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 about 20 to 30. There was a Sunday School in Lac La Biche Sunday mornings. An afternoon service in Hylo, with Sunday School at the same time for children. There was an evening service in Lac La Biche, which was the best attended service of the three services. We set a record attendance one Sunday evening at 52. We only had thirty some bucket seats in the Lac La Biche church building. We had to bring up some benches from the basement. The bench which was placed in front of the front row, that record breaking night, was so long and people crammed in that the person sitting on the end of that bench had his feet under the communion table. We also had a weekly Bible study and prayer meeting at each church with the meetings being held in homes.
One of my first jobs was to paint a church sign. Someone had started it and had two or three words drawn in. I finished the same. The only sign that I ever painted. However, it worked. The first Sunday after that sign was erected we had a young couple, that lived behind the church come to the service. Wally and Sharon became our best friends. Without any sign or identification as to who we were, they had been told that we were Holy Rollers. They were Baptists but were acquainted with the EFC. The Lac La Biche Evangelical Free Church was the only evangelical church in Lac La Biche.
Dan's sign painting
Leona and I became officially engaged at Christmas 1958, two months after my arrival at Lac La Biche. I immediately wrote to the West Indies Mission asking for permission to get married. WIM gave us their permission but said that I would have to spend an additional year in pastoral ministry. Foreign missions in those years did not want to send a newly married couple to the mission field. A couple had to be married at least one year. We were pleased with their decision and the churches appeared happy to have us stay longer. We were married August 15th, 1959.
Leona and I enjoyed our first year of married life as a pastoral couple. They were good years and we counted it a privilege to serve together in ministry. Since there were no places to rent, the men in the churches had a work bee, one month prior to our marriage. A retired school teacher, Mr. McFarlane gave an old garage for a house. The men took it apart, hauled it some 20 miles from Owl River and assembled it, widening it from its eleven feet by twenty to fourteen feet by twenty. It was built on a property, five acres on the edge of Lac La Biche, owned by Germaine, a young widow, who also lived on the property. She had had new kitchen cupboards built and new windows installed. So we were the recipients of her old cupboard and a couple of windows. The old cupboard had sat outside for some weeks and the chickens made it there home. She also graciously let us draw water from her well and hang our laundry on her clothes line.
Setting up house - Our new kitchen cupboards
The men had done very little on the house while I was away at my wedding and honeymoon. When I returned I divided it into two rooms, built cupboards and added a four by eight porch. Leona's brother Leslie, dug the hole for an old outhouse which had also been donated. We were given the use of a wood fired cook stove. We purchased an oil space heater. This was our first purchase that we made with a down payment and monthly payments. We purchased it through Sears at $3.00 a month.
Our first home - Our honeymoon cottage
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