Newsletter May 2024

It’s been a great and busy spring for the VE team.  

Team Retreat

March 2nd we gathered for our first in person team retreat since Feb 2023. A combination of board members, paid staff, and key volunteers, yielded 13 people attending this full day event. We considered the chosen scriptures and their impact in our lives, sang worship songs, shared communion, wrote a prayer, enjoyed some thought provoking fun activities and spent a bit of time sharing our thoughts on priorities for VE and growing VE. We spent time connecting and reconnecting with others, enjoyed lunch and honoring Toby’s upcoming baby, and left feeling refreshed, renewed in Christ, and passionate in our roles with VE in 2024. Thank you St Andrews for the cozy meeting room. Thank you to Lilian for organizing lunch, Andrew for running our slides and Lynne for planning the day. Our next retreat will be in early 2025. 

We continue to seek volunteers to join our team. More hands means new ideas, an ability to spread the work around, and new energy bringing passion to our ministry.

Announcements

Congratulations to Toby and Jun on the birth of their first child. For those of us who have been with VE a long time, it is heartwarming to see where some of our long term young volunteers are now. Their lives have unfolded before us. They came to us as high school or university students, and have graduated, started careers, some found spouses, some started families and some moved away but come back to visit.
If you are still on our emailing list, but not active with VE right now, whether as a volunteer, as a family, or as a donor, we would still like to know how you are doing.

Board of Directors and Executive Team 

The volunteers on the board and on the executive team meet regularly to discuss the day to day charity and what is planned for the future. If you have ideas for the future that you would like to share with us, consider joining one of our executive team meetings or send an email to lleyland@villageeulogia.com to discuss having your thoughts presented at a meeting. We are always looking for new volunteers to join the team.

We invite our entire Village to join us in prayer. Our virtual VE prayer sessions are on the first Sunday of each month from 7:30 - 8:30 am. Enjoy a brief scripture message, music and raise prayers of praise, thanksgiving and intercession regarding our charity, our families and the world at large. Feel free to share any of your own personal concerns or praise too. For access details, please contact admin@villageeulogia.com Thank you to our dedicated prayer hosts - Bella Siu and Cindy Kwan.

Please continue to pray for VE throughout the year. 

Pray that our message reaches the ears that most need it. We are in our 16th year of providing engagement, support and spiritual guidance to families raising someone with a disability and have now grown to include young adults with disabilities within our volunteer pool. We believe spirituality is an important resource for people with disabilities and that belonging, connection and a focus on contribution can inspire growth in people with disabilities. Pray that more churches and other organizations will continue to share information about VE so that new young families can learn about us and reach out to us.

Pray for the hands necessary to continue offering our current in-person activities, while we strive to build more opportunities for parent support, for sibling support and for new initiatives for the young adults with disabilities.
Pray for those families who are not engaged with us anymore - that their time with us provided the wisdom and passion to move forward with Christ in their lives through a supportive local church environment that offered a place of belonging. Pray that they continue to build opportunities for their loved one with a disability to grow in their lifestyle and their faith.
Pray for Camp Eulogia 2024. Camp is our largest activity in terms of time, resources and volunteers needed. Planning began back in Dec. It is something that families look forward to each year, especially those who don’t live in GTA, so cannot participate in as many year round events.

Pray for the Lord to guide the right volunteers to VE. People to assist in year round programs, in camp, in repairs and maintenance for our cottages, in planning and running the day to day charity and more.

Pray for the donors who have blessed us with their generosity. May they know the impact that their contributions make to the lives of people with a disability. We would not survive without the generosity of our donors.

Our families and volunteers have had multiple opportunities to connect, network, worship, eat and have fun.

March 16th, we organized a gathering at Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto. 20 people enjoyed time viewing all the marine life, and loved the camaraderie of attending an in-community event with other VE families. Testimonial - “we feel more comfortable going to these large venues with our VE family. So grateful to have you all”. These in-community events are meant to inspire connection between families and comfort in being out and about with a loved one with disabilities. If you have ideas for a future in-community activity - please let Sarah know - scardenas@villageeulogia.com

April 20th, VE hosted a worship and games event at SCBC. Thank you to Arthur and Rebecca  for leading us in worship. 25+ people enjoyed a variety of snacks, music and games. Thank you to SCBC for providing space for our event. 

On April 20th, VE also hosted an info booth at the Fellowship for Christian Athletes (FCA) AllAbilities conference. This is a new connection we made in 2023. We are excited to share ideas and strategies. FCA runs all ability summer day camps that include bible stories, arts & crafts, and lots of accessible sports.

