Healing Spiritual Cataracts (Tim Meisenheimer)

Timothy Meisenheimer has spent decades on the streets with beatitude vision, first in Ottawa and now in Windsor, Ontario. This was his session at the Our City Windsor 2024 conference. Tim takes seriously the path of Jesus in his sidewalk vision of the Kingdom of God.

Links:

Urban Cry School of Mission

https://www.facebook.com/urbancryschoolofmission

Downtown Windsor Community Collaborative

https://www.dwcc.ca/

Capital City Mission

https://capitalcitymission.com/

The Ottawa Mission

https://ottawamission.com/

The Heaviness Of Loss (Kim Court and Mike Morency)

(Recorded at Our City Windsor 2024)

No one is exempt from the impacts of grief and loss. When serving others in community it is imperative that we learn to recognize when and how their grief is showing up. However, it is just as important to learn how our own grief impacts our ability to serve others. Kim Court and her husband Mike Morency help participants better understand grief and provide tips on how they can help others, and themselves.

For the past 25 years, Kim Court (M.S.W., R.S.W.) has provided a safe place for individuals and families to reflect and experience personal growth. She values the uniqueness of each individual’s journey, and supports people of all ages as they become empowered to reach their goals.

As a Christian counsellor, Kim is experienced in helping people with struggles related to trauma, separation/divorce, anxiety, depression, attachment, parent-child, and family conflict, all through the lens of evidence-based practice and the Gospel. She is a certified Grief Educator, and is trained in, Brief Solution Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and Collaborative Problem Solving.

Alongside her husband, and on her own, Kim provides engaging workshops and lectures on a wide array of topics.

Mike is Executive Director of Matthew House Refugee Centre which provides temporary shelter and settlement services for Refugee Claimants. He is a team pastor at New Song Church and a frequent speaker at conferences and retreats. Mike is passionate about helping the people of God find ways to “live out” Christ in the world.

He is also Lead Strategist for Synergistic Solution Groups where he assists churches and community charities develop effective strategies to increase their impact.

Additional resources:

Exploring the Companioning Model of Grief Care

https://youtu.be/pOlgifO9TEA?si=WcnesOUS2Q8uH9wS

My Grief

https://mygrief.ca/

Asylum Seekers And Homelessness (Mike Morency & Ejay Tupe interview)

Our guests on this episode are Ejay Tupe, director of Toronto Urban Mission Hub in downtown Toronto and Mike Morency, executive director of Matthew House – Windsor.

We will be talking about a story that began unfolding this past summer when over 200 refugee claimants from African nations found themselves sleeping on the streets. Many were outside a homeless support centre at 129 Peter St. in downtown Toronto. There seemed to initially be a funding stalemate between levels of government.

Into the crisis, three churches got involved directly by opening up their buildings to provide shelter, food, and support.

·      Revivaltime Tabernacle

·      Pilgrim Feast Tabernacle

·      Dominion Church International

This story eventually leads to some of the asylum seekers ending up served by Matthew House in Windsor.

Links:

Ejay Tupe

https://paoc.org/canada/workers/ejaytupe

Oct 30th update from Ejay

https://youtu.be/-o4LVpanGmo?si=J11xqAhrKoEd_DPb

Matthew House - Windsor

https://matthewhousewindsor.org/

Our City Scarborough Conference

https://www.ourcitytoronto.ca/

News article:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/church-temporary-emergency-shelter-asylum-seekers-toronto-1.6927489

Ejay Tupe

Mike Morency

African Christians In Canada

Our conversation today is going to focus primarily on Christians that were born in Africa and are now living in Canada. What strikes me demographically is that the African continent has a higher percentage of the population identifying as Christian than we do in Canada.

Prior to 1960, black Africans comprised a very small, scattered and almost unknown group of newcomers to Canada, although Africans of European and Asian ancestry had a clearer presence. According to the 2016 census, 1,067,925 Canadians reported being of African origin.[1]

Rev. Isaac De-Graft Takyi is the pastor of Living Word Assembly of God in Toronto. One of his recent accomplishments was authoring a book entitled, ‘The Story of Ghana Assemblies of God Church In Canada.’ This historical document gives a first-hand account of Ghanian Christians starting Ghanian churches in Canada and some of the controversies and successes they have experienced thus far.

Sammy Molloy works at Matthew House, a refugee resettlement service and residence in Windsor, Ontario. They have about 70 beds in the residence and are serving refugee claimants in the hundreds across our city. He is also a worker with African Inland Mission where he organizes summer camps across Canada for children and youth of African origins.

Kirubel Masresha (Nahum) is a student born in Ethiopia but has lived in Windsor from a young age. He lives with Pastors Wodaje Tekeste and Nardi Abraha, on staff at New Song Church and former pastors of the Emmanuel Ethiopian Church. He works at Serenity Coffee House.

Links:

The Story of Ghana Assemblies of God Church in Canada, by Isaac De-Graft Takyi, https://www.amazon.ca/Story-Ghana-Assemblies-Church-Canada/dp/1988439221/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1LWNTDVPMD4KT&keywords=isaac+de-graft+takyi&qid=1678714386&sprefix=isaac+de-graft+takyi%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-1

Living Word Assembly of God

https://livingwordag.org/

Matthew House Refugee Welcome Centre – Windsor

https://matthewhousewindsor.org/

Africa Inland Mission

https://aimint.org/ca/2022/05/01/appointment-of-director-strategy-and-operation-for-mac-camps/

Camp Rhino

www.camprhino.ca

[1] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/africans