Dear friends,

We continue to experience the blessings of the Lord here at ARC. God is good, all the time.

This is a summary of what happened in calendar year 2023 within the life of our congregation.

Emily Jalbert, Maria Kingston and Alexander Weber received the sacrament of baptism.

Sandy Krawec and Will Day were received as official members of our congregation through re-affirmation of faith.

I officiated at two weddings within our congregation. Sheldon Weber and Dayna Kwasney were married in January, and Janaya Reimer and Nolan Jonasson were wed in August. We wish you all God's richest blessings in the years ahead. I continued to perform marriages within our community and also for family in Ontario.

With grief and sadness, yet thanksgiving to God for the gift of their lives, we laid to rest Doreen Leicht, Gord Sawchuk, Bob Dalueg, Marion Lundstrom, Ed Markowski, and Irene Fedoretz. We miss these special children of God dearly. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (Psalm 116:15)

Ordained and installed into the office of Elder was Sandy Krawec. Installed into the office of elder was Curtis Creaser. Ordained and installed into the office of Deacon was Will Day.

I say it often, and I said last year in my report, but it continues to be true; “It is truly a joy and privilege to serve with our elders and deacons (our consistory). These are men and women called by our Lord Himself to serve in His church, and they do it with love and joy! And they are such an encouragement to me personally too!”

Our Calling Lake ministry continues to bear fruit. Our Calling Lake Pastor, Nathan Gullion, baptized 6 people this past August. We praise God for that. Weekly services on Sunday afternoon average around 20 worshipers, and their weekly Bible Study on Tuesday evenings has 8 regular attendees. Bigstone Nation is now using our facility there for weekly addictions counselling. Their heritage department has also used our church for a drum making class. We are pleased that we can assist Bigstone Community Wellness in this way. We truly wish to be a community church to Calling Lake and beyond.

Our Calling Lake Ministry continues to be funded, and needs to be funded, by churches and individuals from outside of our own congregation. We are very thankful to God for the faithfulness of so many from across this country, who give generously to support this ministry. We hope to be able to do some renovations in the basement of our building to allow more space for ministry there.

Our monthly luncheons with the Widows and Widowers of our congregation continue. I find this to be a great time of connecting with a very special group of folks in our congregation. The dinners are well attended, and seem to be well received. Jeannette and I thank Brian and Kim LeMessurier for continuing to help us in this ministry.

I continue to have the privilege of leading the Tuesday afternoon Bible Study, along with my wife Jeannette. We have been studying Ray Vanderlaan's “That the World May Know” series. It is great to see other Bible Study groups also digging into God's word here at the church during the week.

The Friday Night Youth Group (Grades 7-12) continues to get together. It is truly a community group, and our meetings are either here at ARC or at the Missionary Church from 7-9pm. Currently, I lead this with Pastor Jason of the Missionary Church, as well as Jessica Roszmann. Kathy Butler helped earlier in the year and will come back to help when her schooling slows down after April. I need to say thanks to Anna and Kelly Olson for hosting our Kick-off bon-fire in September, and to Keith and Karen for hosting our year-end bbq and boating event on Island Lake in June. Thanks also to Eziah Pahl who will be hosting us at the Edwin Parr Gymnasium for a Friday night in April. Thanks also to the parents of the great kids who attend. We usually have 25 kids or so attending our meetings.

We also plan to to start a Senior High Bible Study on Youth Group nights from 6-7pm – at the location of the regular youth group meeting which begins at 7. That way, any of these Senior High aged youth who want to attend the Youth Group meeting, still can. Jessica Roszmann will be leading this most of the time. I will fill in for her when she cannot.

Speaking of kids, our Sunday School program resumed in October and seems to be going great – with lots of enthusiastic kids from pre-school through grade 7. Many thanks to Kim LeMessurier for being our superintendent, and to all the teachers, who are doing a wonderful job.

I also need to give a shout-out to all of our music teams, and the tech personnel. They are gifted folks who enrich our worship services in ways they don't even know they do! Plus, so many folks are blessed with the fact that all of our services are now online. Apparently, I continue to be the guest preacher on a few occasions at other churches who just show a video of me preaching on YouTube. Thanks to Josh Smith who did a lot of work with our sound system and the equipment. He has moved to B.C., which means our volunteers are now running the sound on Sunday mornings. They are doing great, even as there is a learning curve to all of this. THANK-YOU!

I continued to serve our denomination as Church Planting and Development chair for our Classis, President of the Regional Synod of Canada, and Regional Synod of Canada representative on the General Synod Council of the Reformed Church in America. I represented our Classis at the General Synod of our Denomination last year in Pella, Iowa, and will attend again this year in Tucson, Arizona. I now serve on the Nominations Commission of the Reformed Church in America, a team of people who assign folks to serve on the various commissions of the RCA. I am enjoying this new role, as it gives me opportunity to meet and interview people throughout the denomination.

I have also been appointed to represent the Regional Synod of Canada as a Trustee on the board of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey. This is the oldest seminary in North America, and is one of two that are connected to the Reformed Church.

I continue to officiate at many funerals from outside of our congregation which I find to be a very practical way for me to connect with un-churched families in this community. I also am teaching Religious Instruction to the the grade 6's at the Landing Trail school, and have to admit that this seems to be going pretty well. RI runs weekly from November through April. It is such a privilege to be able to do this.

Philippians 4:4 says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” You know, serving here as your pastor gives my heart many reasons to rejoice! And I do. My calling to serve as your pastor is a true joy and privilege! Thanks, every one of you.

In Christ,

Al