The diocese is holding half-day workshops for parish leaders, especially those new to their positions. The workshops are for churchwardens, deputy churchwardens, parish administrators, treasurers, administrative staff and clergy. The purpose of the workshops is to provide parish leaders with the information, resources and support needed to help them do their jobs. Two workshops were held on March 23. Two more workshops will be held on April 6, the first at St. John, East Orangeville in the morning and the second at Christ Church, Brampton in the afternoon. For more information, visit www.toronto.anglican.ca.

Priest writes book on joyful eating

The Rev. Canon Martha Tatarnic, the former incumbent of St. David, Orillia and now the incumbent of St. George in St. Catharines, has written The Living Diet: A Christian Journey to Joyful Eating, a new book  that offers a hopeful perspective on how to understand our relationship with the food we eat and the bodies in which we live. In The Living Diet, she focuses on how the teachings of Jesus offer a different perspective on healthy bodies and healthy food, rooted in eating as an act of relationship. “We know the aphorism, ‘You are what you eat,’” she says. “But Jesus also proclaims that we are how we eat. How we eat communicates much about what we value, who we value, and indeed who we are.” The Living Diet will be published on April 17.

Parish nurses invited to education day

The Canadian Association for Parish Nursing Ministry is holding a church health education day open to all nurses, health care providers, faith leaders and anyone interested in faith community health. It will take place on May 24 from 1-5 p.m. at the Ivey Spencer Leadership Centre in London, Ont. For more details and to register, email capnm.secretary@gmail.com.

ACW holds annual general meeting

The diocesan Anglican Church Women’s annual general meeting and luncheon will be held on April 27 at St. Timothy, Agincourt with guest speaker Alexandra Shimo, author of Invisible North: Life Lessons from a Troubled Reserve. All are invited.  Tickets are $35. For more information, call 416-363-0018 or email acw@toronto.anglican.ca.

Head of refugee alliance retires

Ian McBride, the long-time director of the Anglican-United Refugee Alliance (AURA), retired at the end of January. Mr. McBride worked in the area of refugee sponsorship and resettlement on behalf of the diocese for many years, beginning on the board of what was then called the Working Group on Refugee Resettlement in 1996, and becoming executive director in 1998. “Those of us who have been involved in refugee sponsorship either in diocese or through our home parishes can attest to Ian’s passion and dedication to this work, and how well he has equipped parishes throughout our diocese to live out Christ’s call to ‘welcome the stranger,’” says Elin Goulden, the diocese’s Social Justice and Advocacy consultant.

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Thirteen parishes in the Diocese of Niagara and one in the Diocese of Toronto are running Revive, a program that helps churchwardens, committee members, Sunday School teachers, property managers, volunteers and others draw closer to God – something they don’t always have time for in their busy lives.

Clergy who are running the program say it is giving participants more confidence and enthusiasm to talk about and share their faith. They say it is also deepening relationships in their parishes.

Revive invites lay leaders to journey with their clergy for a year. The program starts with an opening retreat followed by three modules, each lasting about six weeks. In the first module, participants learn several different types of prayer. They develop a prayer practice for themselves and feel confident about praying in public. In the second module, they learn about scripture and how to lead a small Bible meditation group. The third module is about orienting their ministry toward call and vocation, rather than just doing a job.

Up to 12 people and their priest journey together from October to early June, taking a break during the Christmas and Easter seasons. They usually meet one night a week for about two hours. At the end of the program, they attend another retreat and adopt a Rule of Life, a way for them to carry on their life and ministry in a new way.

The Rev. Canon Martha Tatarnic is co-leading the program for 12 lay leaders at St. George in St. Catharines and says it is having a remarkable effect on the group. “It was like people had been waiting their whole lives to be asked this stuff. The floodgates just opened. They seemed to relish the opportunity to speak about these things in a way that was safe.”

She says the program is having an impact on the rest of her parish as well. “It’s almost like there is a permission in the parish now for others to be talking openly about their spiritual stories. Anglicans can be pretty polite about their religion and reserved in terms of how they talk about their relationship with God, and this seems like we’re moving the dial just a little bit in terms of that culture.”

As group members form a closer relationship with God and become more confident in their faith, their ministry deepens, she says. “That communicates a really important message about who the church is and what we’re called to be – that all we do is rooted in our relationship with God. I think that revitalizes a parish, and I can see, just halfway through the program, how that revitalization has already happened here.”

