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Dear Glen Morris United Church & Friends, 

While technically we welcomed the start of the Christian calendar on Advent 1, I still want to wish you a Happy New Year as we flip over our Gregorian calendars and look to 2026. 

I wanted to wrap up 2025 by sharing with you some highlights of the life & work of Glen Morris United Church over the past year: 

  1. Weekly gatherings such as worship, the women’s walking group & gathering on Monday morning, Men’s Coffee Hour on Wednesdays, and line dancing on Fridays
  2. Annual events such as our Pancake Dinner, Celtic Vespers, and our Pentecost Bonfire & Picnic 
  3. Fundraising events such as our concert series, Applefest, Fundscript, Communion Special Offerings, that have helped raise funds for the Mission & Service Fund, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, the Salvation Army Foodbank, and many other local causes!
  4. Partnerships and collaborations with the Grand River Collaborative Ministry, the Glen Morris Horticulture Society, and Pro Musica, and more! 
  5. Special events like participating in the Grand River Play Project, caroling at Cambridge City Hall, speaking at Brant Country’s Pride Flag ceremony in Paris
  6. Outreach ministries like Church on the Road, pastoral care visits, prayer shawls knit and gifted, and responding to religious-based homophobia and transphobia in local highschools 
  7. Community building through the book club, Koinonia, and the choir

Wow! It’s amazing to see all of this written down in one place! 

What this list fails to capture are the number of hugs shared, real moments of connection, sparks of creativity, huge amounts of laughter, tears shed with compassionate company, relationships woven through the telling of stories. God’s love, the thread that binds all of this together, the inspiration and guide for all of this. I give thanks every day that I get to be a part of such an incredible community of faith. May we continue to share God’s love with our neighbours in 2026!

Peace be with you, 

Rev Michiko