Weekly Letter from Ron & Mary Kernohan

July 17, 2026

GREETINGS TO ALL!

Our Senior Adult Bible Class will be enjoying several weeks of often-requested hymns…even Christmas carols and songs for Resurrection Sunday. Some of them are songs that reflect spiritual journeys, while others are ones that are cherished because powerful memories are associated with them. One of my colleagues, a learning specialist, pointed out to me that when music is combined with information, it provides a powerful, almost life-long anchor to a value, a goal in life, or a deeply-held belief. May the weeks that follow be ones that you will cherish as you journey on through life.

As part of this week’s newsletter, pray through each part of the letter, and ask the Lord to bring to mind a spiritual song or hymn that becomes a place where you can reflect in prayer or use to begin a meaningful conversation.  

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WEEKLY and UPCOMING ACTIVITIES

DISCOVERY CLASS will be on Sunday at 9:30 am in the church gym. We look forward to being guided to pay attention to key truths in Scripture that will transform our lives, as Pastor Ron encourages us to discover more gems of goodness in God’s word.

FITNESS WITH FRIENDS will continue through the month of July, and, despite the injuries I have sustained, I plan on holding the class and guiding you to develop ways to build both longevity as well as fall prevention.

I have been told that July has many stormy days, so please remember that Fitness with Friends will not be held if there are weather advisories in effect. When such advisories have been broadcast, may you enjoy your own at-home workouts…and if you don’t know what to do, check out the Fitness with Friends Facebook page for some ideas.

Remember that Fitness with Friends will not be held if there are weather advisories in effect…and in Calgary, there can be all kinds of interesting weather challenges! So, in the event of such advisories, please stay home and enjoy your at-home workouts. (Some of you … know… what to do!)  : - )

Fitness with Friends will not be held if:

1) If there is a weather advisory in effect, or

2) If the temperature falls to, or goes below, -20C (and some long-time Calgarians can tell you some weather stories to curl your hair!)

For either of these two conditions, please stay home and enjoy your at-home workouts.

PICKLEBALL it is held on Thursdays starting at 9:00 am, and all ages are welcome. Consider attending FITNESS WITH FRIENDS on Mondays to get ready for PICKLEBALL on Thursdays.

No ENCORE or Women’s Prayer and Share in the summer

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PRAYER REQUESTS‍ ‍

● Pray for those who are recently bereaved–Lorraine Gordon, Deanna Braun, Freda Kanwisher, and others.

● Pray for the family of Shirley Friesen

● Pray for the family of Lee Workun

● Pray for Herb and Renate Schuster who are at home, but having health issues.

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The funeral for Bertha Kokot will be at the Bearspaw Campus of Centre Street Church.

It will be Tuesday, July 21 at 1:30 pm.

Please pray for her family and loved ones

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Meditation

“Even monkey’s fall from trees.” That is a proverb I learned during my nearly three decades of missionary service in Japan. It was used to remind me that despite having respectable skills, one can still feel comfortable in the tree, but still fall even hundreds of successful leaps from bough to bough. I…fell…and it hurt. Why create a meditation on this? It is because it reminds of a passage that informs me of the importance of preparedness--Luke 12:35-37a:

Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like

men who wait for their master, …that when hecomes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, 

will find watching. 

…because one never knows when God will step into our lives and allow some event in our lives that exposes areas where we need grow or affirms ways that we have grown. 

For weeks, during the month May, I needed to visit different parts of downtown Calgary for a variety of tasks. I walked to the bus stop in the community where I live now, and travelled downtown, savouring the scenery along the way. After my errands for that day ended, I walked home, discovering I had covered well over 20,000 steps…a lovely way of “getting in my cardio,” as my physique coach often put it. Unfortunately, too much of a good thing resulted in my over-stressing my hip “flexors.” For weeks afterward, I could barely walk. Eventually, though, I did get better, but there were lingering effects. One of them, was a recurring spasm in my upper leg, that caused me stumble from time to time.  Last week Tuesday, on July 7, I had that recurring spasm. I stumbled forward, hoping to get to some grass. I never made it. There, on an upward grade of concrete I fell, hitting my shoulder hard on the sidewalk. However, drawing on frequent moments of practice, I rolled out of the fall, and stood, shaken, sore, but grateful that nothing worse happened.

As I returned home from my walk, my shoulder grew more and more painful, prompting me to get to a local hospital. The ER physician explained that I had survived dislocations and broken bones. However, I had damaged my upper shoulder ligaments, torn smaller muscles in my upper and middle chest, and compromised most of the rotator cuff ligaments as well. …and this, the ER doctor declared, was a good thing. “Something far worse could have resulted” had I not been in good condition to roll through and absorb the fall!

Really?! I was shocked, but suddenly remembered that verse about preparedness. I had been ready…and now as I begin long weeks of recovery I do so with gratitude knowing that months of training had prepared me for this frustrating life event.

We have no idea when certain events are about to break into our lives, but God does. I have been reminded again and again in Scripture that God’s spirit often nudges us to be good stewards of our bodies. Unfortunately, we may neglect or willfully ignore God’s wise counsel…until the event announces itself in our lives. May, we, as God’s word reminds in various passages, to be ready…”in season and out of season” for these challenges or events.

Paul Miller

…for Ron Kernohan, pastor of seniors.