She says her parishioners were reluctant at first to take part in Revive, wondering if they really needed another program. That thinking has since changed. “What I’m finding now, halfway through, is that we have a sign-up list already for next fall.”

The Rev. Sheilagh Ashworth is running Revive for eight people in the Parish of Lloydtown, which is comprised of Christ Church, Kettleby and St. Mary Magdalene, Schomberg. She says the program is giving group members the confidence and experience to lead in worship settings, something that has practical implications in her parish.

“In our multi-point church, we need lay readers to lead morning prayer on occasion, and it’s been helpful for that,” she says. She’s hoping members of the group will lead the parish’s Bible study during Lent.

She is impressed with the program’s resources, including videos that can be used to facilitate the discussions. “The workbooks are well laid out, thoughtful and easy to use. As a package, it works very well. It’s empowering.”

The Rev. Canon Cheryl Palmer, the incumbent of Christ Church, Deer Park in Toronto, found the program helped her get to know some members of the congregation when she started there last January. Christ Church was one of 10 parishes in Canada and the United States that took part in a pilot project to test the program.

“Right away, there was a little group of people with whom I suddenly had a relationship,” she recalls. “We were delving into deeply spiritual things, so we connected with each other from the start.”

She says the first module on prayer and different types of prayer had a powerful impact on the group. “It was a huge hit with people. We all have in our minds what prayer is supposed to be, but then along comes someone who says you can pray this way and that way – it all depends on who you are and what’s going on in your life. People were receptive to that and it unfolded in a beautiful way.”

She recalls a moment that illustrates how the program can instill confidence in those who take it. One morning before the start of a service, she couldn’t pray with the choir downstairs because she had to be welcoming people to the church upstairs. In the spur of the moment, she asked one of the Revive group members to lead the prayer for the choir. “She looked at me, and then smiled and said, ‘Yes, I can do that.’ It’s a small thing, but it’s indicative of the freedom that people were given as a result of engaging with the program.”

Revive, officially launched on Jan. 7, is offered by RenewalWorks, a ministry of Forward Movement, an arm of The Episcopal Church that is dedicated to reinvigorating the Church. The program was created a few years ago by the Rev. Canon Dr. Dawn Davis when she was the incumbent at Trinity, Aurora. She is now the Faith Formation Coordinator for the Greater St. Catharines Area and the Diocese of Niagara.

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The first walk, held on April 13, 1979, was organized by a group of Catholic teachers, Teachers for Social Justice of the Metropolitan Separate School Board. The theme was “Witness to Hope: Contemporary Way of the Cross,” and began at the Newman Center at 80 St. George St. with more than 100 participants. There were five stations – for the wounds of Christ on the cross – and everyone was invited to meditate on five contemporary wounds of the suffering Body of Christ. The stations focused on the hazards of nuclear waste, abortion, refugee policy, exploitation in the sugar industry, and justice for striking workers in a seven-month lockout in Sudbury.

“The purpose was not to lay blame, but to acknowledge everyone’s participation in oppressive structures and everyone’s need for repentance,” explains the Rev. Sherman Hesselgrave, incumbent of Holy Trinity, Trinity Square. The first walk concluded at Nathan Phillips Square.

Over the decades, the themes of the stations have responded to a wide range of issues, from human trafficking to the commodification of water to climate change. The themes of the stations on the 2019 walk – homelessness, refugees, Indigenous and environmental justice – have been addressed on previous walks.

“Forty is a long time to persist, but it took William Wilberforce 40 years of offering his private member’s bill to abolish slavery before Parliament took action to do so,” says Mr. Hesselgrave.

This year’s walk concludes back at Holy Trinity with a simple supper.

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Aggrey Nshekanabo of Send-a-Cow Uganda says that, in theory, Uganda should be able feed the world. But climate change has done a number on small-holder farmers, whose harvests supply about 65 per cent of the country’s food.

“The seeds and soil are tired,” he says. “It’s the end of February but where are the rains? They should have started already. We don’t have the knowledge to adapt.” Uganda has the world’s youngest population, so providing enough food will be a challenge for years to come.

I am in Uganda representing The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) with other communications professionals from member agencies of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. The group is made up of Becky Longhurst of Canadian Lutheran World Relief, Jon Self of World Renew, Samantha Burnside of Emergency Relief and Development Overseas and Shaylyn McMahon and Musu Taylor-Lewis of the Foodgrains Bank. We will also be joined by Nyambura Githaiga, a peace-building and crisis specialist with the Foodgrains Bank, and Edward Echwalu, a Ugandan freelance photographer formerly with Reuters.

