Saturday, March 11, 2006

Winterfest ... a pause to have fun ...

The town of Minnedosa trekked out to the Lake to enjoy a day outside celebrating winter. Our second annual Winterfest was held on the frozen surface of the lake with a wide variety of activities and fun.

With activities like snowshoeing, turkey curling, frozen chicken bowling, x-country skiing and a huge pond hockey game, people of all ages came out to enjoy the day and to lend their support of the attempt to have Minnedosa called Hockeyville for 2006.

While, I'm not a big fan of organized hockey, I have to admire the huge outpouring of community pride that comes with events like Winterfest. It was great to just hang out, drink hot chocolate, roast weiners over an open fire, and to visit with a wide variety of people from town. It was a "proud to live in Minnedosa" afternoon. Kudos to the Rec Commission for organizing it, the Katimavik gang for volunteering, and all the people who were part of making the Winterfest an enormous success. It was fun - thanks.

One poignant moment came in a conversation with a young mom. I presided at her wedding, and have baptised her children ... today she expressed regret at the loss of the Church. She noted that she had looked to her daughter's wedding in the same church that she had been married in ... A wedding that can never happen ...

How many families have had multi-generational weddings, baptisms and so forth, and now future generations are robbed of the chance to have their weddings in the same place where Grandma was married???

Yet, the young mom also said she is looking forward to new church and the possibility that it embodies ... Word of Hope, words of promise.

I enjoyed today. Even the reminder of what we've lost has the twinge of hope that looks to tomorrow. Today we paused to play in the snow ... what better thing to do on a mild winter afternoon ...

L'chaim,

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