It’s been a strange summer. As I write this, I’m sitting in my house, even though it’s the middle of July. In fact, this is the first time in almost a decade that I’ve been home at all during the month of July. Normally, I’d be flying around northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, or Ontario, helping LAMP with their Vacation Bible School programs.
Right now, I should be in the midst of my busiest time of year, as we’d usually have five or six Bible schools happening each week. However, earlier in the spring, LAMP made the difficult decision to cancel all of their summer programs this year. Northern communities were understandably fearful of the spread of COVID-19 and had asked that people only come if absolutely necessary.
Furthermore, many of our teams of volunteers come from the United States, and with the Canada-US border closed, and a two week quarantine in place for anyone that did travel, it made it unfeasible.
It has been difficult for everyone at LAMP to not see and embrace friends throughout the North this year, but this is the season we’re currently in. However, just because we can’t physically be there, doesn’t mean that our ministry has shut down.
LAMP began to put together an online VBS program that teams could take and adapt for their community with videos of Bible lessons and skits or puppet shows that they recorded. Teams began to ask us if they could send gifts and craft supplies to the children in the community, as they wouldn’t have the chance to be there in person this year, and began putting together gift bags for the kids.
Then, late in the spring, Samaritan's Purse contacted us about partnering on a specific task. They had put together a number of kits of personal protective equipment that they had acquired during a period when things like hand sanitizer, masks, and gloves were difficult to come by.
They were looking for ways to get these kits to remote northern communities and asked if we could use our contacts and aircraft to make sure that necessary supplies were taken to places that were in need. We gladly agreed to help.
With all of these items to distribute to communities, I packed up our plane with as much weight as the aircraft would allow and headed out to various communities a number of times with LAMP’s missionaries to drop off these gifts and supplies.
Trip after trip, regardless of the community we visited, people were incredibly thankful for the PPE items that were desperately needed. They were also thankful that the children of the community had not been forgotten during a period when many of the activities for the kids throughout the summer have been cancelled.
We still have teams putting packages together to be delivered to their communities throughout the rest of the summer, so there is much work to be done. Although the last few months have been very different compared to a normal summer, there has been much to accomplish. Our work may have changed this year, but we thank God for the opportunities we’ve had to continue to minister and love people that are isolated during this difficult season.
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