Over the next week, we will visit three food security projects that are supported by our agencies and implemented by these Ugandan development partners: the Anglican Diocese of Nebbi, which for three years has been training rural families about conservation agriculture, empowering women with a savings and loan cooperative and training men and women on the importance of sharing household responsibilities; the Pentecostal Assemblies of God in Arua, which has been delivering a nutritional supplement to vulnerable South Sudanese refugees in Rhino Camp, as well as women’s sanitary kits and psychosocial support; and the St. Jude’s Family Project in Masaka, which for 20 years has been training local people to feed their families using farming techniques such as permaculture.

We know we have come to hear people’s stories and share them with our respective churches, but we don’t yet know how inspired we’ll be by the people we meet.

Diocese of Nebbi, Nebbi

Clusters of one-room brick buildings with sloped thatched grass roofs dot the landscape in the rural outskirts of this northwestern town. Towers of hand-made bricks are stacked to form their own kiln, and huge bundles of grass lean against the trees. Goats, roosters and pigs forage about. Children walk home from school in long lines, turning to wave and smile at our party. Women peel cassava or husk cowpeas in the shade while the men lay bricks or tend the fields. Some houses have small solar panels propped up on the ground, for if there is one thing Uganda has a lot of, it is sunshine. We are acclimatizing to the 35°C heat.

The development staff takes us to meet two separate savings-and-loan co-ops. In my group, 14 women gather on a tarp laid out beneath the shade of a tree. Plastic lawn chairs are set out for us and we are welcomed with singing and dancing. One by one, the women rise to tell us how this program has transformed their lives.

The women do the bulk of the farming, but with the increasing rate of climate change, the work takes longer and produces less. They have learned conservation agriculture techniques such as planting more than one type of seed at a time (to be less vulnerable to a bad crop), mulching (to retain moisture), and planting in rows (to make weeding easier). Soon their harvests were yielding enough food to feed their families and sell the surplus.

Once the men saw the increased yields and what the women were learning, couples began to work together as partners, sharing not only the farming workload but household and parenting duties as well. Gender workshops were also organized for both men and women.

Judith and Moses invited us into their home. They have a 14-year-old son, a nine-year-old daughter and a two-month-old son. Moses held baby Emmanuel with ease but said (through an interpreter) that he would have never done this with his first-born son. With profits from selling her produce, Judith was able to purchase the decorative curtain that hid the bed behind them, as well as plates, cups and chairs. To not be able to demonstrate hospitality is a shameful thing to a Ugandan, we learned.

Pentecostal Assemblies of God, Rhino Camp

Pentecostal Assemblies of God staffers Sheshmond Esalu, Simon Ekadu and Andrew Ogwang accompany us on the two-hour drive from Arua to Rhino Camp. Almost 100,000 people live here, mostly South Sudanese. Some have been here since 2016, unable to return home, as the conflict in South Sudan continues. There are 13 refugee settlements in Uganda, hosting 1.2 million refugees, the highest in Africa.

The camp is divided into six sub-camps, which are further divided into zones. We are visiting Ofua Camp, zones two and four. Many of the brick and thatched roof houses are wrapped in the tent material of the UN Refugee Agency. The chaos of the early days is gone, yet the challenges remain.

Our intrepid driver, Patrick Nsereko, expertly navigates the treacherous roads until we arrive at the church – a long mud-covered building with a grass-thatched roof. As we file into the building, we are greeted with singing, clapping and dancing. By the time the song is over, the church is full and children poke their heads in the gap between the walls to watch.

We learn that each zone is governed by a Refugee Welfare Council made up of refugee leaders who interact with the NGOs. Each leader stands up and introduces themselves. The people are grateful for the support they have been given but they are growing frustrated. Monthly food rations last only 20 days. There is no way to make an income to buy more food for the remaining 10 days or to buy uniforms so their kids can go to school. The corn-soya nutritional porridge that the Pentecostal Assemblies of God provides to 2,500 vulnerable people in Ofua has been delayed at the Kenyan border for a month.

The next day we meet refugees in Zone 4. We speak with a group of breastfeeding or pregnant women who have been receiving the fortified porridge. They sit close together on a bench, two of them holding their babies on their laps. All but one attend Bethlehem Anglican Church, the large building behind us. Sarah Adjonye, who sits at one end, is a churchwarden there. She patiently translates each woman’s names and ages, and their harrowing stories of how they arrived here, mostly on foot with only the clothes on their backs. “God must have a reason for putting us here,” she says. “It’s not normal for people to live like this.” Then the words seem to catch in Sarah’s throat and she brings the back of her hand to her eyes. Quietly, she says, “We must have really sinned for God to punish us like this.” Afterwards, she tells me she is praying for help to start a small drugstore business. I tell her I will pray for her, too.