May 11th, VE hosted a picnic event at Richmond Green Park. Despite the unexpected change to cooler weather,  20+ people enjoyed worship and a potluck picnic. Thank you to Angela for finding extra coats for people. They were much appreciated. Thank you to Rebecca whose pumpkin soup was a big hit on a cool day. Thank you to Sarah and Rebecca for leading worship at our picnic.

On May 11th, members of Village Eulogia - Rev Dr Cynthia Tam, Cindy Kwan and Lynne & Elizabeth Leyland presented at McMaster Divinity college in Hamilton at: Deep and Wide: A conference on Ecclesial engagement with Disability.  This yearly conference is a great opportunity to listen to and engage with a variety of scholars, students, clergy, people with disabilities and others who believe in the importance of belonging, being respected and God’s plan for those he endowed with differing abilities. A VE info booth was also hosted during breaks and lunch.

Check the Save the Dates calendar on our website for all the details on upcoming activities.  www.villageeulogia.com

On Saturday June 15th, from 2 - 4 pm, we will host our Annual General meeting, which will include voting on our updated bylaws, reviewing our financials and electing the board of directors. We are still looking for interested persons to join our volunteer board of directors.  If you know someone who may be interested in joining our board now in the future, please email marieem.hudson@gmail.com using VE board recruit in the subject line.
If you are a voting member of VE, please make an extra effort to attend the AGM since we have vital documents to approve. If you would like to become a voting member of VE, please email lleyland@villageeulogia.com with your details.

Click here to register for the AGM 

Following the AGM will be a free outdoor worship and BBQ with our VE families. Email scardenas@villageeulogia.com for more information on registering. The worship and BBQ are a great opportunity to get to meet some of the families in our Village and learn about how the support of VE has helped them.

The AGM & BBQ will be held at Scarborough Chinese Baptist church (SCBC). We are grateful to SCBC who has continued to offer us free room rentals for a number of our year round events for many years

Camp is coming soon. Between Aug 11th and 18th, we will be hosting two 3 day 3 night family camps at Riverview Christian Camp in Pefferlaw. Our theme for Camp Eulogia 2024 is Waymaker. Camp is the largest event of our year in terms of families, volunteers required and costs.

Thank you to the Canada Summer Jobs program for approving our grant application. Our summer intern positions are closed. Praise the Lord, we have already found and  hired 4 interns to plan all the programming and activities for Camp Eulogia 2024. We welcome Charis, Ephraim, Raquelle and Kristen to the VE team. They will officially begin their internship on July 8th. We pray that their time with us will be challenging and rewarding and instill in them a greater understanding of the importance of creating a sense of belonging and inclusion for people with disabilities in all aspects of everyday life and in faith communities.

We have hired Chef Anthony Go as our camp cook for 2024. His passion for overcoming challenges and helping those with disabilities makes him a great fit for our VE mission and a good example for other VE young adults.

Registration for Camp Eulogia is almost full. We only have one family spot remaining in each camp. If you know of a family that could really benefit from attending Camp Eulogia, please reach out to us ASAP. Registration link below will close on June 10th. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

We are also still seeking some additional generous supporters of VE to offer some sponsorship funding for families that want attend camp but cannot afford to pay in full. If you know someone or somewhere (eg your local church), who is willing to assist a family to attend camp, please email lleyland@villageeulogia.com

Our volunteer registrations have been a little slow so far. Please consider coming to Camp Eulogia as a volunteer. You are welcome to come for both or just one camp as a volunteer. Positions include 1:1 support for campers with disabilities, assisting with worship and campfires, assisting with family activities, and more. You will stay at Riverview Christian camp for the term of your camp volunteer role. If you choose to volunteer for both camps, you can stay in between or go home and come back for the second camp. All the details for registering as a volunteer are listed on our website. https://www.villageeulogia.com/volunteer
We are not charging our volunteers for their food or accommodations, but there are costs associated with that, so we are asking that all volunteers, if possible, solicit some funds to help cover those costs. We have prepared the following form to assist you. Attach mission form link here.

Our cottage season opens on Fri June 14th. Plan a short stay retreat (min 2 nights) at one of our cottages at Riverview Christian Camp in Pefferlaw. Refresh and renew in a quiet and relaxing space. All details including registration are on our website. www.villageeulogia.com/village-retreat Check our website calendar to ensure the date you want is available for the cottage you want. Cottage rentals are on a first come basis. Please note - Cottage #86 will not be available until 2nd July as we are currently doing some renovations on it.

The cottages are a great place to forget your day to day life and spend some time with the Lord. Cottage #86 is closer to the open field for running around and the playground. Cottage #355 is closer to the river. NO swimming, but boats are allowed. The cottages are also a short drive from Sibbald point park should you wish beach and swimming time. Our cottages have fully equipped kitchens, but we do not provide linens for the beds. There is limited wifi at the cottages, which is a great excuse to unplug and truly retreat.