Tis the season...

Christmas time has come to Shekinah. Many of us this time of year are contemplating the desire to look at Jesus’s earthly walk with new eyes for a fresh year ahead. For us at Shekinah, this season involves decorating with lights and wreaths to create an atmosphere of celebration of Jesus’s birth. We want to create that atmosphere for our big Christmas event: A Buncha Guys Christmas concerts. These concerts are the best excuse for a supporter of Shekinah such as yourself to find yourself within our walls during the Christmas season.

We love to see familiar faces and new ones coming through the Timber Lodge doors to experience with us the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of Christmas. It is an opportunity to come together with our camp family and make a human connection in the midst of this dark and frosty season. It is one of those times you can confidently drive down the steep and wintery hill in the dark and know with certainty that you will reach the top when you go to leave and you are not alone in that endeavour. It is a time to hear some great music that appeals to a wide swath of listeners that speaks to the heart and invigorates the soul. You can hear the 4-part male voices of A Buncha Guys and this year, we had the special treat of the unique blend only a family band could achieve from the Friesen family. Thanks to Chris, Louise, Silas, Simone, Godwin, Amos, Junia, and Caspian for providing us with joy from your singing and many instruments. You truly were a special guest.

Another bonus of coming to the Shekinah version of the Christmas concert (as opposed the Knox concert in Saskatoon, which is also very good and highly recommended) is that you get to enjoy a very fine selection of Christmas baking from the Timber Lodge kitchen and that in itself is reason enough to make the trip out. Take part in the fellowship time after the music has finished ringing through the beams of the Timber Lodge and stay as long as you like tasting the treats and enjoying the company of friends you haven’t seen for a while who share your same love for the setting and mission of Shekinah. Consider giving generously to support the work of Shekinah when you attend the concert where the beauty of Shekinah’s ministry and the joy and hope of Christ’s coming are manifest in the faces of those around you and the warm memories of what camp has done in our lives and the lives of those who need it. While this year’s concerts have come and gone, I hope to see you all when we do it again next year and wish you and your family a merry Christmas.

It's getting closer!

In other news, the toboggan run on Quill Hill is getting close to full snow coverage, one centimeter at a time it seems. It almost seems like temperatures might actually stay below zero now so the ice for skating and broomball should be ready to go soon but at the moment is not and although snowshoeing and skiing are not really in the cards right now, the upside is that hiking is still relatively easy because of the lack of snow and access to all of our hiking trails is good to very good. So get outside here or wherever you are and enjoy the beautiful outside weather which through the grace of God we are able to enjoy despite the somewhat ominous implication that winter may be fundamentally changing through a gradual shift in climatic norms to warmer temperatures for Saskatchewan.

So in conclusion, may your holidays be filled with the love of family and of God above who humbled himself 2015 years ago to be born in a manger and live among us so that we may come to know his desire for us, that we share his love with friend, enemy, and stranger so that we may fully embrace the love he has for us, which is unconditional, undeserved, and wider than our understanding. Merry Christmas.