St. Jude’s Family Project, Masaka

On our last day, we head west to Masaka. Founder Josephine Kizza Aliddeki greets us with enthusiasm. The 22-year-old organization has grown to include modern offices and classrooms, dormitories and a cafeteria for instruction in permaculture. PWRDF has been supporting St. Jude’s for the past year-and-a-half, training 210 women farmers, building 210 water tanks for rainwater harvest, establishing tree and vegetable nurseries and more.

Josephine’s son Daniel recently completed a Master’s degree in Oklahoma and is excited to show us the new demonstration garden. “We built it on the side of a hill to show farmers that an area that seems inhospitable can still grow food,” he says. The garden includes irrigation tunnels that run down the hill and feed into three aquaculture pools where fish are farmed. There is eggplant, tomatoes, banana trees, heaps of grass compost, chicken coops and pig stys. “Permaculture is all about using the soil to feed you, but also feeding the soil,” says Daniel. He explains that farmers learn to continuously plant so there is no “season”. Plants are harvested in turn and carefully chosen to also return nutrients the soil.

We take a short drive to the home of Emily, 52, who is disabled. She leads other vulnerable people in caring for a tree nursery, making soap, breeding pigs and chickens and collecting rain water. She tours us around her home and shows off her new higher-efficiency wood-burning brick stove, one of 120 in the community.

PWRDF has supported St. Jude’s in planting more than 10,000 trees. When crops are not turning a profit, many people cut down trees to burn and make charcoal to sell, but the cost to the soil and air quality is far greater than the short-term gain.

When we return to the main building, the community is waiting to meet and thank us. They have written a song about how their lives have changed. Josephine translates: “It is through the Canadians that we can reach higher and higher,” the song goes. “We’ve been able now to improve our lives because St. Jude came to work with us.”

Mission accomplished.

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While the Toronto Homeless Memorial service has taken place on the second Tuesday of every month since 1998, February’s gathering was especially large due to the number of deaths and the publicity surrounding two of them.

Those who had died in the city in 2019 were named at the service: Chris Saboyard, Crystal Papineau, Tabitha Lewis, Hang Vo, James Young, Leonard Sisson and two men identified only as “John Doe.” The name of William Easter, an advocate who had experienced homelessness and addiction and died Feb. 3, was also added at the request of his partner.

(Seven more individuals, six identified as “John Doe,” were added to the total for 2018 from data recently released by the city on deaths within the shelter system.)

Rachel Robinson, a peer worker at Sistering, an agency for precariously housed women, remembered Crystal Papineau as a “gem,” a woman of “quick and incisive wit” who was always ready to offer a hug. Ms. Papineau died in a clothing donation bin on Jan. 8. Tabitha Lewis was remembered by a worker from the George Street respite facility as a “radiant, kind and creative” young woman, a “refreshing presence” who hoped to be reunited with her nine-year-old son. One man who had experienced homelessness spoke of how he had slept on the same grate where Hang Vo, 58, lost her life after being crushed by a garbage truck on Jan. 15.

The Rev. Maggie Helwig, incumbent of St. Stephen in-the-Fields, Toronto, remembered Leonard Sisson, whom she had known for over a decade, as a cheerful, upbeat person who tried to spread positive energy wherever he went. She encouraged all in attendance to work toward a society where everyone can live – and die – with dignity, respect and care.

Rabbi Aron Glasreich of Beth Sholom Synagogue in Toronto spoke of the ancient sage’s response when asked at what time one should say morning prayer: “At the hour when you are able to see the face of another.” He urged those gathered to resist the temptation to become blind to the suffering of others, but rather to recognize the humanity of each person.

Finally, volunteer Rayna Slobodian read the names again, her voice breaking on the long list of John Does.

Street nurse and advocate Cathy Crowe said that she had not seen so many names added to the Toronto Homeless Memorial at one time in its 20-year existence. The memorial, located outside the church, remembers those who have died in the city as a result of homelessness.

After the service, Ms. Crowe and some 60 people headed through the gathering snowstorm to Toronto City Hall under the banner of the newly formed Shelter and Housing Justice Network. Several representatives were admitted to the mayor’s office to present a letter to one of his staff outlining their concerns over the increasing need for emergency shelter and affordable housing in the city. At the time of writing, there has been no response to the letter.

