Thanks everyone!

My time as President is now ended. Thanks to everyone in the Conference for making it a very special time for me. I have appreciated the opportunity to meet many of you - sometimes to renew friendships and connections and also to connect with some of you for the first time.

My term ended on Sunday, May 29 as the closing act of the Celebration of Ministry Service. The service was pretty much all I had hoped for and even more (certainly in terms of length!) and I am deeply grateful for the team that put it together in such a wonderfully integrated way - especially since we never met face to face, only had one voice to voice conference call and then finished the collaborative process by conferring by email either with the whole group or between members of the team.

The venue was outstanding. The Heritage Amphitheatre in William Hawrelak Park in Edmonton is a great place. It proved to be a wonderful place for a worship service - combining the opportunity to worship without walls in the midst of God's creation and also to feel protected from any of the elements that might have made the space uncomfortable. As it turned out there was no reason for discomfort. The temperature was fine, the breezes were just that - only breezes and about the only detracting aspect of the day was that the sun shone so brightly that it made the screens a little hard to see for the worship service that was being projected. It was difficult to see but not impossible and that certainly relieved one of my anxious moments in the run up to the worship service.

I learned a lot about preparing worship for projection, and these learnings will be helpful to me as I move into what has become pretty much a standard form of media for worship in this generation.

I also had affirmation for the idea that if you find capable people and then trust that they will do their part, wonderful things will result.

I now look forward to a time of discernment as I reflect on all the things I learned and gained from my time as President and as I consider what new things I am being called to. One of those things I have already accepted - my offer to continue writing for "In Contact" on a somewhat regular basis was approved by the editorial board. I will be focusing on the "view from the north" likely keeping the title "Northern Light".

I will also post here from time to time - sometimes augmenting what I say in my columns in the Observer insert, sometimes repeating those columns for a wider audience and sometimes just taking time to reflect on our relationship with God and God's creation with "northern eyes".

Finally it would not be proper for me to reflect on my time as President without offering a few other expressions of gratitude. When I was first nominated for President I made sure that the people back home were informed. This included people from the Yellowknife United Church congregation, and most importantly my partner Sharon. They all said they were willing to be a part of all this. The people of Yellowknife United Church are a very special group of people. They have been unfailingly supportive of my time as President, counting the time primarily as their own time of blessing rather than as a time when they would lose a part of me.

And as for Sharon - there were many times when because of the travel that I was required to do, that we were apart, but she has been a wonderful support for me during my term. She has built me up when the schedule or the requirements of the position have seemed too large or complicated and she has been a wise and capable source of insight into some of the things I wrote or tasks I have been asked to do. There is nothing truer to be said that even though because of where we live she was not able to accompany me on many of the visits and trips, this time of my term as President was a partnership. Sharon was always there in some fashion - having contributed to making the trips work, having offered early morning drives to the airport, and being the supportive and reliable presence back home. It will be good to be together more again, now that this term has ended.

I also have to offer thanks to Heather and Jeff, Steve and Coral and of course Tekerra. One of the cherished bonuses of many trips to and through Edmonton was that I was able to watch Tekerra grow. I was able in part to do this because I often stayed with Steve and Coral and Tekerra during these trips. Accommodation on many occasions and wheels almost as many times were provided to me by them, and thus helped to save the conference some dollars in what was anticipated (although I think it never quite worked out that way) would be a somewhat larger travel budget given that the President was living north of sixty degrees.

Heather and her little dog Oliver (hey, I'm a Wizard of Oz fan!) moved to Yellowknife in the early months of my term, and their sharing of our place was an unexpected delight, and a way to ease the loneliness for Sharon in the times when I was away. It is somewhat ironic that Heather will be moving away again just a month after the term ended. Oliver is going to stick around for a little bit, so the loneliness won't be quite as sharp, but we'll miss Heather.

Thanks everyone.  Mahsi Cho!