An Eastern Canada Travel Log

Zach and James VanderLaan spend some time at Maitland River Community Church, a recent church plant in the Wingham area of Ontario.  Zach got to preach and give and update on a ministry project that Maitland supported through a tithe given as part of the congregation's building renewal program. 

St. Jacobs dam just north of Waterloo.

One of the great opportunities in Zach's job as the Director of Resonate is traveling to places where the CRC is working in mission.  One of those places is southern Ontario.  At the end of October Zach took a trip to Southern Ontario to spend some time visiting mission leaders, pastors and significant donors of Resonate Global Mission.  About 30% of CRC churches may be found in Canada and many of those are in southern Ontario.  Zach's travels took him from Burlington (near Hamilton), south of Woodstock and north of Waterloo (to a town called Wingham).  One highlight of the trip was seeing Randy and Karen Lodder, our missionary friends from Haiti, who were in Hamilton to have their fifth child.  While it was great catching up with the Lodders, the trip was focused on ministry.  One thing that the trip taught us was that many of our Canadian CRC congregations are feeling strong headwinds because church attendance is declining on average even faster in Canada than in the United States.  In this context, congregations are looking to Resonate Global Mission to walk with them in community outreach and church planting.  We are convinced that the Gospel fueled by the Holy Spirit's presence can ignite a new movement of renewal in Canada and in the Christian Reformed Church.