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The Anglican Church Cricket Festival (ACCF) provides an opportunity for parishioners of Anglican churches across the GTA to get to know each other and to build relationships with our community at large. ACCF uses cricket to give our parishioners an enjoyable day out, with food, fun and good Christian fellowship. Women, men, children of all ages, seasoned cricket players as well as absolute beginners are given the opportunity to try this sport. Bishop Jenny Andison described the event beautifully in a thank-you letter to the committee: “The event builds community amongst the parishes and creates a space for the working of the Holy Spirit in the lives of young and old, churched and unchurched, skilled cricketers and enthusiastic amateurs.”

Cities in the GTA have experienced growth as a direct result of immigration, and it is important to recognize the implications of these settlement patterns and how they shape local needs and desires with respect to recreation. Cricket is a regular topic of conversation when Peter Marshall, an avid cricket fan from Yorkshire, England, and I meet during the coffee time at St. Thomas’s. Apart from teasing Peter about how the Brits invented cricket but the South Asians perfected it, Peter and I first talked about the idea of a friendly cricket encounter back in 2015. I had taken part in a number of inter-church cricket tournaments in Sri Lanka, and we knew that cricket, being a globally popular sport, was a common thread that could bind our diverse church communities together.

The best part about holding the festival is that it’s an opportunity to meet and bring together Anglicans from across the GTA, and also to receive the support of Bishop Jenny and the Diocesan Centre. The worst is that we have no control over one of the key factors for a successful event – the weather! This reminds me of what my mother used to say: “Man proposes, God disposes.”

I have served on the boards of a number of government agencies that deliver social services in the GTA and currently serve on the board of Toronto Grace Health Centre, a public hospital run by the Salvation Army. As a board member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), I have had the great privilege of leading the CIMA Mayor’s School Cricket Program, providing over 6,000 school children in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area with opportunities to play cricket. I also led CIMA’s cricket scholarship program, where young cricketers were given the opportunity to represent Toronto overseas as part of the Toronto Mayor’s Youth Cricket Team.

I was born in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and am the third in my family of seven. Moratuwa is a city that has produced some of Sri Lanka’s top national cricket stars. My father worked for the Gal Oya Development Board, one of the largest rural irrigation projects in Sri Lanka, and I have fond memories of living and going to school up to Grade 5 in a village amidst thick jungle. Moving back to our hometown of Moratuwa as a 10-year-old, I was fascinated by the activities going on next to my ancestral home, “Mendis Villa,” where a group of youth had built a clubhouse for their community cricket club. I used to join them as a young kid and be on the cricket field watching and admiring the big boys play cricket. Thus the seeds were planted in my mind to follow this fascinating sport for a lifetime.

With the death of my father when I was 12, cricket – played with friends under coconut trees – was a great escape for me throughout my childhood; it was part of my routine practically every day after school. I went on to play cricket for my school. I played club cricket and represented my employers during my 10-year working career in Sri Lanka. Moving to Canada in 1987, a country where I had no close friends or family, it was a cricket match that I attended in Mississauga, the day after arriving in Canada, that helped me build my network of friends here. Five months later, my future wife Chandanie migrated to Canada and we got married at Christ’s Church Cathedral in Hamilton. Accompanying the Toronto Mayor’s Youth Cricket Team on tours annually for over a decade to England, Sri Lanka and Trinidad, and being invited to ring the starting bell at the home of cricket – the Lord’s Cricket Grounds in London, England during our visit in 2011 – are the highlights of my cricket career.

My siblings and I were lucky to have parents who instilled in us the importance of daily family prayers during our formative years, and my mother, having to raise seven children on her own, made sure that the Sunday service followed by Sunday School became part of our lives growing up. The great Sunday School program at Holy Emmanuel Church in the Diocese of Colombo, Sri Lanka is where we were rooted in the Word of God. We were altar servers and members of the choir, and my younger brother, the Rev. Nirmal Mendis, served in the Diocese of Colombo; he is now with the Diocese of Niagara. My wife and I made sure that we passed on our faith to our children and that they understood the values and virtues of scripture.

My favourite passage is Isiah 40: 28-31. I have had to face more than my share of storms in life, all the way back to my childhood. This passage speaks to the importance of waiting on the Lord when your faith is challenged in the face of adversity. Those experiences have shown me, and continue to teach me, the promise of renewing and regaining new strength through Him.

