Page 41 - Presbyterian Connection, Spring 2020

Connection
NEWS
Scottlea Garden and Outreach Initiatives
presbyterian.ca
SPRING 2020
PRESBYTERIAN
41
The community gardens.
English as a second language class.
Harvesting sweet potatoes.
By the Rev. Jacob Lee, Scottlea Presbyterian Church in St. Catharines, Ont.
In 2018, Scottlea Presbyterian Church in St. Catharines, Ont. cre- ated a community garden as a form of outreach to benefit both the church itself and the wider community. We built 20 raised beds that were dis- tributed to 20 families. This ministry has blessed many potential garden- ers, allowing them to grow and en- joy organic fresh vegetables, and through these efforts, nourish their bodies, minds and souls. Gardening teaches people God’s values, for it is an essential truth that the fruitful life of vegetables requires commitment; vegetables need people to take care of them, and pour out their time and love upon them.
God has blessed Scottlea with
wonderful opportunities to build trust and make friendships with the wider community through commu- nal events, such as a community meal and a garden concert BBQ. Our next step in this garden ministry is to continue to learn about the connect- edness of humans, plants and other animals in the web of God’s life, as we learn how to grow vegetables or- ganically in a nature-friendly way and share them with people in need in our community.
As part of our organic community garden project we also cultivate Ko- rean sweet potatoes in an eco-friend- ly way. In the beginning of February, still winter, we offer each family in the congregation a sweet potato seed in a small container, so that they may grow the vines hydroponically. We then collect the young vines each family has grown at home with love,
The mushroom harvest.
and God has now brought us more than 23 children. Our ukulele teacher, Lauren, generously offers another class for adults. Every Saturday, the church is full of the energy and spirit of learning, teaching, the joys of chil- dren’s playing and the fellowship of their parents because of God’s gift of music. We pray and hope to raise more funds or to obtain music grants so that we can offer violin lessons to other children on our waiting list who are hoping to join our program.
An ESL conversational class is another outreach ministry we hold every Monday. People who speak English as a second language have a wonderful opportunity to practice their spoken English. All the people in the class have been blessed with
opportunities to get to know and un- derstand one another in free spirit, openness and trust. There are around 10 to 15 participants, about half of whom are newcomers to Canada working on improving their English skills. The Rev. Anita Van Nest leads the class from her experience as an ESL teacher, with kindness and re- spect for all. Her smile from the heart makes a distinctive difference for the English learners in the class.
We pray to Jesus and God—the Source of all being, energy and love—that God will continue to en- ergize, inspire and empower Scot- tlea to bless people both in the com- munity and in the church through our prayers, outreach ministries and activities.
and transplant them into the soil right after Victoria Day.
Shiitake mushrooms that grow on oak logs are another organically grown healthy flavonoid food. We grow mushrooms on 120 oak logs and provide them to mushroom lov- ers and people fighting cancer or other illnesses. This year the profits from those gifts of sweet potatoes and mushrooms enabled us to offer honorariums to our committed music volunteers, who share their music and teaching talents with children from the community. We also make tasty and healthy pizzas from the sweet pota- toes and Shiitake mushrooms for our fellowship following the service. This year we pray we will donate more fresh food to Community Care of St. Catharines for needy people.
As God’s answer to a long pe- riod of prayer, on Sept. 21, 2019, we were finally able to offer a mu- sic ministry to reach out to children. The music program is named “CO- METIC” (Community Open Music Education Training In Christ), which our devoted music coordinator Linda devised. The main purpose of the project is to offer free music lessons to children from low-income families to feed their hunger for music. Dur- ing the first session, which ended in December, we were able to offer piano lessons to six children, ukulele lessons to nine and drum lessons to two. These music students then per- formed at our 60th anniversary and Christmas concert, even though they had only just started their music les- sons. We invited the children in the music program and their parents to the church for a traditional Christmas pageant, which needed a good num- ber of people. We had an amazing turnout for such a small congrega- tion. The second session of our mu- sic program started Jan. 11, 2020,
Ukulele class offered as part of the Community Open Music Education Training In Christ (COMETIC) program.