Pastor's Message

Reflections on the 7th Journey to the Queen Charlotte Islands

This is the seventh year that Grace Lutheran has sent a VBS team of adults and youth to the Queen Charlotte Islands. This year’s team included Chad Abrahamson, Matthew Brown, Brett Calvert, Joanna Cowper, Jesse Emmond, Jeff Green, Lore Green, Leah Green, Byron Maroney, Lloyd Maroney, Jeralee Neufeld, Penny Pfahl, Eric Ristau, Josh Vanden Brink and myself. I have calculated that over the past seven years some 45 people have participated one or more times in this trip.    I have had the privilege of being the only person at Grace who participated in all seven trips.  This gives me a unique vantage point. Upon returning, I began to reflect on what these trips have meant to me. The purpose of each trip was the same, to lead a VBS in a remote location. Posters are put up, the children come and they are fed by the Word of God. They stay in the community and we leave. We generally do not see them again until the next year. In this way the remote VBS is no different than the VBS that we lead every year here at Grace.  Over the years, we have made friends with adults and children of the communities we have served. We ride over and back with some of them on the ferries. The kids e-mail one another. It gives us a chance to catch up on what has happened in their lives. The Bible verse which kept coming to me was this one from Matthew’s Gospel: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.” (Matthew 12:20-21). Matthew quotes these verses from the prophet Isaiah to describe Jesus. In the verses that precede verses 20 and 21, Jesus has preached, taught and healed. His activities have caused the Pharisees to hate Jesus and plot to kill him.  The death threats and plots of the Pharisees did not cause Jesus to fight back or cry out. In humility Jesus withdrew and continued to heal the sick and encourage the downtrodden. I came to see that God had shown me many bruised reeds and smoldering wicks on this and other trips.   

It began with a boy I ran into on the trip over to the Islands.  I ran into a boy who came to every VBS we had led in Masset, on the ferry. It was amazing to see how much he had changed. At 16, he looked very different from the first time I had met him seven years ago. At first I did not even recognize him. He was with a group of Haida youth.  He walked by me as I sat at a table and worked on my computer. 

 “Jeff?” I asked.
“Yeah” he responded.
“Remember me? Pastor Ed, from Kelowna.”

A big smile crept over his face. He sat down and we had a good chat. I asked about some of the kids we had got to know over the years. Some had moved to other places, some have moved to different circles of friends which put them on a path which could lead to trouble. Jeff had become immersed in Haida culture. He was part of a group of Haida drummers and singers. They performed at Potlatches, funerals and other Aboriginal events at no cost. However, they received a stipend when performing in other venues. Jeff’s father is a Haida carver with a good reputation (he carves large and totem poles, canoes and war paddles and Argillite jewelry). Jeff is also learning to carve. He is doing well in school and is playing basketball for the school team. Without VBS Masset, I never would have met Jeff; he probably would not have been exposed to a Christian group from Kelowna, and the Word of God.  One year he received a Bible. He read through a couple of hundred pages.         
The VBS at Lord of Life Community Church, ELCIC, in Sandspit has been very different from the VBS at Masset. The children were very different.  There are quite a few children at Sandspit. We see them walking round, riding bikes and in strollers being pushed by their mothers, grandmothers or babysitters. However, they are shy. When we see them on the street, we ask them to come. They say they will and only a few show up.  Many of the children who came to last year’s VBS returned this year. Vanessa came from her home which is located two houses down from the church.  She brought the two children she watches.  Wayne and his three siblings came. Wayne brought his friend Cally. Wayne is 12. He babysits his three siblings year round. Both his mother and father work.  If his mother’s shift is during a school day, he stays home from school in order to watch his preschool siblings. He is a very caring young man.  He knows the story of Salvation.  Vanessa and Wayne were part of the youth group a former member of Lord of Life started. The youth leader was the former principal of the Sandspit school. When the principal/youth leader was transferred to another town, there was no one to step into the position of youth leader.  Samantha also returned. She is in grade 11 and works two jobs in the summer. A new teen boy named Brett joined us. Two kids on vacation from Alberta also joined us.

We learned that life on the Island is expensive. A gallon of milk cost $6.50. Transportation costs and supply and demand keep prices high. We found that real estate on the Island is also expensive to own, rent and maintain. We can jump in a truck or van and pick up building supplies. We can wait for bargains and sales, they cannot. They have to take a costly ferry ride to purchase materials in Prince Rupert or pay a high price on the Island. Consequently, repairs and refurbishments are made sparingly.

