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Dear family and friends in Christ,
We wish you a blessed Advent & Christmas and a wonderful 2006. This year 2005 was full of changes and adjustments.
January: Janice and Ed went down to South Carolina in January to an excellent conference done by the AMiA people. There were many excellent speakers and seminars. Our three deacons from Canada also were ordained at this conference. We hired a New-comer Pastor for the church, Josh Wilton.
March: Our bishop, TJ Johnston from the States came up and spoke at our 18th annual Renewal Mission. We were also blessed to have his lovely wife Rees here as well. April: St Simon's hired a new youth worker, Rebecca Bailey and said good-bye to our dear friend, the Rev. Ken Bell and family as they moved to another ACIC church in North Van district. The Hird family also purchased a townhouse in North Vancouver. Mark finished another semester of chemistry at SFU.
May: Andrew was the star in the Music Man, Harold Hill. He did an excellent job, especially because he was still having health problems until April. James transferred to another Safeway so that he could receive full-time hours. The church hired a Pre-teen Pastor, Linda Wilson. The 9 am service moved to the school as well at the end of May.
June: Andrew passed grade 11 with good marks and was given the drama trophy for his excellent work in the musical. Hiring a tutor and going to Sylvan to help him get caught up on his missed school work made the difference and he got an 87% in the biology final. Jan and Ed went to Saskatchewan for the Christian Ashram where Ed was the evangelist.
July: We visited family and friends from the ACiC churches in Saskatchewan. At the end of July we had our 31st BC Christian Ashram with evangelist, Bishop Sandy Greene.
August: A new experience for us was moving into our own townhouse. Friends from our church helped us move, helped build a new wall where it was needed [in the bedroom] and gave us bed and breakfast while we were having our bedroom wall put up.
September: Andrew started grade 12, Mark went back to SFU to take more courses in chemistry, James continued to work at Safeway, Janice continued to work 31 hours at Home Emergency Response and lead all the music at the church. Ed continued to work many hours at the church and continued writing his book entitled "Battle for the Soul of Canada: Raising Up Timothys (the Emerging Generation of Leaders)".
October: Andrew was chosen to sing the Inn-keeper part in the Christmas musical at the school. He received an excellent report card. The other boys practiced and sang well in a new singing group with the new extra teen worker, Gordon Innes from England, on the last Sunday in October. Janice and Ed ran a new marriage course through Gil Stieglitz DVD's and Jan also helped Ed run Alpha this fall. All the boys shared in a moving drama of Christ Jesus the bridegroom with his bride with Israeli singing and dancing. Andrew acted as Jesus as he is growing a beard for the innkeeper role.
November: Janice and the choirs sang at a joint service to celebrate our first anniversary of meeting at the school. It was a great worship event. Janice's family all went to watch the youngest cousin, Matthew play against our Vancouver team, the Giants. He plays centre for the Red Deer Rebels. Unfortunately, for Matthew his team lost.
December: A very busy time of year as we get ready for all the special services. But also the best time of the year when Jesus came down to earth to show us all how much he loves us. We love you and hope that you have a blessed Christmas with your loved ones.
Jan and Ed Hird+, & boys http://www3.telus.net/st_simons
http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/nsnews021.html -an article for the North Shore News 'Spiritually Speaking' column
Always Winter and Never Christmas By the Reverend Ed Hird+
This Christmas season, you will not want to miss the 'Chronicles of Narnia' movie www.narniaweb.com/ Since C. S. Lewis wrote it in 1950, almost 100 million copies of the book in 29 languages have been sold. Disney has invested $150 Million in what has been called 'the greatest children's story ever told.' The high quality trailers about the Narnia movie are worth the price of admission themselves. www.narniaweb.com/trailers.asp
At the heart of Narnia's 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' is the abolition of Christmas by the White Witch where it is always winter and never Christmas. C.S. Lewis' alternate title for his book was 'The Hundred Year Winter'. Not once in the past hundred years of Narnia was Christmas ever celebrated.
The White Witch, whose real name is Jadis, punished anyone who wanted the restoration of Christmas, by turning them into stone. The White Witch's most memorable feature was her skin, as white as chalk, or paper, or snow. CS Lewis explains in the Narnia book 'The Magician's Nephew' that the White Witch's skin was made that way by eating an apple from the Emperor's Garden at the beginning of Narnia.
In the midst of this bone-chilling winter, we are told about an ancient prophecy stating that when two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve filled the four thrones as Kings and Queens of Narnia, the tyranny of the White Witch and her hundred-year winter would end. We are also told that one day the great Lion Aslan will triumphantly return to Narnia: "Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."
The front page of USA Today (December 2-4, 2005) http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2005-12-02-narnia-main_x.htm features a picture of Aslan and the question "Is that lion the King of Kings?" CS Lewis called Aslan a 'supposal' of what might have happened if Christ had come to a world of talking animals and become one of them.
With the remarkable success of Mel Gibson's 'Passion of the Christ' Movie and Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy, many are expecting that the Narnia Chronicles will also be another spiritually-oriented blockbuster. Many 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Narnia' buffs may not be aware that it was JRR Tolkien who helped lead his atheist friend CS Lewis to faith in the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5).
While teaching at Oxford College, Lewis formed a lasting friendship with JRR Tolkien. Lewis said to Tolkien that tales or myths are 'lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver'. 'No', said Tolkien, 'they are not lies'. Tolkien went on to explain to Lewis that in Jesus Christ, the ancient stories or myths of a dying and rising God entered history and became fact.
Twelve days later, Lewis wrote to another friend Arthur Greeves: "I have just passed on from believing in God to definitely believing in Christ - in Christianity. I will try to explain this another time. My long night talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a good deal to do with it". CS Lewis recalls going by motorcycle with his brother Warren to Whipsnade Zoo, about thirty miles east of Oxford. "When we set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo, I did". In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, Lewis commented: "In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God...perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England".
This Christmas season, as you take your family and friends to see the Narnia Chronicles, I invite you to discover with CS Lewis that Aslan is the Reason for the Season.
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector, St. Simon's Church North Vancouver (ACiC) http://www3.telus.net/st_simons
http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/cr9202.htm C.S. LEWIS: LOVER OF NATURE An article for the February 1992 Deep Cove Crier Perhaps one of the most famous and versatile English writers of this recent century has been the Oxford, and then Cambridge, scholar: C.S. Lewis. Some readers, especially children, find the Narnia tales among the most captivating books they have ever read(...)
http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/cr0304.html Good news according to frodo -an article for the April 2003 Deep Cove Crier "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, " and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."(...)
http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/nsnews007.htm Friends on a Quest - an article for the NSN 'Spiritually Speaking' column By Rev. Ed Hird Anthony Hopkins portrayed CS (Jack) Lewis, the author of the hugely popular Narnia Tales, in the thoughtful movie 'Shadowlands'. Since Lewis' death in 1963, sales of his books have risen to over 2 million a year. For much of his life, Lewis, the son of a solicitor and of an Anglican clergyman's daughter, was a convinced atheist. While teaching at Oxford College, Lewis formed a lasting friendship with JRR Tolkien(...)
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