We had a wonderful time

Thursday Night Supper and Social was another wonderful success on the evening of December 17. A wonderful supper of Turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, pies and more was served to a roomful of happy people. We celebrated a birthday and welcomed a very special guest for the children:

A special Thursday

Today is a special Thursday.

It's stocking stuffer day at Food Bank.  Julia brought lots of of great "stuffers" from Operation Christmas Child.  There are many items donated to the Christmas Shoeboxes that cannot be kept in them, i.e: liquids, any toy with a war theme (that tends to be a lot of lego themed kits), feather boas for girls, lots of candy, etc.  These items don't go to waste, they are distributed to local charities in order to help as many people out as possible.

We thank the talented ladies who have donated their beautiful knitted items.  There are colourful mittens, hats, baby items, sweaters, etc.  There will be a table of these items out at Food Bank today.

And lastly it is the annual Christmas dinner/party for Thursday Night Supper & Social.  The ladies have been busy cooking up a storm.  It smells incredible in the church. 

(please note that this will be the last Thursday Night Supper & Social until January 7th) 

Stocking stuffer items

Stocking Stuffer items

Beautiful Hand Knit items

Getting ready for dinner.

Highlights from the Hespeler Santa Clause parade

Walkers, getting ready to walk the doggies and hand out candy canes. 

On the float, having a Birthday party!

The drivers.

Accepting the "Best Homemade Float" award at the Hespeler Optimist Club party.

Check out Corey's latest music blog!

Here is a link to our Music Director, Corey Cotter Linforth's latest Music Blog about the music for this Sunday's service.

http://standrewsmusic.blogspot.ca/2015/12/music-for-dec-13th-2015.html

Basket Night at Thursday Night Supper and Social

Basket night is always a blast at the Thursday Night Supper and Social at St. Andrew's Hespeler. This year, thanks to the generosity of the people of the church and the community, we were able to fill 54 baskets to distribute to our special guests who come out week after week.

 A great time was had by all. Next week we will be welcoming the community in for a wonderful Christmas feast and, rumour has it, there may even be a special visitor for the kids.

New Blog to Help Keep Everyone up to date

Our Clerk of Session, Rob Hodgson, has the very important (and sometimes difficult) job of making sure that communications always flow as best as they can in the life of the congregation. He latest initiative to keep everyone informed is to create and maintain a blog for session news and information.

You can find his blog at the following link:
Session Clerk's Blog

If you subscribe to our News feed, you will receive notices whenever the blog is updated or you can go back to check it whenever you like.

We are in the process of reorganizing our home page to offer you easy access to all of our blogs.

Cookies!

Hope Clothing staff is busy making Chocolate Chips cookies.  

All proceeds will go directly to Hope Clothing.  

The cookies are delicious and only $3.00 per dozen!

Longest Night Service

The Longest Night Service

Join us at 7:30 pm on December 21st.

 

  

Thank you Food Basics!

A BIG shout out to Food Basics.

Food Basics helped us out when we were making up care packages for the clients of the Cambridge Self Help Food Bank and Hope Clothing.

You helped make budgets stretch and that is so important, especially at this time of year.

Hope Clothing needs your help!

On Thursday, December 3rd our Hope Clothing Coordinator would like to hand out care packages to all of the men & women clients of Hope Clothing and the Cambridge Self Help Foodbank.  Won't you please help us?  Pictured below is a sample of what will be contained in a woman's pack.  If you could contribute one of these bags (and perhaps a toonie to help with the cost of the nice bags) it would be very much appreciated.  You may drop off these bags at Hope Clothing or to the office weekdays, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm or on Sunday mornings  Thank you for helping make Christmas a little easier for those in our community who need a llittle extra help.

A Day in the Life, November 2015

This song, adapted from the Beatles' classic, was performed this past Sunday by Corey Cotter Linforth. Thank you to Corey for sharing your passion for a better world with us:

I heard the news today, oh boy
About a city torn apart again
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I've heard this song before

They shot them inside Bataclan
They didn't notice that the times have changed
A crowd of people opened doors
Faces never seen before
Everybody is so sure that we should go to war

I read the news today, oh boy
Beirut reeling from the acts of war
A crowd of people turned away
It didn't stir our hearts
They don't look like us
They'd love to make us see

Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat, made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs to get some air
Somebody spoke and I couldn't breath

Ahhh....

I saw the news today, oh boy
A child face down in the sand
And though he was so very small
We have to count them all
Now we know we don't have enough to share
“We'd love to take you in, but...”

A Sneak Peak

St. Andrew's STARS recorded the annual Christmas STARS to be presented on 

Sunday, December 13th at 10:00 am.

Here's a quick peak!

Frosty the Snowman appeared for the recording of the STARS.

Sunday School gets ready for the Senior's Tea!

On Sunday our Sunday School classes prepared some table decorations for the Senior's Tea on November 22nd, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm, at St. Luke's (in the auditorium).

And sometimes we just get silly! Sorry we are missing one person.

Guess who achieved their CLUB 10 this Sunday?

CLUB 10 rewards our Sunday School students every time they have attended Sunday School             (at St. Andrew's) for 10 weeks.

This week we had 2 CLUB 10 awards.  Way to go Cameron & Sarah!

A BIG thank you!

We would like to say a very BIG thank you to the Cambridge & North Dumfries Community Fund

& the D. H. Falle Family Foundation Fund

for supporting Hope Clothing!

Community support for Hope Clothing is very much appreciated and enables us to continue to reach out to members of our community who need some extra help making their budget stretch. We provide clothing for the entire family.

Hope Clothing is open:

Tuesdays: 12 noon - 3:00 pm

Wednesdays: 9:30 am - 1:00 pm

Thursdays: 11:00 am - 2:00 pm

Thursdays at Place of New Hope!

It's a beehive of activity today!

It's Food Bank Thursday!  Hope Clothing is also open.  Thursday Night Supper & Social will open its doors at 5:15 pm (tonight's menu includes lasagne from Ernie's!)

Lunch is being prepared!

Getting ready to do the grocery shopping!

Hope Clothing is open; lots of clothes for everyone in the family.

Hope Clothing - just got a new shipment of winter boots in!  Mens & women's.  Thank you Value Village.

Lots of winter boots for young people and children.

From 1911

Everett Ireland, before 1912; Thanks, Jack Krueger for giving us this copy.

An old flag

Look what I found in storage today.  There was a note on it that said, "this flag was apparently carried to war."  If anyone has the story of it, we would appreciate hearing it.

It's Social Media Sunday. Here is a great story for you to share on this day.

Social Media Sunday (October 25, 2015) is a day for people to share what is happening in their churches on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instgram, etc. etc. etc.

We hope that on this day a lot of St. Andrew's people will share a lot of the great things that happen at our church. But, just in case you're not sure what to share, how about this second story in our "Stories of Hope Clothing series:


There are too many stories of bad news. There are too many stories about people putting people down, hating them or mistreating them. We need to hear this kind of story.

There are too many stories of hopelessness. We need to hear stories of hope. We need to hear about what God is doing.

So will you help us spread this story and the ones that will follow it?

If you are not sure how to share youtube videos like this one on socal media, follow this link: Stories of Hope Clothing #2 and then click on "Share" to find all kinds of sharing options. You can post to twitter, facebook, send out emails or use any number of other social media links. Let's share the good news story.

Anniversary Service

This Weekend is our special

160th Anniversary Celebration!

This week's look back!

Here's some more photos to look back on, maybe not so far this time!

Can you guess who any of the people are in the 2 photos?