Papa Dan's Pastoral Days

OUR DREAM OF A MISSIONS TRIP COMES TO AN END Leaving Thailand at night and flying back to Japan, we were able to look down and see the lights of Laos, Vietnam and Taiwan.  As we flew over Taiwan, I thought of James and Esther Chuang who were serving there with the C&MA.  You may remember that James and Esther came as newlyweds to Lethbridge and became the first pastor of the Lethbridge Chinese Alliance Church. We touched down at the Narita airport at 6:00am.  Can you imagine our surprise when we were standing in the hotel lobby, waiting for our room assignment for the day, when we heard our names being called out.  We were in for a pleasant surprise.  Don and Vivian Bruck, pastor of an international church in Tokyo, had come to the airport to take us on a whirlwind tour of Tokyo.  We had been on tour for sixteen days, without any sickness.  To the disappointment of the Brucks and us, we, along with several others on our trip, had upset st...

EXPOSURE TO YET ONE MORE COUNTRY - THAILAND   Hopelessness every where we looked The last five days of our missions trip were spent in Bangkok, Thailand.  Our experiences there were similar, yet quite different.  They were similar in that we met more Alliance missionaries.  Different in that a strong Buddhist presence was evident.  Everywhere we went, we saw Buddhist temples, Buddhist monks, men and women giving an offering of fruit, etc. and bowing before an idol. Some of our tour group, which numbered around forty, got to stay at the Alliance Guest House in Bangkok.  The rest of us were in a hotel a block or two away.  Since our stay in Thailand included a Sunday, we attended the International Church, which was in English, for the Sunday morning service and in the afternoon we were able to sit in on one of the national church services. A highlight of our days in Thailand included a one day trip to a Khmer Rouge refugee camp....

A DAY IN CHINA Dan & Leona in front of Hot Spring Resort, Chung Shan, China The hydroplane boat that we traveled on from Hong Kong docked at Macau, a Portuguese Colony at that time.  We boarded a bus at Macau which took us to Chung Shan, China where we spent several hours.  I remembered that my Dad used to joke with me when I was a little guy and said that if I dug deep enough I would end up in China.  Well, we were in China and we didn't have to dig our way there.  We had our noon meal, Dim Sum, at the Hot Spring Resort . On the border of Macau and China was a fruit stand.  Here we were, half way around the world and what did we see???  At this fruit stand were boxes of BC apples from Kelowna, British Columbia.   BC apples at fruit stand on the border of Macau & China Next to the Hot Spring Resort was a man laying bricks.  His equipment was not the latest.  Just a simple wheel barrow. No machinery to lo...

HONG KONG WAS OUR NEXT STOP Victoria Habor, Hong Kong Our next five or six days were spent in Hong Kong.  By contrast, Hong Kong seemed so much cleaner and more prosperous than what we witnessed in Manila.   When we looked out of our hotel window in Hong Kong, we saw neatly dressed men and women with their brief cases, etc.  Our days in Hong Kong were very interesting.  We were there a couple of weeks following the Chinese New Year and many of their decorations and colored lights were still in place.  We were not in Hong Kong on a Sunday, but we did tour several churches.  Some of them met in high rise buildings, others met in an auditorium on the second or third floor of a building that housed a store on the ground level.  We also toured a radio studio where programs were prepared for airing over FEBC radio.  We went through a day care and the Alliance Bible Seminary , which was on an island .  Thankfully, I was sp...

THE PHILIPPINES, THE FIRST LEG OF OUR MISSIONS TRIP Leona being welcomed to The Philippines   Having spent a night in a hotel at the Narita airport near Tokyo, we left early the next morning for Manila, in The Philippines.  We were there for about six days, visiting churches from an area in which many squatters lived to the big new Pasay City Alliance Church . We also sat in on a session at The Alliance Biblical Seminary .  We had a tour of Faith Academy , the missionary kids school.  One evening was spent with C&MA missionaries serving in The Philippines.  We all enjoyed a lovely dinner, that evening, in a very fancy hotel dining room.  It was a most enjoyable evening and we knew three or four of these missionaries from previous connections.  Though I had never met her before, one missionary lady was from my home church in Chatham, Ontario.  In fact her dad built the eating area and library on to my folks place.  C...

