Please make every effort to stay and attend.

Cost: $160 per family; $90 per couple; $60 per single.
Registration is at the camp, but please let Grant know if you intend on going.

Weekly: 11:30 am
Teacher: Nelson Deutich

What’s official you say? It’s official that Keele Street Christian Church is the home for the new Portuguese-speaking Brazilian church plant. Pastor Jose Fernandes and his lovely wife Regina, with the support of Hisportic Christian Mission and the Impact Ministry Group Inc., have started meeting here Sundays at 6:30pm! Check out Maple Leaf’s New website

How would you like to go from being last to being first?

For Christians that is kind of a tricky question because Jesus messes with our minds on this subject. We know that Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last.” (Mark 9:35). So before we answer the first and last question, we need to know: are you talking about going from last to first in the sense that since I am last, I will be first? Or are you saying that if I say I want to be first, then that will make me last? Are we talking about a hard and fast first here? Is this a legit first? Well, stop overthinking it would ya? Christians, sheesh! It is a simple question: How would you like to go from being last to being first?

Last week Samoa went from being last to first by skipping Friday. For Samoans, Friday December 30th never happened. They went to sleep on Thursday evening and woke up on Saturday morning—all without the aid of Frat party!

They just decided it was time to jump the International Date Line and so they went from those who would have been last, to those who were first to celebrate 2012. The decision was made so they could be more in tune with Asia, Australia and New Zealand, who are their closest trading partners as well as the countries many Samoans find themselves working in. It all makes sense.

Still, the choice wasn’t easy to agree on since Samoa is known to be the last inhabited place to see the sunset in the world, which makes for quite a tourist tagline. Well, now they are the first to see the sunset, oh well! Maybe it will bring a boom on retiree tourist. Maybe their new tagline could be: “Get sunset over with so you can go to bed!”?

More interesting still is that American Samoa remains on the other side of the date line so you could theoretically, stay within the Samoan Islands and have two birthdays and two anniversaries in the same year! I am starting to feel like I am in an episode of Star Trek!

Still what fascinates me about this entire story is that the Samoans just decided to skip a day. For one week in their history they had no Friday. That started me thinking: what if we had the power to skip a day when we wanted? Let’s say each of us got one day a year that we could just skip, would you use it? How would you use it?

I guess the problem with this kind of question is that you would have to have the gift of foreknowledge to use the skip-a-day to your advantage. I mean you would have to know what the next day had in store for you, before you would really want to take advantage of the opportunity to skip it, right? What would happen if you skipped the day you got a raise, or won the lottery or the day you were going to be proposed to? What if you skipped the day that was the last day of life for one of your loved ones?

I think it would be a much better deal to be able to have a do-over-day rather than a skip-a-day. I would be all for the day of the do over! Still, I am not sure that I would have the wisdom to pick the best day to do the do over since I tend to have too many of those from which to choose.

When it is all said and done, having Jesus as my Lord and Saviour gives me more than enough do-overs already! I don’t want to skip a day or do a day over because, ultimately, even the worst days are days that I learn something important about myself and the sustaining, forgiving, refreshing power of living in relationship with Christ!

OK, but what about the first and last question? Would I like to go from being last to being first? Maybe I am getting a bit older and wiser, but being first just doesn’t matter to me as much as it used to and neither does being last. Sometimes I pick being last because with being last comes perspective and my busy, fast-paced life often lacks perspective. If I had more perspective I would have less days that I wished I could do over.

This year, instead of trying to be first, or even trying to just not be last, why not try having some perspective? Why not try to better connect with those you are closest too, like the Samoans have? Why not reflect before you react? How about, at least a few times this year, purposely being last because you have consciously decided to put others first?

Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.
(Philippians 2:3-5, MSG)

Start May on the “right foot” by attending the next prayer walk in High Park.

Nelson Deuitch teaching

Enjoy winter games, night games, interactive Bible studies, fun and friends and challenging quests!

Details:
Date: February 24-26
For: Grades 7-12
Theme: Mission Possible
Cost: $50