ACW IN The Diocese of Athabasca
National Conference 2005
Women on The Way –hosted by Diocese of Montreal
This years conference was held at Manoir d’ Youville, a retreat centre located on St. Bernard Island surrounded by the Chateauguay River and Lac St-Louis. It was founded in 1964 by the Grey Nuns of Montreal. It has a beautiful apple orchard and when I was walking there I felt as if my soul could dance. Our theme at this year's Conference was “Women on the Way” There was a picture of a winding road when we entered to register. Our Chaplain Joyce Sanchez explained the photo. We were to write names of women in our lives that had an influence or were in mentoring relationships with us and as I started to reflect on our theme I found a lot of your names entered on to my list. Our focus was Love and Devotion to God, to the Church and to each other We were welcomed to Montreal by the President of the Diocese, Verna Peris. and we were welcomed to the conference by our National President Sally Harrison.
Thursday evening we had a conversation with Bishop Barry Clarke (Bishop of the Diocese of Montreal) He called himself a Baby Bishop as he has only been a bishop for a year His claim to fame is that he is the first Montreal bishop born and raised in Montreal. The scripture where Jesus asks God to take this cup from Him not of his will but God’s was what he read the day he became bishop.. He shared with us about becoming a bishop and finding out his wife had breast cancer the same day. A challenge for any woman but compounded for his wife by her M.S. He is very much a servant bishop and therefore made a hard decision to sell the bishop’s home and buy a condo that was wheel chair friendly. He shared a story of his wife having a motorized wheel chair and living in an handicap friendly building and her excitement at being able to go grocery shopping on her own. He has found how many of his parishes are not wheel chair friendly so he could not take his wife with him to these parishes. He asked an older bishop for advice and was told, “ Never stop praying and end every day secure in your relationship with Christ”. I think just when you think life is hard God show’s you someone dealing with so much more and one thing that impacted me was what the bishop said about how everyone always asked him about how is wife was doing which was great but no one asked him how he was. Sometimes the caregiver needs care also.
On Friday we had a business meeting – We clarified the by-laws and there were guidelines handed out for planning the National Conferences. We may bring suggestions for changes to these guidelines to next year’s conference. We also had elections for the position of vice president. I have to tell you that while I was nominated for this position, I did not become vice president but that went to Marion Saunders from the Diocese of Toronto. This was disappointing for me because I have a vision of where we can be. We have of course a new National President – Heather Carr from the Diocese of Fredericton and I believe she will do an amazing job. We also have a National Motto (or scripture), it is “The love of Jesus calls us.” We also selected prayer partner dioceses and we have the Diocese of Ottawa so I hope you will all hold this diocese up in prayer this year. We held our provincial meetings in which we were allowed to share what was happening in our diocese and I was happy to share our Fort Chipewyan experience with them. We then shared to the whole group.
After our meeting Kathleen Snow –National President of the Mother’s Union shared with us about her trip to the United Kingdom for worldwide Mother’s Union meetings- They met with Archbishop Rowan Williams and the Rev Dr. E Ames. The Mothers Union is part of the Anglican communion and they have a focus on poverty right now. I bought one of their bracelets which read “Make Poverty History”- You can join the Mother’s Union on your own or make a chapter- If you want more information you can contact Kathleen Snow and I’m sure she would be glad to advise you. I think this may be a worthwhile group for women who have a desire to work towards eliminating poverty.
Friday Evening we heard from Elizabeth Hutchinson who was a member of the women’s unit as an Anglican representative and she introduced us to Catherine Laidlaw from the National Council of Women of Canada. She spoke to us about the work they do – They are voice for Canadian Women and most recently had some input in the attempt to pass the Sharia Law. If you want more information you can e-mail them at ncwc@magma.ca Here is work you may want to be involved in if you interested in Justice and Equal rights.
On Saturday morning we had a discussion centered around the same sex issue. We heard stories from 2 mothers who have children living in same sex relationships and how they both still loved their children and we all supported them in this decision. We heard about how scripture can be misquoted to make people feel different and I shared how this could very easily apply to me. I also acknowledged how we would like to just ask the theological question. It was clear that a few of us would like to stop hearing about peoples physical relationships. I wanted to love all people and uphold the theology of our faith.
The World Day of Prayer International meeting will be hosted by Toronto in 2007 and we have an opportunity to make some bags for them or contribute something to the bags, there will be large number of delegates. If you are interested you can let me know and maybe we could send things as a diocese. We would contact Marion Saunders to let her know what we decided to do.
On Sunday we had a great service at the Cathedral where we enjoyed meeting some of the parishioners and having an amazing lunch. After which we all started for home.
I hope you know that we need a national unified voice in our world and that there is still an amazing amount of work for women to do in Canada and in the world. I thank you for sending me and appreciate the revitalization I receive by doing this.
In Faith,
Candace Mahaffey