We learned that during the tourist season (May through September) local residents must work very hard, inasmuch as, there will be no tourist related work from October to April. Stalled treaty negotiations with the Federal and Provincial governments and the Haida Nation have crippled the logging industry and the good paying jobs associated with the same. As a consequence, loggers have left the Island. Any timber which becomes available is harvested by logging companies which bring loggers in from other areas. They set up camps, log hard and leave. The loggers do not live in the communities and support them.   Gail and Joanne, two women who are the pillars of Lord of Life Community Church, both run the security at the Sandspit airport. The law requires that a certain amount of security personnel be on duty when flights are coming and going. They have a very limited pool of people who qualify for the job in the community. It is difficult to get qualified security people with families to settle on the Island. As a consequence, Gail and Joanne must work every day for weeks at a time. Worship was moved to 5:00 PM on Sundays to accommodate their schedules.    

Sunday evening worship was the highlight of the trip for me. There were 28 present for worship; most likely the biggest service of the year. The congregation included the fifteen in our crew, three local teens, Vanessa, Brett and Samantha, Gail Henry and Joanne, Gail’s sister-in-law and brother-in-law, from Coos Bay, Oregon, Gail’s grandson Ken, an elderly Pilipino woman named Lydia and her adult daughter Doreen, an elderly Pilipino woman named Martina, a young Pilipino woman named whose name I have forgotten, and a retired US Naval officer and his wife (retired to the Queen Charlottes some 30 years ago). The two young Pilipino women work in housekeeping at local hotels.  

We used the Service of the Word in the Blue WOV. Jeff Green served as the Worship Leader. Jeralee Neufeld played the piano (which was a real treat as they don’t have a piano player in the congregation).  Lloyd read the Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah, Josh the Psalm, Jesse the Epistle lesson from Hebrews. Eric and Byron ushered. Leah led two hymns which came from the VBS. Leah and Chad sang a duet during the offering. I preached on the text for the day from the Gospel of Luke 13:10-17. In this text, Jesus healed a woman who was crippled (stooped or bent over) for some 18 years. Jesus was criticized by the leadership of the synagogue for healing on the Sabbath. They accused him of breaking the Sabbath, according to their reckoning. Jesus accused them of hypocrisy. He pointed out that these very same pious men found no fault in their own practice of feeding and watering their stock on the Sabbath, which was certainly work, and yet they could find fault in Jesus’ action. If they found no fault in removing their animals’ burden of thirst by watering their stock on the Sabbath and giving them rest, how could Jesus be faulted for removing the toil, struggle and burden of this woman’s disease and thereby give her rest? Jesus was no Sabbath breaker. By this miracle, Jesus embodied the reality of the Sabbath; namely, rest from the power of sin, evil spirits and the incessant toil and hardship of disease.

After the service we all sat down together for a potluck supper. It was fantastic. The breaking of the bread together was a very special treat. I sat with the retired naval officer. He had been a man of some authority in the military. He had been in charge of many special or covert operations over his years of service. He remarked that he was impressed by the participation of the youth and remarked that this was the best “Lutheran Service” he had attended. He thanked us and hoped that we could return.   

I had an opportunity to visit with the Pilipino woman named Martina. She is a retired x-ray and laboratory technician. She had worked at the hospital in Queen Charlotte City (on the other Island; you have to take the Aliford Bay Ferry to get there from Sandspit). Now she volunteers at the hospital and visits her husband who has dementia and lives in an attached extended care facility.   She explained that she had immigrated to Canada from the Philippines. During the processing of her application she informed the official at the Canadian Consulate that she believed God was calling her to go to the Queen Charlotte Islands and serve the people there. The consulate worker apparently tried to dissuade her by claiming this was a remote place and the natives were not necessarily friendly and open to her faith. She insisted this was where she wanted to go. She has lived on the Islands more than 25 years.

True to her calling, Martina has shared her faith with the local people. She had always been a member of a local faith community, most recently, Lord of Life. She has not been afraid to share her faith with some of the “least” in her community.   She informed me that she has on several occasions given car rides to obviously drunk men who have hitchhiked along the roads on the Islands. Many have warned her to stop this practice. They fear that she would be threatened by and even accosted by her passengers.  In response to their fears, she simply states, “What do I have to fear? Jesus is with me!” She is bold and asks them why they are drunk. Many answers are given. They almost always also confess an inability to stop. In response, she assures them that Jesus can change them, provided that they let Jesus into their heart. She then asks if she may pray for them. They all grant her permission. She then prays a very simple prayer; she asks Jesus to forgive them and asks Jesus to come into their hearts.

