My interactions with John Atsma, site superintendent for Fricia Construction, are usually two-fold: sometimes he stops by my office, or I give him a call. However, our conversations are rarely dull. Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn, did you guys turn the water off? None of the taps work in the school.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMike, we need to run some tests of the fire alarm system. It shouldn\u2019t be too disruptive<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJohn, I can\u2019t get the lights to turn on in upstairs the hallway; did someone cut a wire<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSorry, Mike, the plumbers\u2019 soldering set off the fire alarm.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n John almost feels like a staff member now that we have been \u201cworking together\u201d for about a year and a half (I doubt he wants me on his staff as I barely know which end of the hammer to use\u2026but he is always welcome at ACS!). He stops in my office a few times a week and last Friday afternoon was no exception.<\/p>\n \u201cMike, I have a favour to ask.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n John explained that he always gathers a team of volunteers to deep clean a new space before the inspections for occupancy. It is a significant cost savings instead of hiring a professional cleaning service. He (and the whole Fricia crew) care deeply about the school, and they want to be stewardly with the resources we have been given.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of my volunteer cleaning crew can\u2019t make it tomorrow. Can you ask the staff to help?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n So, I put out the call on Friday afternoon after school for staff to come and clean our new eight classroom wing the next morning.<\/p>\n We had no idea who would come.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n When it was all said and done, 23 people showed up to deep clean the new secondary classroom wing! That morning I reflected on Matthew 18:20: \u201cFor where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.\u201d <\/em>In some ways, that Saturday morning was like going to church. Personally, I have not stepped foot in church for an in-person church service since the pandemic began. But that Saturday morning was an act of corporate worship.<\/p>\n Our \u201ccongregation\u201d that morning consisted of:<\/p>\n What I saw was the diversity of God\u2019s people. I saw thankfulness for God\u2019s provision and blessing. I saw the unity that shared faith and purpose brings to His people. I experienced God\u2019s presence through fellowship with my brothers and sisters. God reveals himself in many ways; often, through His people.<\/p>\n Even though we are apart and feel disconnected from each other as a school and community, our community is still here and together. Our shared faith and love for ACS is very much alive and well.<\/strong> <\/span>It\u2019s just harder to see and experience right now. I hope you hold on to this little reminder that our community that once was (pre-pandemic) is still here and, Lord willing, will be even more so soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My interactions with John Atsma, site superintendent for Fricia Construction, are usually two-fold: sometimes he stops by my office, or I give him a call. However, our conversations are rarely dull. Here are a few examples: \u201cJohn, did you guys turn the water off? None of the taps work in the school.\u201d \u201cMike, we need […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":5158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,35],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-5155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","category-secondary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5155"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=5155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Cleaning, Anyone?<\/h2>\n
They Came<\/h2>\n
\n
Still Here, Still Together<\/h2>\n