Great News from Vancouver

Here is another update from Janet in Vancouver:

Hi again everyone,

I know I just sent out our update yesterday, but I just had to share this as well (see below). I got it this afternoon from Bob Kraemer, the Director of Operations for More Than Gold.

Someone in the More Than Gold network knew someone who invited More Than Gold, on fairly short notice, to participate in a Canada Day parade in downtown Vancouver. The leaders of our Creative and Performing Arts group, Russ and Sandy Rosen, put together a float, live music and dance, and it was a huge hit with the crowd. God gave them great favour with the crowd and the organizers. This is a huge encouragement and blessing to us all! Pray that God continues to open doors like this.

Janet

Friends,

This is a brief report on the Canada Day Parade where More Than Gold was given the anchor position. Between 4:30 and 6:30 pm our volunteers arrived and became oriented to what would go on. The team of volunteers was led by our Creative and Performing Arts [CaPA] Working Group leaders Russ and Sandy Rosen. We were fortunate to be given a marshalling position on Georgia Street at Nicola which was the starting point of the parade. So we were able to watch other entries, which had assembled on side streets, march by our position and then we fell in behind the last one to begin our march up Georgia to Thurlow and down Thurlow several blocks toward Canada Place ending on West Pender.

So what did it look like?
Three volunteers led the MTG entry carrying a banner with our snowflake logo and the words More Than Gold – Radical Hospitality. Next came a group of dancers led by Sandy; then a vintage red truck carrying our drummer, sound system and fiddle player, surrounded by four string musicians led by Russ who also led the vocals. Following in behind were approximately 80 volunteers clad in white T-shirts with a big bold More Than Gold logo..

So what happened?
As Russ and the group performed a rotation of 3 lively songs with clear Christian lyrics, including the prominent repetition in one of the joyful expression Hallelujah, the rest of us walked, danced and smiled our way along while handing out 2,000 small cards with our identification and how to say hello to people in 12 languages.

As we passed the last point for other entries to join the parade, Russ invited people to join in behind us and in front of several police motorcycles which marked the end of the parade. The reaction was phenomenal as hundreds of people joined in the dancing and singing and just had a great time celebrating. From the halfway point on, Bob fell back to a position where there were at least 300 people between he and the truck and took a look at literally thousands on the sides of the streets who were enthusiastically entering into our celebration. Karen was in the front – inviting people to join in the circle dances. When Russ would reach key climax points in the songs, people, unrelated to MTG, would jump in the air and wave small flags and their exuberance was infectious.

We thought, what a great picture of what we are trying to accomplish through More Than Gold. To have a group of Christians visible in celebration of our relationship with God and allow others to experience our joy and enter into God’s party… so their lives can be impacted with His love!

How did it end?
We came to the dispersal point and the crowd wanted us to do more. We really didn’t have permission to carry on, so we did one more verse with the truck parked at the curb on West Pender and then led in O Canada. The crowd gave us an appreciative round of applause and we eventually went on our own ways. One of the organizers told us, “what a great way to end the parade!”. Another said it was the highlight. One of the many asked, “What is More Than Gold all about?” As it was explained, she said, “oh, so the Christians are banding together for this hospitality, eh? That’s great!”