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A faithful response to the groaning of creation in our time calls for the adoption of these Lenten practices of self-examination, repentance, self-restraint and generosity, while seeking to follow more closely the way of Christ. The growing crises of climate change and plastic pollution, threats to water quality and species at risk, testify to human greed, callousness and love of ease and convenience superseding God’s command for humankind to care for all members of the created community.

Lent offers us the opportunity to examine our lifestyles and practices, both personal and corporate, and find ways to live that honour our interdependence with creation and our dependence upon the Creator. This year, Earth Day (April 22) falls on Easter Monday, which makes observing a “green Lent” a timely preparation for the celebration of Earth Sunday in Eastertide. To that end, the diocese’s Creation Matters committee has prepared a Lent calendar that guides individual Anglicans through reflection on scripture, learning about environmental issues, practical tips for reducing one’s own environmental footprint, invitations to community action, calls to advocate for stronger environmental policy, and opportunities to share our wealth with those who bear the disproportionate burden of climate change and other environmental threats. The calendar is available at www.toronto.anglican.ca/environment.

One of the actions called for in the Lent calendar is to participate in the annual “Give It Up for the Earth!” postcard campaign by Citizens for Public Justice. This ecumenical coalition of Canadian churches has run the campaign since 2017, inviting Canadian Christians to pledge to reduce their own carbon footprint during Lent while calling on the federal government to implement a robust climate policy. This year’s postcard urges the Prime Minister to end public subsidies on fossil fuels, which amount to about   $1.4 billion annually. At the time of writing, 250 postcards have been distributed to a dozen parishes in our diocese. To order more, or to sign the pledge online, please visit www.cpj.ca/fortheearth.

It has been our practice in this diocese over the last decade to observe Earth Sunday on the Sunday nearest to April 22. This year, that would be Easter Sunday, so we anticipate that many clergy will prefer to transfer Earth Sunday to April 28, the Second Sunday of Easter. In addition to the Lent calendar, the Creation Matters committee has compiled a number of other resources to aid parishes in celebrating Earth Sunday. These include reflections on the lectionary for both Easter Sunday and the Second Sunday of Easter, an Earth Sunday Prayers of the People, and a list of suggested hymns.

In addition, the Creation Matters Working Group of the Anglican Church of Canada has also shared resources produced by other dioceses for Lent and Earth Sunday. The Diocese of Nova Scotia and PEI, with the assistance of photographer Donna Giles, has created a series of reflections called “Stations of Creation” which invite participants to reflect on scripture, a brief meditation and a photograph at each station. Sue Carson, from the Diocese of Niagara, offers a reflection on the popular hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Links to these resources can also be found on the Environmental Resources page of our diocese’s website, www.toronto.anglican.ca.

While the season of Lent calls us into repentance for the ways in which we have caused creation to groan, the celebration of Easter reminds us of the promise of what John Wesley called “the general deliverance” – that glorious reconciliation and restoration of all creation through the death and resurrection of Christ. Let these seasons draw us more deeply into God’s love for all that God has made, and teach us to live in right relationship with what Indigenous tradition recognizes as “all our relations.”

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The experience of being in Canterbury was remarkable. Twenty-nine bishops from around the Anglican Communion gathered for 10 days of prayer, study and fellowship. Most days were spent at Canterbury, though we also had a road trip to London, with trips to the Anglican Communion Office and Lambeth Palace. I am still reflecting on this profound experience, but I want to share a few things I took away with me:

1. Our Communion is wonderfully diverse. The 29 bishops in the program came from six continents and represented more than a dozen linguistic groups. Certain bishops served some of the wealthiest dioceses in the world, and others served some of the poorest. One bishop arrived late to the program because he was burying one of his priests who had just been murdered in the ongoing civil conflict in South Sudan. Another was the first bishop of a brand new diocese in Brazil, and she was creatively figuring out how to lead something so nascent and ripe with possibilities. Another bishop spoke of the real fear that the effects of climate change will wipe out entire islands near his home in Melanesia.

2. Yet we are the same. In spite of our many differences, and the rich diversity of our Communion, what a privilege it was to share stories which spoke of our common fellowship. All of us shared the joys and struggles of trying to proclaim and live the Gospel in a diverse world. For some African bishops, their ministry takes place in areas where Islam is growing much faster than Christianity. For other bishops, ministry is set in the midst of an increasingly secular society. For all of us, there was recognition that ministry must be adaptable and contextual, so that the Gospel can continue to speak to the changing needs of a changing world. On a more personal level, all of us expressed the importance of balancing the demands of episcopal ministry on the one hand, with the needs of family and friendship on the other.

