November 2011 Highlights

IMPORTANT NOTICES

Awaited Book Launch

 Voices Of Hope: A Mozart Celebration

Charles Dickens' "A CHRISTMAS CAROL"
A Dramatic Reading

A Word from Our Minister

A Word from Our Interim Assistant Minister

Stephen Ministers Commissioned

It was a wonderful occasion on Sunday, October 23rd, when eight women were commissioned as Stephen Ministers in our congregation. 
These dedicated people did the hard work of training as caring friends for persons in need.  When the Minister or a Stephen Leader (Diana Veenstra and Rev. Rod Ferguson) receives and approves a referral, a match is then made and the Stephen Minister begins an on-going caring relationship with that person.  The needs that can be met include bereavement, chronic illness, loneliness, mild depression, life changes, including birth, retirement, job loss and so on.  Unfortunately, only women can be helped at the moment.  Stephen Ministry strictly holds to same gender care givers only.  We hope that in future training events, men will participate.
Our Stephen Ministers are: Edythe Arnott, Liza Beaulieu, Mary Clarke, Diane Ellison, Marlene Gregory, Clara Maranzano, Margarita Medina-Ibanez and Genesis Plancarte.

Music

November is a full month! On Friday, November 25th we celebrate Mozart in a concert to benefit the Maison du Parc AIDS hospice. Players from the Montreal Symphony Players' Association will join our choir, along with an all-star cast of soloists: Marie-Eve Munger, soprano; Daniel Taylor, countertenor; Isaiah Bell, tenor; and Grammy-winning baritone Sanford Sylvan.  Our conductor, Jordan de Souza, will lead the forces.  At the opening of the concert, soprano Marie-Ève Munger and organist Jonathan Oldengarm will perform Mozart's Exultate, jubilate, after which the choir, orchestra and soloists will present the Requiem.  And this, within a few days of the 220th anniversary of Mozart's death, December 5th, 1791. More details here.
On Sunday, November 27th at 4:00 p.m., two members of the music department join with readers and the South Shore Children's Choir in presenting Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Organist Jonathan Oldengarm plays excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite before and after and will be joined by soprano Stephanie Manias for Harold Darke's haunting setting of the Christina Rossetti poem In the Bleak Midwinter.
And then it's December, with the CBC Sing-In, Church School Pageant, Carols by Candlelight, etc.  Stay tuned!
To check out our weekly Sunday music list, just click here.

Jonathan Oldengarm
Director of Music

 News From the Choir

The A&P Choir resumed regular rehearsals on September 8th during which time our conductor Jordan DeSouza and Music Director Jonathan Oldengarm presented us with stacks of new music.  With the promise of a lovely "Welcome Back" reception following this initial rehearsal, we explored together our music for September and October.  Those who thought we would start slowly and gently were a bit mistaken as challenging but exciting music was given to us to prepare in a very short time.  Jordan also introduced an initiative with new exercises to sensitize our tuning.  Since then, he has diligently followed up on this theme with the result that members of the choir are indeed beginning to listen to each other in deeper ways.  It is easy to sit back and be happy that we get the notes right.  However, it is another thing to really listen to the balance of vocal frequencies as we do this.
During the month of October, the Choir has greatly enjoyed meeting the congregation in the Narthex following the services.  Here at A&P, October has been declared "Meet the Choir Month".  Each section of the choir—basses, altos, tenors, and sopranos—has had its opportunity to greet parishioners.  Reception has been very warm as choristers have greeted old friends and made new ones. 
Now, we are already into November with the upcoming Maison du Parc concert featuring the Mozart Requiem.  The choir is delighted to have the opportunity to explore even more the depths of beauty inherent in this magnificent composition.  Following that, the Advent and Christmas services begin which include the additional special presentations of the "CBC Sing-In" and "Carols by Candlelight".
For the Choir, there is much music to learn, and the holiday season seems just around the corner!!!

