Papa Dan's Pastoral Days

DISAPPOINTMENT / HIS APPOINTMENT Serving God in the West Indies had been my goal for about twelve years or more.  I am going to briefly review some of what I have written in previous posts.  My desire or call to serve in the West Indies began when I was in my teens at a young peoples meeting in The Salvation Army.  This led to preparing myself for missionary service.  So off to Prairie Bible Institute, Columbia International University, Missionary Internship, six weeks of candidate school at the West Indies Mission headquarters, now married and in my second year of pastoral ministry. As a couple we were anxiously awaiting the letter from WIM informing us as to where we would be serving.  Finally, the letter arrived. As the two of us sat at our kitchen table and opened the letter, we were devastated.  That long awaited letter said, in so many words, we were rejected.  The mission was not interested in us. Why all this preparation, only to b...

 LAC LA BICHE HIGHLIGHTS During my years at Lac La Biche, there were times of encouragement and discouragement. I write today about some of the encouragements, which I've called highlights.  Within a few weeks of arriving, I managed, through a church member, to find some extra employment.  One hundred dollars monthly salary was tough sledding, even for a single guy.  I paid my tithe, board and room, operated my car and made a 480 mile round trip to Lacombe, about every three weeks, to see Leona.  So, I was hired as a secretary by the Lac La Biche Health Unit , working three mornings a week.  At one dollar an hour, that gave me an extra nine dollars each week.  That compensated for the promised subsidy from the EFC district, which never ever materialized.  Also my Mom and Dad sent $25.00 to me each month.  With all that income, or little income, I managed to get married. A retired school teacher, the man who donated the old garage which...

THE BEGINNING OF A LIFELONG PASTORAL JOURNEY   Lac La Biche EFC as it was when Dan arrived Well, Zack, if you're still we me, I'm finally beginning to answer your question re sharing with you about my pastoral journey.  I had never been in an Evangelical Free Church until the weekend spent with Leona in Lacombe.  The following Sunday, October 26, 1958, I found myself as the pastor of two small EF churches. These two churches were originally the fruit of the Canadian Sunday School Mission and became EFC a year or two prior to my going there. Lac La Biche Congregation The Lac La Biche EFC building was an old one room school building that the church had purchased for $100.00 and had it moved into town.  The Hylo church building was built as a church building and was in the hamlet of Hylo that had a service station and about a dozen or less houses.    Hylo Congregation The attendance at each of these churches ranged from ...

DAN'S INTRODUCTION TO PASTORAL MINISTRY Five years had passed since that SIM director told me that I did not need any further education and that I should get with it and go to the mission field.  That was August 1953.  My final meeting at candidate school with the WIM directors in Homer City was either the end of July or the first day or two in August 1958.  They  recommended still more preparation.  The mission asked that I have at least one year of pastoral ministry.  The big question was what church wants to hire a pastor, an inexperienced pastor, for one year? I quickly discovered that there were no churches available with the Christian & Missionary Alliance.   I wrote to Prairie Bible Institute and learned that there were two small churches in Southern Saskatchewan.  I was also offered a position with North Shore Baptist Church in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, where I had been an intern.  Since I had met Leona and was deeply i...

WEST INDIES MISSION  West Indies Mission Headquarters When my seven month internship ended April 30th, 1958, I returned home to Chatham.  For a good part of May I spent time working on my application papers for the West Indies Mission .  I had several reports and papers to prepare which dealt with my doctrinal views and other related matters, plus a physical exam.  Once I had all the necessary papers ready, they were mailed off to WIM. A response from the mission came in mid June inviting me to go to their headquarters in Homer City, Pennsylvania for a six week period.  I left Chatham on Monday, June 23rd and drove the 400 miles to Homer City.  The mission headquarters consisted of over 300 acres.  It was a dairy farm that had been given to WIM.  It consisted of barns, cows, five large homes, two of them near to the office building and conference center which the mission had built.  The other three houses were at a distance, ranging...