This past year has been a terrible time for us all. While saying that, we here at St. Paul’s in Greenfield Park, have been kept busy by opening our hearts to those in need.
When the pandemic started in March 2020, it was brought to our attention that there were many people in need in our community. So, with God’s grace, starting in the spring and continuing through the year we were able to help by providing food gift cards to families in need and treats for the children at the Women’s Shelter, making frozen food for seniors and – along with St Margaret’s of Antioch – providing for our Breakfast program for two local schools.
The Women’s Craft group has knit hundreds of hats, scarves, etc. for schools and slippers and blankets for a local men’s shelter. This not only helped the schools and shelters but kept these ladies busy while being isolated in their homes.
During this pandemic the Lord has laid many requests upon our hearts, but one of his biggest challenges was to help those who are in isolation and lonely and need support. Many of our parishioners and friends have found this pandemic very stressful and when the Lord laid it upon us to take this time of idleness and do some more, the flood doors opened wide.
The children of St. Paul’s sent out Easter cards with a beautiful, encouraging message written by Isabel, an 11 year old from our Sunday school. It spoke of her feelings of sadness and also of encouragement to all for the future. This message was included in each of the 178 cards sent out and were so truly appreciated.
We are currently making sandwiches for the homeless in Montreal. The request for help was from a young woman who attended St. Paul’s as a child and is now part of an organization in Montreal called “Bread and Beyond”. They supply over 2000 sandwiches/month to several different shelters on the island of Montreal. We called our parishioners and friends and were able to supply 25 loaves of sandwiches and other goodies the first week. We now have over 30 men and women from our community who have offered to contribute on a weekly basis.
The Lord has truly blessed us during this pandemic. We have come together as Christians to do what the Lord wants of us, and we, with God’s help, always find a way to succeed.
These projects are not only helping those who benefit from our donations, but it is also helping us to keep busy and forget our problems for a while by helping those in need.
So even though the pandemic has been very difficult and very isolating…it has also given.us something good, it has made us look deep inside ourselves and to realize we are not on this earth just to survive, but to survive by giving of ourselves to those less fortunate and to come together as Christians to help those by giving of ourselves. But the most important message from this is that we could not have done or continue to do any of this without the help of our Lord and Savior therefore all “Glory” goes to Him, our one and only God…
Please stay safe and give of yourselves, with God’s help, at this time and always .
