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Letter from Father Bob 2018

8th January 2018

Dear friend and benefactor,

Firstly, be assured of my prayers and best wishes for you in the year ahead.

It has been a very exciting year for us all at Lift Jesus Higher! We were celebrating our 20th anniversary. Twenty years since we moved to our first base at the church of Notre Dame de Saint Esprit in Vanier!

We marked this anniversary with three major events. Firstly, in June we had a Barbecue and Outreach at St Louis Marie de Montfort, which was slightly overshadowed by some bad weather which meant we had to move the whole event indoors. But we had a great time nonetheless! In July we had an outdoor Mass and Barbecue, hosted by Steve and Cathy Hyde in her parents’ cottage on Lac Clair, near Val-des-Monts. This time, the weather behaved itself and we were able to enjoy the chance to venture out on the lake, or simply enjoy fellowshipping together lakeside.

Finally, we marked our anniversary with a Mass and dinner at St Philip’s parish in Richmond, where I am the current pastor. The Mass was presided over by Bishop Christian Riesbeck, and the dinner was catered by the Knights of Columbus organization of the parish. About 60 people attended the event, friends past and present came together, and Steve Varga prepared a slide presentation of the many activities Lift Jesus Higher have been involved in over the last 20 years. We also provided a time line of the major events in our history, which we invited people to add to.

This last event was something of a preview of coming attractions, as at the beginning of October, the Oasis prayer group at Lift Jesus Higher moved its location to join with the St Philip’s prayer group on Thursday evenings.This proved such a successful transition, that I petitioned Archbishop Prendergast to allow Lift Jesus Higher to move its 12:30pm Sunday Mass to St Philip’s also. The archbishop gave his permission, and on Sunday January 7th, 2018, we celebrated our first Sunday Mass in Richmond. The Grand Knight of the St Philip’s Council officially welcomed us to St Philip’s along with a representative of the Catholic Women’s League.

Lift Jesus Higher has always considered itself as something of a "nomadic" community, and over the course of our twenty year history, we have moved a number of times. The Lord wants us to remember that we have always to be dependent on Him, and responsive to His word. Like the Israelites crossing the desert en route from Egypt to the Promised Land, we need to be ready to "fold up our tents" and move on to the next place the Lord is leading us to discover.

In February we held our latest Peru mission. We had to change our usual summer date to allow our Director of Mission, Maria Palomino, to recover from serious health issues. She was able to join the four other members of the mission team, as we took a number of young people from our three mission projects to a Youth Faith Camp not far from Canete, a couple of hours outside Lima. At the end of the camp, we held a day retreat for the children of the three projects. We then travelled to Huanuco, to meet the new bishop there, who welcomed us warmly and assured us of his support to continue our outreach to the poor of his diocese. We were shown around a new hospital that has just been built for the poor in the city of Huanuco, as well as a center for the blind nearby. We were able to make donations to these places, as well as to help provide material support for many disadvantaged people in our three projects. We are trying to provide moral and spiritual support for the young people there, who face many dangers and temptations because of their poverty, temptations to alcoholism, crime, violence, prostitution etc.

We are still working with the pastors and churches of other Christian denominations to build relationships of trust and co-operation under the banner of our "Fire and Fusion" movement. We are currently planning a Revival Night on Friday February 9th at West Ottawa Christian Community in Carp, and a March event with Steven Fatow, a charismatic Messianic Jewish pastor and revivalist.

I say it each year, and I say it again, because it is true. None of this would be possible without the continued support of your prayers and financial contributions. I am deeply thankful for such support and I know that, as you bless us, Our Lord will also be blessing you.

May you experience the favor of the Lord in the year ahead!!

Many blessings

Fr Bob Poole

blessing you.

May you experience the favor of the Lord in the year ahead!!

Many blessings

Fr Bob Poole

Waupoos Farm

Waupoos.pdf

Message from Father Bob

January 5, 2017

Dear friend and benefactor,

First and foremost, I wish each and every one of you a joyful and blessed New Year. I also want to thank you for the generous support you continue to give to Lift Jesus Higher. That support has enabled us to continue in our mission for twenty years! It seems hardly possible that we have managed to achieve such longevity. Most of it has seemed like a wild whitewater raft ride, and we have wondered at times whether we will still be around much longer. But God has continued to remind me that he is in charge of the ship (or raft!) and as an octogenarian friend of mine keeps saying “The Lord keeps me going!!.” The Lord has kept us going and here we are, looking forward to celebrating our twentieth year of existence. We are busy arranging special events to mark this milestone, and will soon publish a list of activities to spread throughout the year. But alongside this, our regular schedule of Sunday and Wednesday Masses, Oasis prayer meetings, and bible studies and War Room meetings continue to punctuate our week.

Next month, we will be embarking on our eleventh straight Peru mission. We usually do these in July, but due to severe illness to our organizer, Maria Palomino, we had to postpone going to Peru last summer. However, praise God, Maria has now fully recovered, and so from February 13th – 25th, a team of seven of us will be once more going out to Peru to bring the love of Jesus , along with suitcases packed with shoes, clothes, toys, toiletries, educational material, etc. to the three projects we have taken responsibility for : a shanty community in the heart of Lima; another one in Huanuco, in the Andes, and one up in the mountains several hours outside Lima, in a place called Huangascar. We are planning on holding children and youth camps for the three communities during our mission trip, plus looking at some land Maria owns, where we have plans to build a mission base for future trips.

