Welcome to CANACOM YAM work camp 2006 from the spice island of Grenada! Grenada is known for its spices—nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and cocoa—and the scent fills the air at Saturday markets. The theme for our work camp came from our particular context: Enabling the Spice Within (using the gifts of the Spirit for the mission of the church). Every three years CANACOM (of which The Presbyterian Church in Canada is a founding member) sponsors a work camp for young adults ranging in age from 18-30, which is hosted by one of the member churches.
As the old saying goes, you had to be there. But you were there—as you, The Presbyterian Church in Canada, commissioned Mike Smith and Lindsey Nigra to be the Canadian spice added to that of the other participants. You were there as Reuben St. Louis convened the International Planning Committee and led in music and song and games and … and anything else asked of him. And you were there as I was privileged to preach time and again, to offer my sessions on Building Community. You were there as Mike told everyone, “I am Canadian;” and as Lindsey led an evening of appreciation for one another. And our congregations were there as Richmond Hill, Ont., purchased the VBS materials and other resources and as the New Church Development in Tantallon, N.S., shared their Summer Bible Camp t-shirts with a couple of dozen children from the Samaritan Presbyterian Church. And it is you, the Presbyterian church, who will benefit as young adults such as Mike and Lindsay come back to your churches and share their insights and offer their ideas for mission in your midst. And they are joined by my daughter, Naomi along with Julie Carter, back from a mission trip in Taiwan and those who went off to Guatemala and Mistawasis and … and all those we send to the ends of the earth.
As St. Theresa prayed:
Christ has no body now but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours;
yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion looks out on the world.
Yours are the feet with which Christ is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands with which Christ is to bless us now.
This may be the real reason for such work camps as we explore the depths on one another’s experience of God. Nothing binds people closer than an open expression of personal faith—unless it is the joint experience of facing down a rather large tarantula!
