Welcome to your Valley Anglican e-newsletter for Friday February 5th, 2021. We hope you enjoy reading about the latest happenings across our Parish of the Valley and Anglican Diocese of Ottawa in the paragraphs that follow. Even as we deal with COVID-19 there is no shortage of good news to share. God in Christ is at work among us! Please continue to take good care, perservere in prayer and stay safe. We are all in this together!

In the coming weeks Annual Vestry proceedings will take place across the Parish of the Valley. Due to COVID-19 no in-person Vestry meetings are permitted to be held this year in the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa. In an effort to keep things simple, many of the congregations across the Parish of the Valley have obtained permission from our diocese to conduct Annual Vestry meetings via mail, with Vestry materials and reply forms being circulated to parishioners' homes. Further details will be made available by the clergy team and churchwardens in the coming days. Holy Trinity Pembroke will be conducting its Annual Vestry Meeting via Zoom videoconference on Sunday February 28th at 11am. Holy Trinity ministry contacts are asked to please submit all Vestry reports to Gail Marion via the church office by no later than Tuesday February 16th. A Zoom link and instructions will be made available closer to the meeting date. 

Valley Zoom Coffee Hour will now take place on a monthly basis. Our next session will be on Sunday February 14th at 11am. Join us as we "share the love" as a parish on St. Valentine's Day! Be sure to bring your favorite warm beverage and a snack as we check-in with each other across the Parish of the Valley and catch-up on news and local happenings during these lockdown days.

To join Zoom Coffee Hour simply click on the blue "Come to Coffee Hour" button below on February 14th at 11am. You will need a Zoom enabled computer, tablet or smartphone together with a good internet connection. You can also join coffee hour by telephone using the dial-in numbers below (and if you dial 10-10-710 before one of these numbers, it only costs one dollar for the long distance charge for one hour). We hope to see you on Valentine's Day!

Zoom Telephone Numbers:

+1 438 809 7799 Canada
+1 587 328 1099 Canada
+1 647 374 4685 Canada

Meeting ID: 810 2579 5917
Passcode: 785937

Have you ever been moved to write a poem or hymn to celebrate God’s work in your life and in the world? Perhaps you have already done so, but your creation is still languishing dormant in a notebook or a computer file.

In either case, you are invited to submit lyrics to a hymn on the theme God in the Valley, celebrating God at work in the Parish of the Valley as we seek to minister to each other and to our communities. 

Entries will be judged by a panel (yet to be named) with members chosen from people experienced in worship leadership.

Besides the requirement that the hymn adhere to the theme, God in the Valley, the only other stipulation is that it can be sung to a hymn tune familiar to members of our congregations. The competition is open to both lay and clergy associated with the Parish of the Valley.

The goal is to premiere the selected hymn(s) at some future parish event once we can again gather and celebrate together.

Marie Zettler is coordinating the competition, and entries must reach her by Palm Sunday, March 28, either by email to zettler508@gmail.com or by postal mail to 508 Lacroix Bay Road, Westmeath, ON, K0J 2L0. They can also be dropped of at her home into the large pink box on her front porch. Typed entries as well as legibly hand-written ones are accepted.

The names of successful competitors will be announced on Easter Sunday, April 4. If you have any questions, Marie will be pleased to receive them either by email or by phone at 613-639-3777.

Canon Susan is organizing our parish's participation in a diocesan wide online book study. A similar study using the book The Great Spiritual Migration by Brian McLaren was held this past fall with approximately 80 participants from across the diocese!

Participants will need to acquire their own copy of the book, The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr, as soon as possible. It can be ordered from Amazon by clicking here. 

The book study began on Thursday February 4th at 7pm on Zoom and continues each Thursday evening at 7pm until March 11th. Please contact Canon Susan (eganvilleparish@gmail.com or call 613-628-2029) to register and receive the Zoom link.

The clergy team and churchwardens of the Parish of the Valley recently agreed to establish four new parish working groups, or what we are calling “Working Tables.” Although not decision-making bodies, these new tables will be responsible for brainstorming and bringing forward ideas, initiatives and resources for the whole parish with a view to providing concrete recommendations to local Church Corporations and Vestries for discussion, decision and implementation. The four working tables are: Governance and Finance, Worship and Life-long Learning, Outreach and Volunteer Opportunities, and "Futures." Our hope is that these working tables will help our parish to discern opportunities for ministry that our congregations could never accomplish working on our own. Two members of our clergy team will be assigned to support the work of each table, together with lay representatives drawn from across our parish. We ask you to please keep the working tables in your prayers as they begin to hold their first meetings via Zoom in February.

Building on forty years of experience, our diocesan refugee ministry has been able to support hundreds of the world's most vulnerable people to have a new beginning in the communities served by our diocese. Together, we can do even more to help our global neighbours who are forced to seek a safe place to rebuild their lives.

With your help, the people of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa will celebrate and support this work by creating 1,000 paper doves and, beginning on Pentecost Sunday, spreading their wings of hope above the nave of Christ Church Cathedral Ottawa.

This will be a unique art installation celebrating the contribution of refugees in our communities, raising awareness of the need for refugee sponsorship, and enhancing our capacity to engage in this life-giving ministry. Please click below to learn how you can participate. 

Be sure to show your Valley pride this winter by purchasing your very own Parish of the Valley mug! Mugs continue to be on sale across the parish with all proceeds benefitting our local congregations.

This week we are pleased to offer a service of Morning Prayer filmed on Zoom. Click on the "Click to Pray" button below beginning Sunday morning to view the service on our website. There you will also find a copy of The Valley Bulletin and an order of service so you can pray with us from home. This week's service includes two hymns with the lyrics shared on the screen so you can sing along with us from home too!

Our services also air on YourTV Ottawa Valley on Sundays at 10am. A reminder email will be sent out to you on Sunday morning. We hope you will take a few moments to tune in and join our parish in worship.

During COVID-19 the vast majority of our church expenses continue. All members of the Parish of the Valley are encouraged to make regular offerings to their home churches by mail, online or through pre-authorized remittances to support our parish's ministries. Members of Holy Trinity Pembroke, St. John's Eganville, and Ascension Killaloe/St. John's Tramore can give to their churches online using credit card or PayPal through the website Canada Helps.

Every donation matters, so please click "Support Your Church" below to find out more about how you can contribute. Thank you for your faithful support!

Don't forget to download and read The Valley Bulletin from the Latest News section of our parish website. Click "Read The Valley Bulletin" below to access this week's issue, including our parish prayer list.