Wendy Glaubitz
Choir President

Mission & Outreach

On September 30th, after a hearty helping of BBQ’d hot dogs, more than 40 of us proudly wearing eye-catching new T-shirts strolled to Tyndale St-Georges Community Centre in Little Burgundy.  
Welcomed by Executive Director Jen de Combe, volunteers and members of the board, we were treated to dessert and a tour of their impressive facilities.  More importantly, your generosity raised more than $2,000 for a PWS&D project in the impoverished community of Mirpurkhas in southeast Pakistan. Thanks to all who took part.
Tyndale will host a special worship service  on Monday, November 14th, at 6:00 pm  led by. Rev. Jeff Veenstra and Tyndale chaplain Rev. Allan Marjerison, with music provided by the children of the ReachOut with Music program.  If you have not yet met Rev. Merjerison, take this opportunity – he’s the liveliest nonagenarian you’re likely to find!  A spaghetti dinner of fun and fellowship will follow.
Speaking of ReachOut with Music, a free will offering to help support this community mission will be part of a happy new family occasion opening our Christmas season  on Sunday, November 27th, at 4:00 p.m.  Return with us to Charles Dickens’ 19th century London for "A Christmas Carol", read by Rev. Veenstra, Rev. Armour, Wayne Riddell and Jeanette Kelly.  Jonathan Oldengarm and Betty-Jo Christiani’s South Shore Children’s Choir will lead the music.  Period costumes and décor and the opportunity to raise your voice in songs of the season, will help make this an enchanting curtain raiser to the season of hope and joy.
Françoise Morin-Lyons continues to ReachOut with Music at Tyndale with a dozen 4-to-12-year-olds gathering every Saturday morning.  Diane Janna reports that December 21st will be our caroling day.  In the afternoon, through Dr. Jacqueline McClaran, we will be visiting three wards at the Montreal General Hospital.  Also, that same day in the early evening, revive ‘ye olde’ tradition of spreading musical Christmas cheer ‘from door to door to door’ in the Pointe St-Charles area.  Everyone is invited to join us.  Enthusiasm is more important than talent!!!!
After the service on October 30th, long time and new members of A&P Neechewagon, the interest group associated with our twinning with the Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry, celebrated the Knitters for Neechewagon in the Kirk Session Room. 

Moira Barclay-Fernie (photo above 2nd from right) shows off some of the Knitters output in the Narthex. Busy fingers from around the world, including Isabel Burnett in far off Australia, are finishing up another 250-plus caps, mittens and scarves to be shipped to help ward off the chill of Saskatoon’s winter streets.
This happy gathering of knitters meets once a month and has quietly become an integral mission of our church.  They’re always happy to welcome newcomers – no knitting experience required – and are grateful for the generous gifts of wool that have been offered.  Please contact Moira Barclay-Fernie if you’d like more information.
Once again this year, members of the Outreach Committee will personally deliver the gifts of our congregation to the 30-plus local service organizations you help to support.  All who participated last year were moved by the work of these organizations in caring for the needy in our city.  
We look forward to welcoming them to worship with us again during our 2012 Celebration Sunday on January 22nd.

