Mennonite Church Canada Assembly and the People's Summit

The Mennonite Church Canada Assembly and the People's Summit was encouraging, challenging, informative. It was in Winnipeg - July 7-10. After the Canadian business meeting, a North American gathering for fellowship and learning took place. The major themes included "Care for God's Creation", and the unveiling of the results of "The Pastor Trends Survey".

There are 6 photos below that represent these priorities: worship, work, fellowship, fun, the future and teaching.

Next year the adult assembly will be in Saskatoon from June 5-7. The youth assembly will be in Caronport, SK from July 6-10. And remember the great opportunity to go to Paraguay for the Mennonite World Conference, July 14-19, 2009.

The Sunshine Coast Route

Okay, so this is the story of another motorcycle ride.

Diane and I took a short 4 - day vacation this past weekend (August 8-11). We went on our motorcycle to the Sunshine Coast, then crossed the ferry from Powell River to Comox, taking the Oceanside Route all the way down to Victoria. We actually have no motorcycle pictures, but I'm including the view of one of our B & B's and the view from another B & B.

I remember the winding road from Pender Harbour to the Earl's Cove ferry from a car trip some years ago. I got a headache; but I also said that this would be an amazing trip on a motorcycle, and so it was. The weather was great. I would encourage anyone to make this trek in mid-summer. Riding between the mountains and the ocean takes your breath away.

MCBC Motorcycle Ride

Wow!! What a great time. 20 bikes and 23 riders went on a tour around the backroads of the Lower Mainland on Saturday, July 26th. Seven bikes with eight riders left from the Peace Mennonite Church, Richmond, parking lot at 8:00 am. It was very cool to pull into the Columbia Bible College parking lot to see a row of 13 motorcycles awaiting our arrival.

After a word of prayer, we were on our way, riding down to Huntingdon Road and then following the back roads along the south side of the Fraser Valley. We went through Yarrow, and stopped at Cultus Lake for ice cream. After Cultus, we continued on backroads around the east side of Chilliwack and crossed over the #1 Highway on Annis Road. It was neat to come right up to the foot of the mountains on several occasions and then turn to continue our trek. We went through Rosedale and ended up at the Wildcat Cafe for lunch - just on the north side of Minter Garden (great food, by-the-way).

After lunch we went through Agassiz and up to Harrison Hot Springs. We skirted around the bottom of Harrison Lake and stopped up at Sasquatch Provincial Park to enjoy the beauty and cool off a bit.

Then we were led by Len and Cheryl Dyck, of Cedar Valley Mennonite Church in Mission, on some more amazing back roads - taking Sylvester Road and riding to their church from the north side. Cheryl had a snack prepared for us. The Vancouver riders said goodbye to the the Valley riders at Cedar Valley. We continued on back to Vancouver - for the most part on Dewdney Trunk Road - going up to Stave Lake and following the Barnet Highway around the north side of Burnaby Mountain. Our last leg of the journey included a view of Burrard Inlet. Once we hit Boundary Road, we stopped to bid farewell to each other and headed in our separate ways, returning to our homes around 5:30 pm.

It was a great time of meeting folks from a number of different MCBC congregations from around the Lower Mainland. We plan to do another ride next summer - maybe to the Island.