THE FIRST TWO WEEKS

 
Echoes Of Blessing - CJIB Vernon, BC 

Week one went well. I did some unpacking, prepared and recorded about five Echoes Of Blessing   radio broadcasts, preached morning and evening our first Sunday and met several new people.  On Tuesday, September 10th, the beginning of week two, Rev. Jack Schroeder, pastor of the Kelowna Alliance Church, picked me up and we were on our way to Moose Jaw, SK for my first Western Canadian District Conference with the Christian Missionary Alliance.

That WCD conference was the last big one.  For years there had been two C&MA districts in Canada, the Eastern & Central Canadian District and the Western Canadian District.  The WCD extended from Vancouver Island to Thunder Bay, ON.  At this conference in Moose Jaw the district was divided.  Beginning January 1st, 1964 the WCD would consist of Brtitish Columbia and Alberta.  Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Western Ontario extending to Thunder Bay would form a new district known as the Canadian Mid-West District.  I met a lot of pastors at the conference and though I had not graduated from Canadian Bible College, like most of them, I felt well accepted. 

I said in a previous post that Leona was a brick.  What do I say now?  I have to say that she was one brave soldier.  We had moved to a new ministry, been in church one Sunday and probably didn't know the names of more than a dozen people.  I was in Moose Jaw, SK and Leona was alone, our second week in Vernon, in a brand new neighborhood with a two year old and a four week old.

The weather, which had been very summery in Vernon when I left, turned cool. In the wee hours of one night Leona went downstairs to the basement to see if she could light the furnace.  The furnace was a sawdust furnace.  I had never heard of such, prior to moving to Vernon, nor ever lit one and neither had Leona.  After attempting to light it without any success, she remembered the name of one of the board members who lived about two blocks away.  So around 3:00am, after Leona phoned, he came over and lit the furnace for her.

Tuesday, September 17th, exactly two weeks since our arrival as a family and I was back home.  It was the longest that we had ever been separated from each other. We were now looking forward to settling in to our new ministry.

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