Since our inception, Lift Jesus Higher has always seen itself as called by God to build bridges with other Christian churches and communities, and this is now part of our overall mission, vision and values. This led us to host two big conferences in past years, called Fire and Fusion, which has spawned several “revival” meetings in the last year and a half, plus monthly gatherings of pastors and leaders from different churches for fellowship, intercession and praise and worship, intended to build relationships between us. I am pleased to see that Pope Francis has led the way in this, by calling together leaders from various Pentecostal, charismatic and evangelical churches for a series of meetings in the last couple of years, with his vision of helping build a “reconciled diversity.” It makes us feel we are “on track” with what God wants to do, to unite the Body of Christ, and we are grateful to be a small part of that.

At the same time, we also are focusing on reaching out to our Catholic community in the diocese of Ottawa. Members of Lift Jesus Higher have been very active in helping me as pastor of St Philips and St Clare’s parishes, to facilitate Life in the Spirit seminars, prayer group meetings and bible studies. It is a case of freely giving what we have ourselves freely received.

None of this would be possible without your continued generosity for which, once more, I thank you, and assure you of our continued prayer for you and your family. Here’s to the next 20 years!!

Fr Bob Poole

Photos from Yesterday’s Social

LJH Sunday Social – August 14, 2016

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Photos Sunday Social – July 10, 2016

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F&F prophetic painting

From our Fire & Fusion Revival Night on April 23, 2016.by Diane Coutu – Prophetic Artist

Community Support – AGM Jan 31, 2016

Communitysupportspeech.pdf

Dear friend and benefactor of Lift Jesus Higher

January 4, 2016

Dear friend and benefactor of Lift Jesus Higher

As I look back on the year, 2015, I am struck by the faithfulness of God. He has kept us going as a community for over 18 years. We recently had a gathering to review our history, and I am amazed at how the Lord has led us into the areas of outreach to the poor, via our annual Peru missions, and outreach to other churches, via our Fire and Fusion ministry. These have been areas highlighted also by Pope Francis, ever since he began his papal ministry.

This year was our 11^th annual Peru mission. Since its tentative beginning, back in 2005, this ministry has grown to encompass three ongoing projects in different areas of Peru. We visited each area and brought along with the gospel, shoes, toys, clothes, food and toiletries. This year also we were able to bring 80 children from those different projects to a Camp of Faith and Prayer in Huanuco. They were able to enjoy teaching, ministry, fellowship and regular meals, all within a safe, inviting environment. This coming year we are hoping to bring that experience of a family camp to each of the three areas we are investing into.

When we held our first “Fire and Fusion” conference in August 2014, in an attempt to bring Catholics and Pentecostals and Evangelicals together in a closer unity, we were following through on an impulse given us by the Holy Spirit. Since then, we have branched out into monthly gatherings of pastors and leaders throughout the Ottawa area, for the purposes of praise and worship, fellowship, sharing and ministry. We believe the Spirit is bringing about unity in the Body of Christ, one relationship at a time. This led us to our second “Fire and Fusion” conference held in Ottawa this summer, which introduced us to the ministry of Fr Dimitri Sala, an American Franciscan priest who has been moving and teaching in the area of closer relationships between Catholics and Evangelicals for many years.

His break-through book,”Beyond the Stained Glass Curtain” expertly demonstrates how the teachings of the Catholic and Pentecostal and Evangelical churches on Salvation are virtually identical. We intend to maintain the “Fire and Fusion” momentum this year by continuing our regular pastors and leaders meetings, plus also holding periodic “revival nights”, the first being on Saturday 16^th January at 7pm, at Peacetower church, 343 Bronson Avenue, Ottawa.

As well as the Peru mission and the Fire and Fusion initiative, Lift Jesus Higher has continued to sponsor this year the “Ancient Paths” seminars of Family Foundations International, led by Craig Hill, with sessions on “Empowering Relationships”, “Overcoming Anger” and “Biblical Principles of Finances”, which have provided tools for people to break out of their bondages in these areas. The Holy Spirit Healing Clinic, also sponsored by Lift Jesus Higher, continues to open its doors every Monday afternoon to minister healing to people’s brokenness  and each week brings fresh evidence that God is alive and well and continuing to set his people free !!

All these activities, plus our ongoing Sunday Mass and weekly Oasis prayer meeting, are only possible because of your continued prayer and financial support. I want to extend to you my deep appreciation for your generosity to the Lift Jesus Higher community and to ask that you continue to show your support of our ministry. As we move ever closer to our 20^th year of existence, as a “Catholic community growing in spirit, truth and love”, I want to assure you of my continued prayers for you and your family, asking that God shower you with every joy and blessing in the year ahead.

Yours in Christ Jesus,

Fr Bob Poole

Director of Lift Jesus Higher

LJH Christmas Social Photos

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LJH Social Aug 16 2015 at the Du Broy’s

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