Around Town: UGM Camping, City-wide Worship and Prayer, Migrant Justice . . .

Miranda’s children have enjoyed several different camps with UGM’s help.

Union Gospel Mission has been sending kids to camp for more than 60 years. They’re raising money to send more kids this year, and Miranda’s story (from UGM’s Gratitude magazine) makes it clear how important those camp experiences can be to families working through challenging times:

If Miranda could summarize her call in life, she’d tell you, “I’m a full-time mom. These kids are everything to me.” Though she’s been through life-long cycles of trauma and pain, Miranda’s identity is elsewhere: “Sharing my story is important in defining my new life. I’m not a victim any more. I’m a victor.”

“My parents are residential school survivors. They went through so much,” she explains. “So we’re victims of the survivors. I started drinking when I was six, about a year after some pretty serious abuse. While I don’t remember a lot, I do know that I chose toxic relationships, one after another, because it just seemed normal to be abused.” . . .

Once her kids were in foster care, Miranda went to UGM in Mission and told them she wanted help but didn’t know how. . . .

Today, Miranda leads a strong and sober life, with full-time custody of her four children, who are each so full of life. “I live and breathe through these kids,” she explains. “They’re my pride and my joy, the reason I don’t think about doing drugs or drinking anymore. With all the stuff they’ve been through, they’re the most respectful kids you could ever meet. I promised myself I wouldn’t let them go through what I went through.”

Part of UGM’s Camp Sponsorship program is to work with whole families, making sure holistic support is available for parents and kids throughout the year. That’s why, every summer, UGM’s donors sponsor Miranda’s three oldest kids for a week at camp.

“They’ve been to Camp Luther, Camp Jubilee and Camp Squeah,” Miranda shares. “I love when they come home and don’t stop talking about it. I think camp gives them more freedom. Freedom to have God be a part of their life too, on their terms. That’s important.”

For Miranda’s full story go here.

City-wide Worship and Prayer

May 24 (Sunday) is the Global Day of Prayer, and locally the day will be celebrated with City-wide Worship and Prayer at Calvary Worship Centre in Surrey. The event is being organized by Missions Fest Vancouver and Voices Together, which are leaders in two of the largest trans-denominational events in the city.

Missions Fest, now in its 32nd year, says its three-fold purpose is “to inform, celebrate and challenge people of all ages to get involved in missions by sending, praying, giving and going.” They work on that purpose all year-long, and cap off their efforts with an annual three-day conference at Vancouver’s Convention & Exhibition Centre on the last weekend of January each year.

For Voices Together, City-wide Worship and Prayer is very much in line with a much larger event they are planning for Canada Day (July 1) at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. That event is presented by a core planning team comprised of leaders from local churches and interdenominational ministries.

The theme of the May 24 event is ‘United in Prayer United in Mission.’ Worship will be led by Worship Central, which will take on the same role at the Voices Together event.

Migrant Justice

Streams of Justice has been hosting a series of Faith and Justice Roundtable discussions at Grandview Calvary Baptist Church. The fifth in the series, next Monday (May 25), relates to migrant justice:

Streams of Justice invites you to come and enjoy another roundtable discussion, this time looking at migrant justice to explore the connection between our faith and caring for refugees, migrant workers and undocumented people. This evening is for anyone interested in engaging in a dialogue about connecting our Christian faith with justice issues.

Discussion starts at 7 pm, but dessert is available from 6:45.

And it good to see that the Catholic Church is hosting a Retreat for Those Who Minister to Migrants and Refugees at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church June 6. Probably meant for Catholics, but they couldn’t very well turn others away could they!

Nepal fundraisers

The first one is a little bit indirect, but it looks great. Here are the details of Soul 2 Soul, which will take place at Redemption Church in Kitsilano May 30:

Tracy Moar and Darlene Ketchum are bringing their warm and smoky soul/blues/funk vocals together for this benefit concert to support midwives in Uganda and Nepal. They will be singing some of their own music plus the music of Mavis Staples, Eric Bibb, Bobby McFerrin and Civil Wars and other covers. A great group of musicians will be backing them up: Bill Sample (keys), Gord Lemon (bass), Tyler Friesen (drums), Andreas Schuld (guitar) and the Shaughnessy Vocal Ensemble (youth choir) will be joining them on one song.

Check out the UBC midwifery program here.

Over in New Westminster, on the same evening, A Fundraising Concert for Nepal in Partnership with ADRA Canada will be hosted by Westminster Seventh-day Adventist Church. Several choirs will be taking part. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) was initiated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church to work on social service and social justice projects around the world.

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