Cedar United Church
1644 Cedar Road V9X 1L4 Nanaimo, BC, Canada

November 20, 2020 The Transgender Day of Remembrance, November 20, was set aside to recognize those who have been killed due to ignorance and hatred, targeted because they were trans or gender non-conforming. The first event took place in 1999 in San Francisco to honour Rita Hester, who had been brutally murdered the previous year. https://www.united-church.ca//gender-sexuality-and-orienta

Hello everyone November 15th is Children’s Sunday. The United Church’s website describes Children’s Sunday as an opportunity to lift up the needs and celebrate the gifts of young people in their own communities and around the world, is celebrated annually across the church on the Sunday closest to November 20. Consider participating in the No Way to Treat a Child campaign to end the detention of Palestinian children. Here is a link to the campaign if you want to get involved. https://www.united-church.ca//israeli-military-detention-n

Let us remember all of the many souls who sacrificed their lives, bodies and minds to defeat the evil that moved across the world in WW 1 and WW 2 and the families forever changed. Also, let us remember the other men and women who have fought for our way of life since then. But also let us remember the toll that war takes not only the soldiers and their families but all of the civilians that are so often just thought of as collateral damage. Woman, children, elderly the sick, those who refuse to fight. The societies that are ruined, people forced to flee for their lives because of conflicts that they have no part in. Without memory there is no ability to change our actions. Let us remember and commit to never allowing the tragedies of the world wars to happen again and to stop the carnage of the current wars now.

Also Rev Erin has announced that our Board met last week and made the official decision to try to begin modified in-person worship services starting on November 15th (next Sunday!). Everyone is going to be getting a phone call to advise if you are assigned to either Group A (meeting on November 15th) or Group B (meeting on November 22nd). On those Sundays we will be welcoming you to a shortened, physically distanced worship service in which we all wear masks or shields, we... do not sing (but do enjoy some music) or touch, and we leave the building as soon as worship is over. It’s going to be a big challenge especially now that the COVID numbers are growing and the Board is going to be keeping an eye on this and as Rev Erin says If our Island cases continue to increase, we will likely have to go back to "online worship only" again, so hopefully everyone will remain vigilant to protect their neighbours. I am sure that Rev Erin will continue to send emails around and I will also try to keep people in the loop as to what is happening. See more

Hey everyone I know that this is a bit late -sorry - but for people who did not get the email here is the link for our service today Many thanks this week to Josslyn and Andrew for the music and lovely slides to sing along to! https://www.youtube.com/playlist