The Last Few Days

Ordination of Joan Cavanaugh-Clark & Bonnie Rayner
Trinity Anglican Church, Marathon
Sept. 24/06

Grand Opening of "Rotary House"
(formerly "Shelter House")
Sept 25/06

Amanda Bay kept training the camera on me (She thinks I'm cute, I hear), but none of that footage made it to air. Jordan Lester (CBC Radio One) beside her is a former camper at Dorion Bible Camp. He, of course, asked me if I'd been there this summer.

Shelter House board member, Ron Hell, and I
were in Gr. 7 & 8 together at Kingsway
(but we knew him as Ron Hill).

???

Birthday Weekend

Kristian
One year old
Sept. 16/06

"If you want me to play with this thing,
why did you put it inside this other thing?"

"Oh. Very funny. Ha."

"Richard, I can't read your handwriting!"

"But I'll give you a cute pose anyway."

"Aw! The Leafs!"

Pepper Eye for the Little Guy

Too much partying

Greg
Nineteen years old
Sept 17/06
(celebrated 15th)

Kristian can't wait for his cake.

Okay, so babies make cuter pix than Greg.
Sorry, Greg.



Delia
One year old
Sept. 18/06

Lots of help

Feel the love.

St. Thomas' Anglican Youth: Sept. 17/06

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More Adventures at MPC: CLARIFIED

This post can now be found along with pictures at http://www.richardpepper.ca/summer06.html.

You might have to refresh the screen or scroll down to get to the right section.

However, I want to add a couple of qualifications to this section:

"Rest Hour: Met with Pete Dearborn and talked about Acts 2:23. Even though the godless men were accomplishing God’s set plan, they were accountable for their wrong actions and motives and deceit. As well, their plan was to kill Christ FOREVER, but nothing they could do could stop God’s plan to raise Him from the dead. By God’s Grace there will be a resurrection for me as well and no one can stop it."

I acknowledge that my identification of myself with Christ in this paragraph has its limitations.

1) I do not claim (and never have claimed) to be sinless as Christ was. In breakdowns fault is shared by many, if not all, parties (including oneself) and requires skillful discussion to disentangle it, in order to achieve a resumption of the relationship. I am/was at all times prepared to participate.

Presumably Christ never went through this and so His example is irrelevant in this regard. Here we may have to look to Paul and Barnabas and Mark (for a bad, but eventually good example?).

2) I do not call anyone "godless". Christ was turned over by the "godly" (in a sense) Jewish leaders (though motivated by their evil agenda) to the "godless" Romans, i.e. pagan idol-worshippers, apparently estranged from "God" (YHWH) -- even though they (especially the soldiers) may simply have "good men" (in the everyday sense of "good") just doing their jobs.

In considering how our lives are to follow Christ's pattern, it gets tricky because of the ways His life varied from ours. In fact, His mission of dying for the sins of the world was necessarily unique.

However, there is still a way in which we, foreshadowed in our baptism, go through deaths and resurrections, oftentimes with the deaths brought about by people with, let's say, less-than-perfect motives and actions for which they must give account to God* -- leading to God-ordained resurrections. Each of us finds ourselves in their shoes in others' lives as well.

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* Except, you might argue, for those of us whose sins (including future sins) are forgiven and forgotten by God. This is a bit of a problem with this theory. Suggestions?

Boundaries Workshop

Today I attended a workshop on Boundaries in Ministry for the Anglican clergy of this Deanery.

I was very impressed by the professionalism of it all, the preparation of the presenters and the way kept to our schedule, rather than just meandering through the topics of the day. (There is a time for that approach, I'm sure, but this wasn't one.)

Reps from our Insurance Company and Broker were there to make it clear to us that this discussion has serious financial aspects to it (in addition to the very serious emotional, spiritual and social aspects).

I had a chance to ask the lead Insurance person (unsure of his title at this point) a couple of questions I've pondered for a while now -- though fairly certain of the answers, especially since the first is an unnecessary dilemma.

Is it better to NOT to have any policies re. abuse (etc.) than to have them and not follow them? He said that it is always better to have policies than not, as it demonstrates some attempts at prevention.

He agreed however that requiring regular church attendance is irrelevant to an abuse policy, as it has little to do with predicting abusive behaviour. (Every sexual abuser I've known has been a very regular church attender.)

And, I would add (bearing in mind that I'm thinking primarily of a camp context), it's likely that it is a policy to which exceptions will be made. (Again it IS better to have policies, but none that are very likely not to be enforced consistently.)

It's perfectly acceptable to come up with a policy re. regularity of church attendance for camp volunteers, if it is consistent with one's goals and needs, but I believe that linking it with the Child Abuse policy is inadvisable. He's just one insurance expert, but this guy agreed.

Summer Activities

I've pretty much finished my page of June/July/Aug. activities featuring Camp Gitchigomee, Youth Synod and Manitoba Pioneer Camp. I may still tweak a few details, but otherwise it's pretty much complete.

Thus I will soon delete my MPC blow-by-blow accounts and re-edit them into some comments on camp ministry.

Sorry my blog is boring

I am working on my webpage update for my summer activities. Soon I will edit down my MPC posts and refer you to my webpage (which will occasionally refer you back here).

I guess I need to realize that I do have a theme or sub-theme in addition to just the activities of Richard Pepper for all those in the WWW who need to know.

After all, Shroom does talk about Geo-Caching a lot. Robin occasionally mentions computers, Carla home-schooling and Erin life in Russia.

I likely will post thoughts/questions about Christian youth work, notably in the camp setting. And I will be intentional about it. This has been my life work, after all.

I'm not an expert who can tell everyone out there how to succeed, but I do think I have some reflections from my experience that are worth sharing.

That is all.

Yard Sale, Sept. 9/06

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It was cold as the sun rose.

"My brother is selling more than me!"

Walking with Uncle Travis and showing off his teeth.

Richard (currently) has more teeth than Kristian
(& hair if you count facial).

His Mommy had to browse the other tables for bargains for him and so she gave him to me to entertain. He looks a bit apprehensive in this pic, but actually he was quite content. You'd think Eric Lindros would make him nervous.

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St. Thomas' Anglican Camp-Out: Labour Day Weekend '06

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At Camp Gitchigomee

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