Celebrating, Cottage-Style

Did you know that there’s a new treat called birthday timbiebs?  That’s what our little foursome at the cottage discovered when we set out to celebrate Sister Dora’s 85th birthday.  The venue chosen for the special lunch was Tim Horton’s because one of our Sisters generously shared a sizable gift card which she had received.  These are the special, unexpected deeds of kindness that occur during our life together in community.   

Sister Dora celebrates her 85th birthday

On July 12th, off we drove to nearby Bright’s Grove to celebrate the occasion and spend our windfall. Fortunately, Timmy’s usual lunchtime hustle and bustle was absent, so we had a leisurely celebration.  Of course, Tim Horton’s menu doesn’t include birthday cake, but we did spy the new, delicious waffle cake birthday timbiebs.  These little round bites sufficed for cake and candles to complete our special event.

Incidentally, I’m a belieber and follow the career of Canada’s young Justin.  Therefore, it was fun to have this be a part of our unique way to celebrate Sister Dora before returning to relaxing at Derrynane cottage on lovely Lake Huron. Its inviting water and magnificent sunsets provide a perfect setting to savor our last days of summer bliss.  We are forever grateful for this quiet, refreshing retreat where we’ve been vacationing for over half a century. Quite a Canadian moment indeed.

-Sister Jean Moylan, csj

International Day of Recognition for Nelson Mandela

WE REMEMBER NELSON MANDELA - JULY 18, 2022

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living”.

(Words of Nelson Mandela during the days apartheid)       

The United Nations declared July 18th (the birth date) as Nelson Mandela Day and encouraged people engaged in the struggle for justice to celebrate this day in honor of “Madiba.” The initial celebration, held on July 18, 2009, was a gathering of peoples across South Africa and around our world to recall how one person made a difference for both black and white communities in South Africa.   Today, in 2022, voices continue to be raised around our fragile world as the struggle for equality for all peoples is indeed not yet equally shared as we watch the evening news.   

I personally have admired Nelson Mandela for years in his passion and commitment to help bring about a just solution to the racial discrimination that he and many others lived through in his beloved country. Madiba’s long struggle for right relationship and for a just South Africa FOR ALL- came at great cost to him and his family.  I suspect that the journey to freedom was not an easy one for him. Nelson Mandela lived among the daily injustices he saw around him and oftentimes caused a negative response to the situation.

“When a man/woman is denied the right to live the life (s)he believes in, (s)he has no choice but to become an outlaw”.  (Words from Mandela as he faced a long jail term for his actions)

Madiba was arrested in 1963 and found guilty of conspiracy and sabotage to overthrow the government of South Africa which meant he would be facing an extensive jail term which was a way the government used to silence him and the movement that was coming into its own!  After 27 years of incarceration, with many of those years in solitary confinement, Nelson Mandela did not show hostility or anger toward his oppressors and in the upcoming election was selected as the first black leader of the Rainbow nation.   

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, we are able to see some of the attitudes Nelson chose to live by to survive this difficult time in his life…his transformation time…his time to live in a liminal space.  Perhaps each of us will take courage as our own personal journey of transformation continues to unfold from his insights:

  1. Believing that things would get better – There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested but I would not and could not give myself up to despair.

  2. Oppression was character building – The policy of apartheid created a deep and lasting wound in my country and my people.

  3. Focusing his hatred on the system not the PEOPLE running the system – In prison, my anger toward whites decreased, but my hatred for the system grew.  I loved even my enemies.

  4. Finding beauty in unexpected places fueling hope – Some mornings I was in the courtyard and every living thing there, seemed to smile and shine in the sun. I knew that someday my people and I would be free.

  5. Tending a garden became a metaphor for Life and Leadership – I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life.  A leader tends his garden; plants seeds, and then watches, cultivates and harvests the result.  A leader, like a gardener, must take responsibility for what is cultivated – mind his work, repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved and eliminate what cannot succeed.

