Caring Ministry Core Group 2021

• Pastors - Pastor Cindy Li (ended in February 2021); Pastor Frank Yao; Rev. Jack Yuen

• Deacon - Josephine Ma

• Welcoming Team Coordinator: Elsa Chan

• Telecare Coordinator: Isa Chau

• Cell Group Coordinator: Rosanna Yu

• Fellowship Coordinator: Fanny Li

• Other Core Members: Tony Mok, Angela Tam

Focus

The focus in 2021 was on connection, caring and support.

Cell Groups and Fellowships

• Praise God that even with the ongoing pandemic restrictions, all cell groups and fellowships continued to meet over Zoom or other online platforms. During warmer days in the summer and when the pandemic situations were more stable, some groups started to have face to face meetings, home gatherings, and church gatherings while adhering to the COVID guidelines. Thanks to the dedication and faithfulness of all who were serving in all fellowships and cell groups to help maintain a healthy and caring community during this pandemic time. It was encouraging to hear that some groups actually met more often online than before the pandemic.

• Caring Ministry continued to connect and support cell group leaders through cell group leaders huddling, training, and care through middle leaders.

• A cell group leaders huddling was held on March 27, 2021, a time for encouragement and a good time for the leaders to get to know each other and share their thoughts on cell group ministry.

Fellowships

• Caring Ministry Fellowship Coordinator connected with all fellowship leaders of all congregations to encourage and support fellowships in their ministry to their fellowship members. A CSC fellowship leaders meeting was held on January 26, 2021, a time of encouragement and sharing among all fellowships. It is encouraging to hear that all fellowships were meeting regularly and were in good spirit.

• Joint fellowship programs were encouraged to connect and build relationship between fellowships.

• A Kainos/Zion/Joshua joint fellowship was held on Feb 13, 2021 to celebrate Chinese New Year with the seniors on Zoom meeting. It was encouraging to see many seniors online, some with the help of family members. Total attendance from all fellowships was close to 90. There were 30 seniors and also 12 community services program participants. Program included games, sharing from the seniors, performance from Erhu class and Praise Dance class. It was a very blessed time to meet the seniors after almost a year of pandemic. Gift packages were also delivered to the seniors through the help of volunteer drivers.

• All fellowships continued to meet regularly. Some fellowships had outdoor meetings and meetings at church as the government relaxed some COVID restrictions. The senior fellowship had also started to meet online through Zoom meetings. Zion fellowship organized a series of 8 sessions of online bible studies, which were opened to the whole church.

Welcoming Team and Telecare

• When the church reopened in the summer, the Welcoming team worked in joint effort with the CSC, MSG and ESC teams on the new COVID check-in procedures on Sunday mornings. Since some previous team members were no longer able to help after the pandemic, the serving team was in need of new volunteers to serve in Sunday worship reception.

• The Telecare team continued to connect and provide care to newcomers through phone contacts.

• We are very thankful that we had some newcomers joining the church worship since the church resumed live worship in August. The Telecare/Caring Ministry had been in contact and successfully connected some newcomers to join church cell groups and fellowships.

• Caring Ministry organized a welcoming lunch on Dec 5, 2021 Sunday afternoon for the newcomers in CSC who had joined us since the church reopened in summer. A total of 26 from 9 families attended.

Senior Care

• As the seniors were not able to come to church for worship, they had to worship online on Sundays. For those who did not have internet access, the Caring Ministry arranged volunteers to assist the seniors to listen to worship online via phone calls.

• Gift packages were delivered to the seniors for the Chinese New Year, Senior month in June, and before Christmas as a token of care. The gift packages included Daily Bread devotional booklets to encourage them to study God’s word, and communion cups to assist them to join the Holy Communion from home.

• The Caring Ministry will continue to find ways to connect, support and care for our senior groups.

Caring Sunday

October 31, 2021 was Caring Sunday in CSC. The Caring team prepared some video clips which were used by Pastor Jack in his sermon to encourage brothers and sisters to care for one another and to join our serving team to serve and care for brothers and sisters. By God’s grace, it is our prayer that RHCBC is a church characterized by our love for God and our witness of God’s love in our church body!