The Candle Light Vigil for Chilean Miners..

As all around the world watched and prayed for a great outcome of the rescue of the Chilean miners, over the last few days, our great city went one step further and had a candle light vigil for the miners at our Miners Memorial Park... Timmins and area is a huge mining community,
and it is near and dear to our hearts..my hubby has over 3o years of working underground and knows all to well of the ups and downs of mining, lost a few buddies, had some good scares too, over the years, and the last few months of following this story, sure brought back memories and fears...he retired 7 years ago but we still have many good friends who work in the mines and live it day to day. Thank God conditions are better in Canada and the U.S. but you just never know...this vigil was to remember them and give them hope, and as we all know now, things sure turned out great...but it was sure a tense few days, we were glued to the set, as were many of you, trying not to miss a single fellows return to surface. This was an actual couple from Chile, I am not sure of the circumstances of them being here, but they spoke very little English, but did the 'Chilean chant' (that we heard so often on tv)

often and it was awesome to hear. This vigil turned out to be upbeat as the miners were being rescued quickly and without incident, and everyone was so relieved.
Our Mayor Tom spoke a few words...

And Bob Calhoun who is the president of the miners memorial locally..the group of miners, in the background, are just a few of the Mine Rescue guys from the Timmins and Kirkland area mines, these are the fellows, who train constantly, for any disasters in the mines and are ready for them.

They all had their mining lights on, which in the mines, sometimes is all the light you have.

This was the candle which you could buy for a small donation as a remembrance, written on the top of it was 'Dare to reach your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light'. by Norman B.Rice.

The Bishop of the Anglican Church and a Catholic priest lead in prayers and the weather was perfect, a few hundred people showed and it was a great evening, left everyone very happy in the overall outcome of the rescue.