Keith Randall
Co-chair, Mission and Outreach Committee 

Stewardship

November is an in-between month: in between fall and winter; in between the warmth and joy of Thanksgiving and the mystery and beauty of the Christmas season.  In November we are already beginning to think about Christmas – and how can we not, with the Fall Fair (November 5th) giving us the opportunity to buy special gifts and delicious traditional plum puddings!
November, when the spirit of Christmas slowly starts to descend on us and, as a church community, we look forward to wonderful Advent and Christmas worship, is also the time for the St. Andrew and St. Paul annual giving campaign.
Sunday, November 13th, will be Stewardship Sunday.  Rev. Jeff Veenstra’s sermon will have stewardship as its theme, and members of the church’s Stewardship Committee will serve as ushers and read the lessons.  In the days immediately after that, a letter from the committee will be mailed out to all church members and adherents.
That letter will ask you to take time to think about all the gifts that God has given you: the gifts of life, of family and friends, of home, of employment, of leisure time – and of a wonderful place to join for worship in downtown Montreal.  It will ask you to think about living in God’s grace as you receive and recognize those gifts, and to be a graceful receiver by also giving in grace.
It will ask you where God falls into your reckoning when you do the mundane but necessary task of budgeting your money and paying your bills.  The phone company and the cable company and Hydro-Québec are very good about sending us a bill each month to remind us of what we owe, aren’t they?  And each of those companies gives us something useful for which we owe money in return: telephone, television, heat and light. Of course we will be sure to pay the bill!
How much more has God given us?  Yet no monthly bill from God comes in the mail, and as a result we so often put God at or near the bottom of our list when we decide where our money will go.  God so often gets what may be left over when all else is paid.
This month, the Stewardship Committee will ask you to think about where God falls in your financial priority list now and for the coming year, and to think about whether the position of God should be moved up a notch or two.  Perhaps to the top of the list!
Of course, when you put a cheque or cash into your offering envelope, or set up an automatic monthly donation from your bank or credit-card account (that’s called PAR, Pre-Authorized Remittance, and you’ll be hearing more about that from Stewardship too), it isn’t mailed off to: "God, Creator of the Universe, Somewhere Out There".
Your money goes directly to the work of God that is carried out by this church in so many ways:
   • It pays for our inspirational worship.
   • It allows for the church to be warm and welcoming for us
      all on cold winter days.
   • It means our ever-growing Church School can organize
      retreats and other special events, and buy class supplies.
   • It helps cover the cost of after-church lunches for the
      many college and university students with whose presence
      we are blessed.
   • It helps people in need here in our own community, across
      Canada, and around the world through the mission and
      outreach programs of St. Andrew and St. Paul and of the
      wider Presbyterian Church in Canada.
We hope the message of Stewardship Sunday will be meaningful to you, and will make you think about receiving and giving in the grace of God throughout the coming year.
Please join us on November 13th!

Katherine Sedgwick
Co-chair, Stewardship Committee
 
Keith Randall
Co-chair, Mission and Outreach Committee

Ministry Committee

Generation XYZ 

We are currently engaged in a Bible study.  It is called "Becoming a Contagious Christian".  It is a course designed to help everyday Christians – like you and me - to confidently and effectively share their faith with people they know.  
Our group meets on Wednesdays on the following dates this month: - November 2nd,16th, and 30th.

Church School

On October 2nd in spite of rainy conditions, 52 hearty Presbyterians headed off on our Annual Family Apple Picking trip to “A La Croissé des Pommes” in St. Joseph du Lac. What a fun time we all had!!!  Lots of laughter, wonderful facilities, delicious food and a spectacular apple orchard, made the day more than worthwhile! 
This is a venue we will definitely return to next year!!  The family- run business is delightful.  The owner’s encouraging selling point as we headed out to the orchards on wagons, bearing umbrellas was:  "The apples are pre-washed today!"

The Church School families had a wonderful time together at the Pumpkin Ball on Friday, October 28th.  There were 94 in attendance.  We had a host of wonderful costumes including a Smurf, an Elephant, a beautiful Japanese lady, a Pirate Swift, a Spanish dancer, a Wizard, Pumpkins, a Cat in the Hat, some lovely little princesses and a host of other wonderful creations.
The children thoroughly enjoyed the Mad Science presentation "Fire and Ice", as did the parents!
A very special thank you to our Youth Group, who led the children through a Scavenger Hunt, designed by Ashlea Potter-Powell, entertained the children and served up dinner – and finally at the end of the party, helped out with the cleanup.  Well done!!! 

A huge thank you to the adults who helped out in the kitchen and to Connie and Carol for decorating Kildonan Hall so beautifully!!
Although it seems a long way away – we are beginning preparations for the Christmas Pageant which is scheduled for Sunday, December 11th at 4:00 PM.  This event is a huge undertaking and would not be possible without the help of numerous volunteers.  If you would like to help out with supervising the children, costumes, makeup, etc. etc. please contact me at 450-689-4379 or email grammy.shani@sympatico.ca
Volunteers help out during the Dress Rehearsal on Saturday, December 10th from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM and/or Sunday December 11th, from 3:00 PM through the Pageant, which ends around 5:30 PM.
Please mark the Pageant date on your calendars – we welcome all of the congregation and guests and hope that all of our Church School children will participate.  A delicious "sit-down" Family Dinner will be served after the Pageant in Kildonan Hall, so be sure to reserve space for you and your families!

Sharon Dworzak
Church School Coordinator

A&P Youth Group

Our fantastic young people helped to plan and organize the Annual Pumpkin Ball (Friday, October 28th) activities for the children as well as hosting the dinner.
As was mentioned in the Church School report, it was a huge success and it could not have been done without their help.
We all had a great time at the Youth Group BBQ, hosted at our home.  We spent time planning for the next few months’ activities and managed to fit in a hilarious game of Scattergories.  One of our parents, Desmond Byrne, was stunned by the girls’ rules and we believe looks forward to a rematch!!!  It was also an opportunity for the group to congratulate two of our Youth Leaders, Afua and Emmanuel, on their recent marriage!  
On November 5th, they will once again be helping out with the Fall Fair cleanup and then off to dinner and a movie after their work is done!!  At the moment they are deciding on which movie they would like to see – most popular choice wins!!
We chose a date for the Laser Tag event.  It will take place on Saturday, November 12th – details will be noted in the Church Bulletin shortly.
We invite all young people from Grades 6 through High School to join this energetic and friendly group.  For more information, please contact Art or Sharon Dworzak at 450-689-4379 or email grammy.shani@sympatico.

Arthur and Sharon Dworzak
Youth Group Leaders

Unsung Hero

Ms. Carmen Lewis
Carmen Lewis started attending St. Andrew & St. Paul right about the same time as Dr. Richard Topping.  She and her sister were looking for a church, met him, and decided to stay.  Carmen says "I was very impressed by the structure and the music of the church. "
Carmen had her first introduction to the Presbyterian Church in her native Jamaica where she attended a Presbyterian school.  She left Jamaica in 1966 to train as a nurse in England.  Then, one day, she and three fellow nurses were in London when they saw the Canadian Armed Forces recruiting nurses for Canada.  On a whim, the young women decided to apply and that’s how Carmen ended up as a nurse working in Canada.  She spent many years at the Montreal Children’s Hospital caring for newborns and toddlers.  She later moved to Reddy Memorial Hospital and worked on the surgical floor in intensive care.  The work was very stressful she says: "There were good days when the patient recovers, but disappointment when you lose a patient."  But she appreciated the adult contact at Reddy and worked there until it closed in 1997.
At A&P, Carmen spent many years working at the desk in the Narthex.  She enjoyed getting to know members and meeting visitors from all over the world.  She is involved now in a variety of ways: setting up tables and serving at receptions like the annual dinner, Lenten lunches and the Fall Fair.  She likes working at the "linen and lace" table at the Fall Fair, especially for the first few hours when all her nicely placed linens are still sorted by category: table cloths, sheets, etc. Carmen enjoys the music at A&P and finds she likes to come in early to listen to the choir rehearse and meditate.  The church has become like a family for her. "You have to go out of your way to meet people but if you make an effort, people are very friendly."
In her spare time, Carmen likes to read novels and biographies or watch tennis on television.  She also did a fair amount of travelling with her late sister, cruises and trips back to England and Jamaica.  On her last trip to Greece and Turkey, she followed in the steps of St. Paul.
Carmen Lewis, thank you for all you have contributed to our church life!

Written by Jeanette Kelly