  6. Reading survival stories of others – In reading classic Greek plays, I learned that character was measured by facing up to difficult situations and a hero would not break under the most trying of circumstances.

  7. Leaning on the camaraderie of others – Prison is designed to break one’s spirit and destroy one’s resolve, by stamping out that spark that makes each one of us a unique human being. We supported each other and gained strength from each other.

The home of Nelson Mandela, Soweto, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela lived from 1946 to 1962.

While working with Scarboro Missions in Malawi, our return flight was diverted to Cape Town, South Africa and there was not a connecting flight to Malawi for two days.  Being in Cape Town meant that there might be a possibility of visiting Nelson Mandela’s home located in the heart of the city - and right down the street from the residence of Desmond Tutu! My travelling companion, Brian Swords, a member of the Scarboro Leadership Team, was coming for a visit to our Mission in Malawi.  He was open to venturing out and finding the neighborhood where Nelson Mandela lived, and healed, after his years in confinement.  Upon crossing the threshold I noticed that his home was a small, humble dwelling – yet these were the words that came to mind as we stood on holy ground that day. 

All are welcome in this home where a new reality for the people of South Africa was born and continues to be lived out even to this day. 

-Sister Ann MacDonald, csj

Reflections on Ukraine

Church in Pyiterfolvo, Ukraine. Photo: Tom Childs

When the war in Ukraine started last February many memories of my travelling there on mission work came rushing back. During my travels in Eastern Europe I met many amazing and courageous people; one of those remarkable persons was Bishop Lajos Gulcasy. When he was a young minister in the 1950’s he taught catechism to confirmation classes, secretly in his house. This was against the communist religious policy in Ukraine and someone turned him in (possibly someone from his congregation). He was arrested, brutally tortured and put on trial for treason, yet he refused to deny his faith. The Bishop was sentenced to ten years in prison in a Soviet Gulag. He later explained his imprisonment taught him many things. When he was young he often cursed God for making him so short, as he believed this made him unpopular with the girls. But while he was in prison being shorter meant his clothes fit, he had enough food to eat, and he could hide in the midst of taller men in the freezing cold. Because of being shorter he was able to serve his sentence in seven years and he became a shining example to everyone who met him.

School in Pyiterfolvo, Ukraine. Photo: Tom Childs.

In 2006 when my home congregation from St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Scarborough decided to take part in a mission trip to Eastern Europe we helped to fundraise and build a high school in Pyiterfolvo, in western Ukraine. We were told by many parents there that education was the way to a better future for their children, community and country. However we never could have predicted that today that school would be used to house and feed fleeing refugees from eastern Ukraine. We are each called to help each other (Matthew 22:37-39). This requirement was made even more acute during Covid when all of us needed to love and help each other.

We live in challenging and dark times with humanity always seeming to repeat the mistakes from the past. The war in Ukraine is a recent example of this. The suffering, brutality, and destruction of this war, caused by Russia, are heartbreaking.

Velyka Dobron', Ukraine. Photo: Tom Childs.

We as individuals and as part of communities and countries, need to do much better. We are very blessed to live in Canada and we should never take our rights and privileges for granted. Many of the young people I met in Ukraine are now fighting in the war: some of them have already made the ultimate sacrifice for their country in a war they did not initiate. When you see hate or indifference in the world and your own community stand up, silence is complicity. Think of the courage of someone like Bishop Lajos Gulcasy. There is a lot of goodness in the world and we must always have hope that we can stand, or work, together to protect others.

‘He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God’.

Micah 6:8

 -Thomas Childs, Guest Writer

TOM IS A HUSBAND, FATHER AND GRANDFATHER, WAS BORN AND RAISED IN TORONTO AND NOW LIVES IN PETERBOROUGH. HE IS ALSO AN ORDAINED ELDER AND LAY MISSIONARY IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN CANADA.  

Title Image of Ukrainian Flag: Unsplash/Max Kukurudziak