The Citizen, 2012-05-10, Page 22PAGE 22. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012.Huron-Bruce MADD honours volunteers
Good News: God sends saviour
Late last month was National
Volunteer Week and Mothers
Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
Huron/Bruce board members
showed their appreciation by hosting
an appreciation night for all of their
dedicated volunteers.
MADD Huron/Bruce President
Barb Rintoul and board members
invited the public and volunteers to a
come and go get together at the
Lucknow community centre on
April 18 to show their volunteers
that they are the heart and soul of
MADD Canada. Rintoul also said
that the local Huron/Bruce chapter
values the dedication and
commitment of all its hardworking
volunteers.
“Tonight is a volunteer
appreciation evening, so we are
hoping volunteers who help us out
over the course of the year are able
to come and enjoy a night dedicated
to them for the important work they
do,” said board member Sandra Lee.
“Volunteers help us out by doing
numerous things like fundraising
events, parades to promote
awareness, our red ribbon boxes that
they hand out to various local
businesses during our red ribbon
campaign. The volunteers are an
integral part of our mandate to help
educate and make people aware of
the dangers of drinking and
driving.”
Rintoul and Lee have also been
dedicated volunteers since the
chapter was formed in September of
1995 and they recently were
awarded with 15-year Ontario
Volunteer Service Awards. Rintoul
said it’s an honour to receive the
recognition and it shows the
importance volunteers have to
organizations like MADD Canada.
Lee said one of the most important
things MADD does is educate youth
and the public on the dangers of
drinking and driving and make them
aware of how to be preventative
when drinking is involved.
“A lot of our younger people are
more conscious of the issue of
drinking and driving because the
education and presentations we give
at schools show us how in tune
youth are in tackling this problem,”
said Lee.
The MADD Huron/Bruce board of
directors consists of people who
have lost a loved one or someone
who is a direct victim resulting from
an alcohol related crash. It also
includes many concerned citizens of
the area community who believe it’s
an important issue to eradicate
drinking and driving.
The local chapter wishes to
advance their mission to stop
impaired driving and to support
victims of such a violent crime.
Impaired driving continues to be
the leading criminal cause of death
in Canada, claiming 1,239 lives in
2007. A further 73,000 people were
injured in impairment related
crashes. Over the last 15 years, manyfundraising events led by dedicatedvolunteers have been successful inraising money to allow MADDHuron/Bruce to provide donations topolice, students and the generalpublic and used for awarenessprojects and to promote the safety ofthe community.Rintoul said the hard work of
volunteers is a big reason why the
projects they work on are able tohappen. She said without volunteersnone of this would be possible.“We are always looking for newvolunteers and board membersbecause we couldn’t do what we dowithout them,” said Rintoul.To learn more about MADDCanada and the local Huron/Brucechapter go to www.hurontel.on.
ca/~maddhb
Huron County Council made a
$10,000 commitment to the food
banks of Huron County at the May 2
council meeting after a presentation
outlined just how serious the
problem of hunger in Huron County
is.
John McNeilly, a representative of
the yet-unnamed group of Huron
County’s food banks said that in
2011, 18,000 people used food
banks throughout Huron County and
the need is growing.
He told councillors that going
hungry is clearly not a chosen
lifestyle and that many children are
forced into hunger because of
the situation their family finds itself
in.
McNeilly said the food banks have
run into storage issues and that they
would like to make themselves an
official organization. They were
hoping that a council member would
sit on the board so councillors knew
the struggles the food banks were
having.
Bluewater’s Tyler Hessel
volunteered to meet with the group
and the donation of $10,000 was
approved. Councillors said the funds
would be drawn from the reserve for
unforeseen circumstances.
Continued from page 16
(John 1:17). But even the law was
more about relationships than you
think. Look closely at the Ten
Commandments and you will notice
that they are all about relationships.
The first four commands deal with
our relationship with God: the
vertical dimension. The other six
deal with our relationships with each
other: the horizontal dimension. And
the first of the six is “Honour your
Mother and Father.”
For those who needed to think in
terms of laws and commandments,
Jesus even reduced the 10 to one,
which was really a summary of the
10: Love God, Love Others. Of
course, love is a relationship more
than a commandment. In the
Philippian church Gentile followers
of Jesus were being told that to
become “Christian,” there were laws
to follow; hoops to jump through,
painful procedures to endure,
commands to keep, and exclusions
that must be met before they could
enjoy relationship in the body of
Christ. Paul would have none of it,
deeming that such worship of the
guardrails subverted Jesus’
sacrifice.
Righteousness for Paul was
relationship with God, and this had
never been achieved through the
workings of the Law. The history of
Israel had proven that. Paul didn’t
mince words. He told the
Philippians that all the advantages
and accomplishments he had in his
life before the Damascus Road were
“trash,” “garbage,” “worthless.” The
only thing that mattered to Paul was
the fact that he now “knew”
Christ.
He was on the most sure and
secure bridge ever built to cross over
to the other side. He didn’t need to
be defined an Israelite, or a Hebrew.
He didn’t need the structures of
belief; all he needed was faith in
Christ. Paul dismissed any focus on
the safety features of faith and
jumped out onto what looked to
others like a rickety, unsupported,
dangerous way across the chasm
between human sinfulness and
divine redemption. Paul had no fear,
no faltering, and no hesitance. He
dashed out on to the bridge that was
his personal, saving relationship
with “Christ Jesus, my Lord.” It was
Jesus who took him across.
Two millennia and 12 years later
we are still more comfortable with
the safeguards than with the security
of the bridge; more comfortable
hanging onto the guardrails we have
built up over the centuries. We don’t
call them “guardrails” of course. We
call them the dogmas of faith:
doctrines, laws, propositions, and
principles. They are not bad
safeguards to have around us. But
they are not the bridge.
They cannot offer the Way across
or the Life once we get across. Only
Jesus offers us the possibility for a
right relationship between our own
broken lives and God and others.
Paul was a “myth buster.” On the
Discovery Channel series the Myth
Busters people do stupid, crazy,
dangerous things in order to “prove”
that things we take for granted as
“true” really are not so. That was
Paul. He drove a semi-truck through
his genetic legacy as a Jew;
detonated his own life-work as a
Pharisee “defender” of the faith and
deconstructed all the careful
constructs that had been put in place
by the Law.
Instead, he placed all his bets on a
single person. The good news is that
God did not send us a Statement but
a Savior. The good news is that God
did not send us more Rules and
Regulations but a Redeemer. The
good news is that God did not send
us a Principle at all but a Person.
That person was Jesus, the Christ,
the Messiah, Son of God, Redeemer
and Friend. Paul wrote this letter to
the Philippians to help them fall in
love with Jesus, stay in love with
Jesus, and die in love with Jesus. For
Jesus, love is the love that
determines our destiny, both in the
here and now and in the world
to come. Love that encompasses all!
SAVE
up to
$2650
a year
Off the newsstand price
Newsstand price - $1.25/week
Subscription price - 72¢/week
Yes - I want to save money.
Enclosed is $36.00 for a 1-year subscription
Hard work
Attending the Huron-Bruce MADD volunteer appreciation night were, from left: Bruce County
Warden David Inglis, Huron-Bruce MADD President Barb Rintoul, Wingham police officer
Kevin MacAdam, board member Cathy Beyersbergen, board member Sandra Lee, Huron
County OPP officer and board member Russ Nesbitt, board member Linda MacDonald and
board member Bonnie Bakalar. (Photo submitted)
By Garit Reid
Lucknow Sentinel
County donates cash
to local food banks
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen