find uncomfortable or inconvenient, but it does something to me.  It changes me. Perhaps this year the questions we are asking ourselves are “how long?” or “will our lives ever be normal again?” or something else entirely.  But maybe the answer waiting for us at the end of Advent, regardless of what we are asking, is that we are not alone.  God is with us, among us, like us.  Our circumstances are certainly changeable, but maybe the thing that needs changing is us.  We can be transformed by the knowledge and the recollection that we are not alone; Emmanuel has come.

Thank You from the Rodgers Family

Evelyn Rodgers

We would like to express heartfelt gratitude for all the support and prayers you as a church have given these last few weeks and even over the whole year.

It's like my daughter said, "We didn't know that something so sad could be so good." The blessings have been so great and the joy and peace the Lord gives have been indescribable.

In the last week of his life, the Lord gave George a glimpse of the impact his life had. The whole family spent time with him as able. The grandchildren in Australia and Alberta did Facetime. I gave a book of memories I had just put together for the family for Christmas. It just seemed needed now.

Then the nieces and nephews who spent time at the farm each year and others connected with George told him what he meant to them as well! There were even phone calls from the Whitehorse and Ukraine. They gave assurance they'd see him again.

Even in suffering, George had so much peace and Joy. One day he told me he had so much joy that he didn't know what to do with it!

The surprise of seeing so many of you in your cars on the street after the funeral was so good as well. Some grandchildren remarked, “Oh look, all of grandpa’s friends are here.” What a blessing you were!

The grandchildren want to put a plaque at VVBC for their grandpa. We plan to have a celebration of life there when it is unveiled after Covid.

[A personal note from Pastor Russell - If you want to listen to George and Evelyn talk about Valley View, click here. George’s witness was truly Inspirational.]