O Canada!: Churches of Christ north of the U.S. border
Church planters Amy and Aaron Etheridge at the Metrotown mall in Burnaby, British Columbia, just outside Vancouver.
• • •
I’m in Vancouver, British Columbia, this weekend completing my final training for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Oh, you didn’t know that I’m a world-class figure skater!?
I must have failed to mention that. 
Actually …
I’m working on the next part of The Christian Chronicle’s series on Churches of Christ in Canada. With the Olympics starting next month, it seemed like a perfect time to spotlight British Columbia.
I’m staying with Jim and Carolyn Hawkins, pioneering British Columbia church members who first came to Canada a half-century ago. Jim refers to himself as “The Old Guy of the West,” and I enjoyed picking his brain for a few hours last night about churches in western Canada.
I met this morning with area ministers and elders at the South Burnaby church, including Kirk Ruch, Milton Diaz, Larry Hoff, Mel McClure and John Clelland. John attended White’s Ferry Road School of Biblical Studies with my dad back in the 1970s.
This afternoon, I hung out with Amy and Aaron Etheridge, Harding graduates and Kairos church planters. I first met Amy and Aaron a few years ago at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures and mentioned their ministry feeding teenagers at a homeless shelter in a column on hunger.
Aaron and Amy make fantastic tour guides: They drove me all over Vancouver and showed me Olympic Village and other sites soon to gain worldwide attention.
A fun day!
• • •
• • •
I blogged last summer about my previous Canada adventures.
If you haven’t read them yet, check out my stories from Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
— Bobby
Hey Bobby,
We enjoyed our time with you today. It was encouraging and thought provoking for Amy and me to ride around and talk about the city, our work, and answering your questions. Hope you didn’t mind being trapped in our car for a few hours! I hope the rest of your trip goes well. God’s blessings!