Dear Friends,
Welcome to the June ICS prayer letter! I hope it reaches you in good health, and that you are finding creative ways to cope with the many interruptions and intrusions the global coronavirus pandemic has introduced into our lives. These are busy days for ICS, as we prepared for our annual meeting of ICS’s Board of Trustees (May 28) and Senate (June 15), and making programming and financial plans for the upcoming year. While we are still in the throes of determining the extent of the adverse impact the pandemic has had on ICS’s financial outlook, we remain hopeful and excited about our strategic plans, including the Educational Leadership stream of our MA program, an exciting initiative that enables ICS to help Christian schools in their efforts to become creative centres of deep and transformative learning.
Even in these dark times, we continue to experience moments of blessing and joy, moments that I have learned to call, following the philosopher Richard Kearney, “epiphanies of the everyday.” Today I was reading an essay by the political thinker Hannah Arendt, whose work I am currently teaching, in which she reminds us that each human being, as an unprecedented creature in the world, has the capacity to make small beginnings with unpredictable and boundless effects. “The smallest act in the most limited circumstances,” she says, “bears the seed of the same boundlessness and unpredictability; one deed, one gesture, one word may suffice to change every constellation.” Our unique actions join a wider web of human interaction which none of us control, a daunting and humbling thought, to be sure, but also a hopeful one, especially when we have become so used to thinking that nothing we say or do can have any effect on the world’s course.
In God’s hands, the smallest human act of kindness can flow through this web in wonderful and unexpected ways. We just don’t know how God will use our work and our action, but our faith tells us that he will. ICS is a very small school, relatively speaking, but that has not stopped God from using it to do very great things, even and especially those things we didn’t always plan for or anticipate. And in this spirit, we trust that God will continue to use ICS into the future.
Thank you for joining us on this—now more than 50-year-old—adventure in “beginning,” for backing this daring project in Christian higher education. We remain deeply grateful for your faithful support, for your constant willingness to pray for us and share your gifts as you can, especially in these times of uncertainty. May these gifts, too, be taken up into God’s economy where they can have boundless effect!
I wish you all God’s blessing and peace. Be well!
Ron Kuipers
P.S. Call for Photos! There is currently a retrospective archival project in the works to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first ICS Family Conference in 1970! If you attended any of the Family Conferences in the 70s and 80s, and have photos you would be willing to have included in this project (or know someone who does), please scan and send them to us digitally at ics-communications@icscanada.edu along with written permission to publish them from all individuals depicted in the photos. Thanks!
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During this time, if you would like to make a donation, the best way to do this is to go to our “Donate” page on the ICS website and make a donation online through CanadaHelps. If you’re in the U.S., you can similarly make an online donation through the Friends of ICS website.
You can also find the latest, periodically updated information on the steps ICS is taking to work through the current public health challenges on the News section of our website.
As we continue to roll out courses over the summer, we will make announcements and update our website with the latest information. Currently, you can find details about the three of our courses on this page, with more details coming soon! If you have any questions about current or upcoming courses, please contact our Registrar, Elizabet Aras at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu.