3. It’s about Jesus. One of my enduring memories of our time together was our last day, gathered in the chapel of St. Augustine’s Abbey, not far from Canterbury Cathedral. This was the place where Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed when he came as a missionary to England from Rome in the late 6^th For 15 centuries, Christians have gathered there to pray, break bread and study. In that same place, we also prayed, sang, and exchanged gifts – all in the name of the same Jesus who was worshipped and proclaimed by St. Augustine all those years ago. Regardless of our differences in language, culture, theology or politics, we were united in our praise and thanksgiving to God, and in our confession of Jesus Christ as “the firstborn of all creation, the head of the Church and the author of our salvation.”

4. We are all in this together. Before I left for the U.K., some people predicted that bishops from other parts of the Communion wouldn’t want much to do with bishops from Canada and the U.S., given the current disagreements within the Communion. I was pleased that nothing could be further from the truth. There was an earnest desire to talk openly about some of the challenges we face, but there was also recognition and appreciation that the work of the Gospel might look very different across the various provinces and dioceses of our Church. As we prepared to return to our homes, we committed to continue working and praying together, to discover new ways to give leadership to God’s Church in all its wonderful diversity and complexity. In that mutual commitment, we have sought to respond faithfully to the prayer of Jesus, “that they may all be one.” (John 17:21)

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Our story of faith begins in the garden. The garden was verdant, luscious, brimming with life. The soil, streams, rain and sun provided perfect conditions for growth. It was home for plant and animal, winged bird and fish in the waters. And it was home for humanity, paradise for Adam and Eve. A sacred place where God walked, holy, safe and secure. We knew ourselves to be loved. We knew our place. However, we have this tendency to over-reach, to take too much before our time, to grasp for a little more. The conditions were right for that, too. A serpent, the tree, the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. We took a taste and then we tried to cover up. We pointed fingers to deflect blame, but no matter, we left the garden – or was it more that the garden left us?

Things tend to happen in the garden.

On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, (according to the Gospel of St. John) Mary Magdalene went to the garden. Perhaps she went to grieve, to make some sense, to be as close to him as possible. To her horror, she discovered that the tomb was open; the stone was rolled away. It must have been a frightening scene. Was it grave robbers, mischief-makers or authorities trying to erase the evidence? What she could not see, at first, was that the open grave would become our doorway back to the garden. Stooping to look in through her tears, the linens that once lay near his head and his feet had become angels. Why are you weeping? they asked her. She was still so stuck in Friday that she could not see Sunday dawning. The same question was asked again, by the one she thought was the gardener: Why are you weeping?

My very first job was cutting grass and tending gardens. I was in Grade 8. My older brother and I had started our own business, but then he quit when a better job offer came along. He was in Grade 10. So, I hired my younger brother, Mark, who was in Grade 5. We had 20 regular customers. We had our own lawnmower, garden implements and tools. We were busy that summer. We cut grass, trimmed hedges, and dug up and weeded gardens. Cutting grass was the easy part but tending the gardens – that was a different enterprise altogether. We really didn’t know what we were doing. Sometimes weeds looked a lot like some perennials.

We took instructions from our customers – what to prune, what to weed and not to weed, what to trim and what to leave. Even with good directions, we didn’t always get it right. If the truth be told, we kind of messed up sometimes – okay, I messed up. Like the time I lopped off sprouting peonies, thinking them to be dreaded weeds. When I recognized my mistake, I tried to find a way to reattach the stem, to no avail. I tried plunking the cut pieces into the soil, shoring up the stems with earth to make them look good, but the stems wilted in the midday heat. It was better to confess than to cover up.

She thought he was the gardener and she was not wrong. After all, it was the familiar sound of the gardener’s footsteps that Adam and Eve heard when they took cover in the garden. And it would be the gardener who would restore life on Easter morning. Like the living creatures being named in the garden so long ago, she would experience the resurrection when she heard him call her name, Mary! The cover-up, the hurt, the brokenness, the separation, the grief, the sorrow, the pain and the disbelief evaporated with her simple confession: Rabbouni!

Things tend to happen in the garden.

And now, it is the very garden that is under threat. Our over-reaching and grasping ways, our neglect and cavalier attitudes have put such a strain upon creation. As temperatures continue to rise, weather patterns shift, species once named so long ago slowly disappear. Some make predictions, some deny and some believe, some downplay while others wring their hands. And what about us? How do we as a people of faith respond?

