By Nick Bernard
For Pastor Bev Hicks’ congregation at the Northlands Faith Church, the Christmas season begins some time in September.
“People have been giving in to what we call ‘Christmas Blessings’,” explained Hicks. Northlands Faith Church has been doing Christmas Blessings for five years, through a partnership with Point in Time, whose own mission involves helping youth in the community.

Point in Time provides Northlands Faith Church with gift lists for certain families who may be struggling, with their details remaining confidential.
“What they do is they give us sizes, the types of gifts [families] want, and so forth, the number, how big the family is,” Hicks explained. “So we go out and we buy those gifts, and we buy food for them, enough so they can have Christmas dinner.”
He says, often the church has enough resources that the food the families receive can last a full week.
On Dec. 16, Northlands Faith Church will be giving this years’s Christmas Blessings to Point in Time at the Haliburton Foodland parking lot. Foodland owner Brad Park will bring out the food donations, and Point in Time will distribute the gifts to the families from there.

Each year, Northlands Faith Church helps a small handful of families. Hicks says that the Christmas Blessings is so that the members of the congregation can give back to the community, while getting back the satisfaction of being able to say they helped.
“In order to have your needs met, giving is one way of doing it. ‘Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over’,” said Hicks, quoting Luke 6:38. “So this is the one reason why our people give.”

You can find Northlands Faith Church on Facebook, or by visiting their website at www.northlandfaithchurch.ca. Northlands Faith Church is located three kilometres north of Haliburton at 13321 Highway 118 West.