A year or so ago, as in-country missionaries, Linda, Chelsea, Bud the Lab and I were asked to do two weeks of mission deputation to parts of Ontario. Our task was to share our mission work with the church and to promote Presbyterians Sharing. Not being one who relishes anything that smacks of a boondoggle in the name of Christ, I found the deputation tour ended up being a real eye-opener. I thought it might be time, in an attempt at being prophetic, to share my journal entry upon our return:
Well, we are back. What a trip! Of the six weeks we spent driving like mad through two different routes right across Canada, two weeks were spent in Ontario doing what the church calls deputation work. I had to look up what the word meant before I left. According to my Webster's New World Dictionary, there are two definitions for the word “deputation.” The first meaning is simply “being deputed,” which is a convoluted way of saying “being deputized.” I had visions of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson at about this point, so I went on to the second definition, which was “a group of persons, or one person appointed to represent others.” That about sums her up! We spent two weeks representing the people in the mission work in the Cariboo-Chilcotin as well as the Life and Mission Agency of the Presbyterian Church in Canada to our brothers and sisters in Christ in presbyteries and congregations in Ontario.
First we had to get there, which involved a week-long trek taking the northernmost route across two-thirds of Canada. We discovered two things. First, Canada is still 99.999 per cent wilderness. I found this personally very encouraging. Second, Ontario is at least two-and-a-half provinces wide. I found this bewildering, especially given John A. MacDonald's reason for blocking the proposed province of Buffalo (now Alberta and Saskatchewan) at the time of Confederation because he did not want one large province to dominate the country. Hmmm! At any rate, it took us two-and-a-half long but delightful days to drag our butts and our 26-foot travel trailer across Ontario to the Ottawa area.
Once we hit Ottawa, our itinerary was completely organized by Barb Nawratil, the then mission interpretation coordinator at national offices. How she was able to organize such a detailed and busy itinerary, which included everything right down to traffic directions, and have it all go off without a hitch, especially when I was involved, I'll never figure out. She must have had some divine help.
We started on a Sunday morning in St. Andrew's, Arnprior, with yours truly preaching both the children's and adult sermon. Sunday evening found us at Trinity, Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa where Linda (on bass) and Chelsea (on piano) and I (on guitar) led worship, preached, and showed slides of the mission work in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.
Monday was a day off so we took Bud our Lab up to Parliament Hill where he proceeded to cock his leg on all four corners of the Centre Block. (He made a good start on the East Block too but ran out of ammo prior to completing his project). We followed this up with getting hopelessly lost whilst searching for the Prime Minister's residence, which we took to be divine intervention. Eventually we stumbled on the Rideau Canal and followed it back to the freeway that took us back to our trailer.
Tuesday we travelled five hours down to Toronto, camped out in the driveway of Ian and Sally Morrison, and did the worship-preaching-slideshow thing at Guildwood in the evening. The next morning we did it again at Willowdale for the East Toronto Presbyterial of the Women's Missionary Society and that evening we did it again at St. Andrew's, Ajax. Tuesday found us leading morning worship at the national church offices. I spent the entire afternoon getting myself in hot water leading a workshop on mission while Linda and Chelsea toured and went shopping. Wednesday was a day off, which we spent washing our clothes and ourselves at the Morrison's. In the afternoon we went four-wheeling all around Toronto while Chelsea hung out the window of our pickup snapping pictures like mad, something we now refer to as “drive-by shooting.”
We all found Toronto to be a most congenial and friendly city, but it was starting to get hot and sticky so we were glad to make our escape north to the country the following day. About three hours of trailer trucking found us setting up camp in Marg Robertson's driveway, just minutes away from the shores of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. That evening we did the worship-preaching-slideshow presentation at nearby First, Penetanguishene, where we were made to feel like royalty. Sunday morning I preached there as well and we then had a marvelous lunch at Fran and Doug's place, followed with a private tour of Discovery Harbour with Kevin. The following evening we did our presentation again, this time at Marg's church at Elmvale. Up early the next morning, after a four-hour drive south, we set up camp in the Wildwood Conservation Area just outside of Stratford. From there we dashed two hours northwest and did our presentation at Knox, Goderich. While there, we experienced one of Ontario's finest raunchy rainstorms, complete with a tornado that touched down a few miles from our trailer. We were suitably impressed. The subsequent evenings were spent doing our presentations at St. Andrew's, Kitchener; St. Giles', St. Catharines; and Knox, Thedford. On the last day of our two-week tour, I preached at a men's breakfast and at the morning service and presented slides at a luncheon, all at Chalmer's, London. The following day we left Wildwood and set our sails for Quebec and points east.
After all was said and done we had a marvelous time. The deputation work ended up eclipsing our cross – Canada holiday time that followed it, the people were that gracious to us. Our task was to promote mission giving, including Presbyterians Sharing, in the presbyteries and congregations we visited. It was an exceedingly easy task. The people of the Presbyterian Church proved to us that they have hearts completely committed to Christ's mission, in country and out. I have never in my life been so impressed and encouraged about anything in the Presbyterian Church. One thing is for sure, the people in our congregations understand mission, they have a passion for supporting it and deep pockets and open praying hearts. It seems to me one thing is missing. They need a face. As it is organized now, Presbyterians Sharing, as a mission-supporting vehicle, drives a wedge between the face of the mission worker and the hearts, prayers, and pockets of the mission supporting people and congregations. What we need to do is to act quickly and radically to remove that wedge, to reconfigure Presbyterians Sharing to directly link the mission supporter with the mission worker. This is something I told the people of the Life and Mission Agency as powerfully as I could while visiting and speaking at church offices during this trip. What I said interested some a lot and angered a few even more. But in the end, I fear I failed to poke the sleeping lion hard enough to get anything to happen. However, to the people of Ontario that we visited … we thank you and we will never forget you.