 The first bruised reed and smoldering wick that I encountered was Jeff. Only God knows what Jeff’s relationship with Team Masset 2001-2005 has meant in his life and will mean in the future.  Jesus had knocked on the door of Jeff’s heart through the Gospel we proclaimed each year. Jesus’ most passionate desire is for Jeff to open the door of his heart and let Jesus and God the Father in so that they can make a home with Jeff. With every VBS in Masset, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit made an invitation to Jeff and all of the children to come to Him. God has planted an Anglican church and a priest there. The community of faith in Masset must continue to proclaim the Gospel to Jeff; but Jeff must take a step inside the door of the church and respond to God’s invitation.  

Then there were the children at the VBS in Sandspit. I think particularly of Wayne. He is so young and has much responsibility. He must look after his siblings. It is not easy. As his siblings get older and more able to get into trouble, Wayne’s responsibility will increase. He has had to miss school. He is a reed who is burdened and there is always a danger of breaking under the strain of responsibility. When Wayne comes to the VBS, his siblings are loved and cared for by others.  His burden is eased for a very short time, but it is lifted and he is fed by the Word of God. I have to believe that this burdened reed was strengthened.    

Martina and the Retired American Naval officer had a common burden; spouses with dementia. They are both burdened reeds and smoldering wicks. Martina had let go of her husband and placed him in a care home. The officer was faced with the same prospect, with just the timing of the transition unknown. Yet, they were fed. I could see in their faces that their burden was lifted, even for a short time.

The congregation at Lord of Life is burdened reeds and smoldering wicks. They stepped out in faith in the late 90’s, bought a building and fixed it up. Pastor Jim Whaley comes over from St. Paul’s in Prince Rupert once a month. During the summer, they attract preachers by offering the apartment in exchange for leading worship. They generally get a good number of pastors. They come from all denominations. They get Lutherans, Baptists and Pentecostals. Attendance hovers around seven a Sunday. They seem to get by.  On the Sundays where there is no pastor, Gail leads the service.  The ladies hold Bible studies from time to time. These bruised reeds and smoldering wicks are fed by each pastor, each group that comes, and by one another.   Even the building is bruised. It can use some paint inside and out. The bathroom in the apartment has a spongy floor and a rocking toilet.

Then there were the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks that Martina encountered. She often wonders whatever happened to the hitchhikers she has picked up over the years. She wonders whether Jesus ever entered their hearts; whether they changed and became clean and sober. I can’t possibly say.  However, over the years, I have met residents of the Island who readily confess that they were lost in the morass of substance abuse and they have found sobriety, and in some cases, faith in our Triune God. Who knows, perhaps one of them was a hitchhiker picked up by Martina and she sowed a seed of faith in their minds that they could not even consciously remember because they were in a drunken fog.

Jesus calls all bruised reeds and smoldering wicks to put their trust in Him. In turn, Jesus calls other bruised reeds whom He has strengthened, and smoldering wicks whose flame He has rekindled, to be His eyes, ears, legs, arms and hands and go about the work of strengthening and kindling the frame and flame, respectively, of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have gone to Sandspit for the most part to put on a vacation Bible School for the children of the community and this must be an integral part of our outreach; however, we can do more. We can feed more than just the children. We have the time, the talents and the treasurers to do more.

First, during the winter months, when a pastor comes only once a month, we can send tapes of our Sunday worship service. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get someone to record the youth service and the Service of the Word every month with a digital video camera?  We could make a DVD and send it to them. They could view the DVD, as the apartment above has a TV which has a DVD/VCR unit attached.

Second, we must continue to run the VBS for the children of the community. However, we could have an evening Bible study for the adults and young people of the community. Our youth would be involved in the Bible Study.  We could break up into small groups. Perhaps a project could be undertaken, such as fixing the spongy floor and the leaky toilet.        

Third, we have to look at the trip up and the trip back. The way that we currently travel is very taxing on all of us, especially on anyone who drives. We must prayerfully explore other options. If the team can arrive refreshed, we can do much more. We have to work on the attitudes and focus of those who go on the trip - most importantly, that of the pastor. I have been distracted by many weighty matters which we have little control over and cannot change. Right in front of our noses is an incredibly vital ministry for our church that could bring youth and adults together, working to serve others; to dispense, grace, mercy, time, treasures and talents beyond ourselves and our building.  We have the people and the will to help the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks at Lord of Life in ways that we can’t imagine. Let us prayerfully discern how we can accomplish this. I believe that we can have a really incredible impact on the community at Sandspit. Please pray with me and ask God to guide us on our way.

In Christ,
Pastor Ed 

© Grace Lutheran Church Kelowna 2006
Grace Lutheran Church is a member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada