Legacy Ministries Overview:

We all want to leave behind a legacy for our loved ones when we depart this world. Through evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, worship and service, our Legacy Ministry provides opportunities to help make those legacies eternal.

2021 was a challenging year of starting, pausing, resuming, pausing, stopping, starting, pausing, and resuming. Lots of “pivoting”, heartaches, and headaches. However, we persevered and truly had another great year of ministry. Because of the help and ministry of over 70 volunteers, I’m proud to share with you some of our ministry highlights.

Legacy Lead Team - Oversees all the Legacy Ministries

·         Cheryl Enslen

·         Phil and Annalora Horch

·         Joyce and Dave McNaughton

·         Peter and Evelyn Wilde

The purpose of this group is to oversee the needs and direction of the entire ministry.
It is also there to keep me accountable and give me feedback and support as to how
I am doing as Pastor of Legacy Adults.

Our ability to physically meet was greatly limited. We moved more toward phone conversations and keeping the team informed through REALM. That being said, we were able to squeeze in one in-person meeting in August between Covid “waves” to review and evaluate. A promising idea that was brought forth was a monthly outreach breakfast. We are considering this for 2022/2023.  

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Evangelism:

Rescue Cambodia

From day one when Rescue was founded, Marie Ens’ heart was to see ‘Cambodians Raising Cambodians’. Today, all 90 of Rescue’s leaders and staff are Cambodians! All the house moms & house parents, the baby caregivers, those caring for Grannies & the adults living with AIDS, the drivers & office staff, the agricultural workers, the schoolteachers and more are all Cambodians!

Rescue Cambodia is playing a part in transforming Cambodia from the inside out as they care for hundreds of orphans, many families living with HIV/AIDS and elderly women left abandoned without anyone to care for them.

Rescue offers help to the helpless and hope to the hopeless. Rescue offers a future. Even when the orphan children grow up and go out into Cambodian society, Rescue will always be “home”.

In 2020 the Legacy Ministry adopted Rescue as one of our evangelism projects. Due to Covid-19 we postponed the trip (TBD) but were able to pray for and financially support the ministry in the months to come. We kept in contact with leadership on a quarterly basis and are considering a missions trip in 2023.

Please check out www.rescuecambodia.org for more information.


Operation Christmas Child

Each year the Legacy Ministry oversees our contribution to OCC. In 2020 we became the regional collection centre for SE Alberta. In 2021 we had 22 volunteers and collected 1442 boxes.

The Medicine Hat area collected an additional 116 boxes online for a grand total of 1558 boxes.

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Discipleship:

Widower and Singles Fellowship

Despite covid restrictions, we continued our first Thursday of the month Bible Study/Fellowship with about a dozen or so ladies. With the help and leadership of Pat Anderson, Melita Leng, and Ruth Moerman, we studied Psalm 23, lifted one another up in prayer, and spent the remainder of our time sharing our lives with one another and encouraging one another in fellowship.

On the third Thursday of each month the ladies gathered with their bag lunches to encourage and bless each other. This ministry happened less often as food was not allowed but a few ladies continued to meet for a time of Bible reading and prayer.

We also had several gatherings at Kin Coulee Park.

 

Legacy Bible Study

Our Legacy Bible Study (Thursday evenings) led by Richard Buehler carried on between shutdowns. It continued to be well received with roughly 20+ in attendance. In the Spring we started a second Bible study with Richard and the same material but offered it on a Tuesday afternoon for those who didn’t like to drive at night.

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Fellowship:

Visitation

I’m thrilled to announce that Lynn Schellenberg took on the lead role of the visitation ministry in 2021. She has brought an incredible amount of passion and drive to the ministry. We held an evaluation and encouragement meeting in October, and I was truly inspired to hear our visitors’ stories of how God used them through the pandemic.

Some of our visitees went to be with the Lord in 2021 but we were blessed to add some new visitees as well. We continued to visit 30+ people in our church family and have 20+ visitors. With physical visitations being limited, we continued to focus more on phone calls and letters, but some personal visits also occurred.

The card ministry, led by Melissa Toth, Darlene Hjelte, and Ruth Moerman, has been very positive with our visitees. We sent cards with words of blessing, Our Daily Bread Devotionals, bookmarks, and this year I added a personal Christmas letter which included a picture from one of our children in Pastor Cindy’s children’s ministry. We sent out encouragement cards once a quarter.

 

Young at Heart

Leaders:

·         Lance Duncalfe

·         Stella Friesen

·         Phil and Annalora Horch

·         Florence Schorr

·         Mary Ann Westgard

After much prayer and planning, Y@H was paused in 2021 due to restrictions at Chinook Village.

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Worship:

Chapel Services

With the help of Ruth Pahl, Jamie Deibert and others we provided monthly chapel services to:

·         River Ridge (2nd Wednesday of the month at 1:30pm)

·         Meadow Ridge (3rd Monday of the month at 10am)

·         South Country Village (3rd Tuesday of the month at 6:45pm)

·         Meadowlands (4th Monday of the month at 10am)

·         Hillcrest Church (4th Wednesday of the month at 1:30pm)

·         Masterpiece (4th Thursday of the month at 10:30am)

·         Chinook Village (Sundays, as needed)

Attendance has been approximately 12-30 people (depending on the facility).

While it was discouraging for several months not to be able to visit some of the chapels due to COVID, it also provided us with an opportunity. Thanks to the tech department we began sending out copies of our Sunday service for a chapel service in our absence. The Recreation directors used them weekly. We were even able to send over our Christmas Eve Service for them to use. The response has been excellent.

We began live streaming the Hillcrest Chapel service to several of the facilities listed above. I estimate we had roughly 75 in attendance at each Hillcrest Chapel and after consulting the recreation directors, close to that number again watching online.

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Service:

Grief Share

With the leadership of Terrill Wiesner & Sherry Larter we were able provide one session in the fall with about 6 people in attendance.

 

Furniture Ministry

I worked closely with Christy Wonnenberg as we navigated the numerous challenges of pickup and deliveries around the city. I just want to highlight my profound appreciation of Christy, our delivery/pickup volunteers and the ladies working in room 7. We delivered to over 127 households through a global pandemic. Amazing!

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Pastoral Care & Other:

During Pastor Steve’s surgery and Sabbatical, I was asked to join the Lead Team. It was a privilege to work with Pastor Glenn and Pastor Jamie as we navigated vaccines, restrictions and closures.

I spent the majority of the year sitting on the Worship Ministry Team as a liaison to Lead Team as well as several months with the Communications Team.

Throughout 2021, I continued to spend a considerable amount of time with in-person and phone visitation. I loved and appreciated the time I spend with our church family, hearing their stories as they shared their heart and the opportunity to pray with such faithful servants of Christ.

I was privileged to officiate at Paul Pylatuk’s funeral in Moose Jaw, SK. He was a friend and a mentor to me.

I enjoyed preaching a couple of times in 2021 and look forward to sharing more in the future.

Lastly, I’ve also been helping the tech department on Sundays in the role of Production Manager, Worship Centre sound and Online sound.

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