The last question that is put to us in the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Alternative Services is: Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth? We respond by saying, I will, with God’s help. It’s time to find our gardening tools, to take instructions from scientists and climatologists, mystics and children, farmers and monastics, Indigenous elders and theologians. It’s time to tend the garden with all our might, to avoid the moment when, try as we might, we cannot reattach the stem to the root. After all, when we confess that God is our helper, anything is possible. Christ is Risen!

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As the shipping season prepares to get underway in late March or early April, the mission needs volunteers for its stations in Oshawa, Toronto and Hamilton.

“Our people were doing double and triple duty at the Oshawa mission last season because ships were coming in so frequently,” says the Rev. Judith Alltree, the mission’s executive director and senior port chaplain. “It was great for the seafarers, but we’re going to need a lot more people.”

The mission opened the Terry Finlay Seafarers Centre in the Port of Oshawa in June 2017 and it has been busy ever since, she says. The station was named after the late Archbishop Terence Finlay, a former diocesan bishop of Toronto and a long-time supporter and advocate of seafarers.

She says volunteers serve in a number of ways. Some are trained to go on the ships to visit the crews. Others staff the stations, making sure they’re open and hot coffee and free WiFi is ready for the seafarers when they come off the boats. Others drive the seafarers into town so they can shop and do some banking if necessary.

Most importantly, the volunteers are there to listen to the seafarers and help out when necessary. “That’s a really important aspect of our mission work – actively listening to what’s going on in the lives of these folks,” says Ms. Alltree. “They’re really grateful for that. It’s very touching.”

There are about seven active volunteers at the Oshawa station but that needs to increase to about 12 to keep up with the demand, she says. The mission is open from 3-9 p.m. during shipping season and volunteers regularly work in three-hour shifts.

Volunteers are also needed at the Toronto mission, which is moving from its former building on Pier 51 to new space in PortsToronto’s Cruise Ship Terminal, formerly the International Passenger Terminal, also located on Pier 51.

Ms. Alltree says the mission’s board of directors decided to make the move after determining that the old building was too costly to maintain and needed extensive repairs. The number of seafarers visiting it had dropped by about 90 per cent, she says.

The mission, which relies entirely on donations and grants, was unable to sell or move the building and the decision was made to demolish it. During a cold snap on Jan. 30, frozen water pipes led to a flood, making the building uninhabitable. It was torn down in February.

“It was an iconic building, but we have a moral obligation to the people who support the mission with their donations and financial sacrifices to steward those resources in the best way we can,” she says. “Like many charities, we’ve seen a drop in our donations and we’re working hard to rebuild relations and resources. When we looked at what it cost us to operate the building and how it was being used, we had to make the right decision, and I believe we have.”

Ms. Alltree says the mission’s new space in the Cruise Ship Terminal will be ideally situated to serve the cruise ships, especially their crews. Toronto is becoming a major destination and point of departure for cruise ships on the Great Lakes, with about 43 dockings expected this summer.

“Crews on cruise ships are here for hours, not days,” she explains. “They’re not always treated well, and they usually need to make connections with chaplains when they’re here. The office building will be right at the foot of the gangway.”

More cargo vessels are also expected to dock at Pier 51 this summer, creating a need for volunteers who will visit the crews and drive them to shops and services in the city. “Shipping is coming back to the city, which is very exciting, but we’re going to need people to help out,” she says.

The Mission to Seafarers Southern Ontario was formed in 2014 when the individual missions in Oshawa, Toronto and Hamilton amalgamated. “We’re stronger together because of the connections between the three,” says Ms. Alltree. “They’ve all grown and the need for the mission is greater than ever in all three places.”

This spring, the mission is rolling out a new program called “Critical Incident Crisis Management” in the Oshawa and Toronto ports. If a traumatic event happens, Ms. Alltree or a member of her team will visit the location as soon as possible to provide counselling and follow-up support to those affected. “We want to ensure that the person’s post traumatic stress response does not turn into post traumatic stress disorder,” she says. The mission began the program last October in Hamilton and it has proven to be successful.

Ms. Alltree thanks the mission’s supporters in the Diocese of Toronto. “I thank the people who continue to care about us,” she says. “We look at every donation as generosity from people who care, and the seafarers are so grateful, especially when they come into a cold port and there’s a warm welcome.”

For more information about the Mission to Seafarers Southern Ontario, visit its website, www. http://www.mtsso.org or email the Rev. Judith Alltree at glutenfreepriest@gmail.com.

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