Ripples
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Camp Morgan with the members of Bethel’s Truth and Reconciliation Task Force. Camp Morgan, located just outside Brady Landfill, is named after Morgan Harris, a 39-year-old mother of five, originally from Long Plains First Nation. On the night we visited, the camp was quiet and peaceful.
As we visited by the campfire, listening to the ongoing needs of those tending the sacred fires, I introduced myself to two people who were on their way home for the day. “Hi, I’m Kathy,” was all that I said—so I was surprised when the woman responded, “Oh, you’re from Bethel Mennonite Church.” We hadn’t told anyone at the camp where our group was from at that point. “I used to go to the food bank there,” she explained, perhaps seeing the bewilderment on my face.
Since that encounter at Camp Morgan, I’ve been thinking about the butterfly effect—an idea within chaos theory that, in essence, explains how small actions can have a large impact. Perhaps much of the work of loving our neighbours at Bethel is more about creating small ripples than it is about constructing new bodies of water.
Earlier that evening, while waiting for the other members of the task force to arrive at the church, I had chatted with a parent who was waiting to pick up her child from clubs. Her daughter, it turns out, is now a youth, and was there to help with Bethel Kids Club—and the mom recognized me from several years ago, when her daughter was attending Kids Club in the days before the pandemic. Now she gives back to the next generation of kids, while developing leadership skills herself.
Small ripples, so small that they go unnoticed at the time, but which this congregation nurtures by supporting programs like the food bank and our clubs programs. Ripples of love and care supported by so many volunteers, by prayers and financial donations to the ministry of the congregation—ripples that every day, impact other aspects of life in our community unbeknownst to us. Ripples that combine with one another to create small waves. Small acts of kindness entrusted to a God who persists in seeking shalom in our community and our world.
Thank you for continuing to contribute where and how you can to our mission of loving our neighbours—may we continue to trust that God is at work even beyond what may be evident to the naked eye!
“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21, NRSV.
- Pastor Kathy McCamis
