Dinner for our Guest Workers!

On Monday, June 17, we welcomed the Guest Workers that come to 3 of the farms in Marysburgh each year, for a delicious meal and a time of good-fellowship.

Queride amigos, en nombre de la Iglesia de San Felipe les doy la bienvenida aqui. Sabemos que pasáis largas jornadas de duro trabajo en el campo, y mucho tiempo alejados de vuestras familias. Y estaremos encantados de hacer que su estancia aquí sea más amable compartiendo comida con usted y hacerle la vida más agradable, aunque solo sea por unas horas. Nuestra iglesia ha sido reconstruida en mil novecientos veintidós tras un incendio que destruyó la original. Durante muchos años, los miembros de la iglesia fueron agricultores y familias de agricultores. Como bien saben, ahora hay pocos agricultores y pocas personas en edad de trabajar, pero sí muchos mayores y jubilados. Nuestra congregación actual es relativamente pequeña pero bastante activa, y tomamos en serio el mandato de Jesús de “Amar a tu vecino”. Es con este espíritu que los acogemos esta noche como nuestros vecinos. También queremos expresar nuestro agradecimiento por su trabajo, del que también nos beneficiamos ya que dispone alimentos frescos que disfrutamos. Esperamos que la comida de esta noche y el tiempo de compañerismo hagan que su estadía en Canadá sea más placentera, y esperamos conocerlo en otros momentos durante su estadía aquí.

Dear Friends,, on behalf of St. Philip’s Church, I welcome you here. We know you spend long working days of hard work in the field, and a long time away from your families. And we are glad to make your stay here more pleasant by sharing food with you and otherwise make your life more pleasant, even if only for a few hours.  This church has been rebuilt in nineteen hundred and twenty-two after a fire that destroyed the original one. For many years, the parishioners were farmers and farming families. As you well know, now there are few farmers and few people of working age, but many older and retired ones. Our current congregation is relatively small but quite active, and we take seriously the command of Jesus to “Love your neighbour.”  It is in this spirit that we are hosting you tonight as our neighbours. We also want to express our appreciation of your work, from which we also benefit as it provides fresh food that we enjoy. We hope that tonight’s meal and time of fellowship will make your stay in Canada more pleasant, and we look forward to meeting you at other times during your stay here.

Then we got down to business – dinner business that is! Many hands put together a delicious meal of chicken, a variety of baked beans, two types of rice & peas, refried beans with cheese, veggies, buns….well you get the picture, it was a feast!

For dessert – there must be dessert! – we had watermelon and ice cream.

St. Philip’s got connected to the Guest Workers in the County through Maryann and Bill Barrett who work on the Backpack Ministry at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Bloomfield. We were so happy Maryann and Bill could join us for dinner!