THE GIFT OF A MISSION'S TRIP TO THE FAR EAST A dream came true, during our pastoral days at Kamloops Alliance Church.   Since we never made it to the mission field, but ended up in pastoral ministry, we still had a deep love for missions and the work of our missionaries.  We had said to one another, many years earlier, that we would much prefer to visit a mission field rather than some exotic resort or beach.  Well, that happened. One Sunday morning in the late fall of 1988, Helmut Allert, the chairman of the elders' board, at the Kamloops church, stepped up to the podium and asked Leona to please come to the platform and join me.  We had no idea what this was all about, but soon found out.  In October, a few weeks earlier, I had mentioned, one Sunday morning, that it was the 30th anniversary of my pastoral ministry, having begun October 26, 1958 in Lac La Biche, Alberta.  Apparently a couple of members were listening.  So, havin...

DECISIONS IN KAMLOOPS A decision was made to give the church building new life - paint As in previous churches, it was encouraging to see people receiving new life and getting right with God.  Sunday, October 6th, 1985 was my first Sunday as senior pastor of the Kamloops Alliance Church.  Except for a half dozen people, everyone was new to us.  We didn't know who had attended that church for twenty years, twenty months or twenty weeks.  That first Sunday there was a visitor's card, that came my way, with the name of a young married lady.  She indicated that this was her first Sunday and that she would like to speak with a pastor. A few days later I met with her in my office.  She indicated that she was searching for something that would meet the inner hunger of her heart.  She had purchased books, which were new age.  Was that what she needed?  She wasn't sure.  About the same time, a friend, who was a Roman Catholic, loa...

MINISTRIES AT KAMLOOPS ALLIANCE CHURCH Since Kamloops Alliance Church had been in the city for a few decades, there were several ministries in existence when we arrived.  There were ladies meetings and men's meetings, the men's gathering was usually a breakfast on a Saturday morning.  There were weekly clubs for boys and girls.  There was a good size young peoples and a good size college and career gathering.  Sunday School had classes for all ages and was fairly well attended.  An adult choir ministered in music every Sunday morning. There was also the periodic adult social evening, that was always enjoyable.  I remember September 1986, when my Mom and Dad were visiting us and they joined in on the fun at a corn roast up Harper Mountain. Another corn roast in 1989 at Mile High Ranch There were two associate pastors when I arrived.  One of them was a youth pastor, but he had resigned before I arrived, leaving three or four weeks after...

 EAGLE BAY CAMP   Eagle Bay Camp - Shuswap Lake I had only been in Kamloops about six or seven weeks when I joined several other men, one Saturday morning, and went to Salmon Arm, BC to a storage place to retrieve camp equipment and stuff that had been used at the C&MA camp at Arrow Lakes campsite. For a quick review let me say that in early 1964, when I was pastor at the Vernon Alliance Church, we six Alliance pastors of Revelstoke, Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton and Oliver got together and agreed to rent Maple Springs Bible Camp for ten days.  This camp was on a hillside a few miles west of Peachland, BC.  Our first year for a camp program was July 1964.  That year and several succeeding years, we operated a teen weekend, which usually dovetailed into the Canada Day weekend or close to it.  We had a teen camp from Thursday supper time to Sunday afternoon at which time we began a children's camp which went until the fol...

BACK TO BRITISH COLUMBIA It is interesting how I still refer to Chatham, Ontario as my home.  That was where I was born and raised, but I have spent less than a quarter of my life there.  Doing a little math, I realize that almost half of my life has been spent in British Columbia.  Tallying up the years that I have lived in BC, Vernon, Kamloops and Abbotsford, they come to a  total of 41 years.  When we moved from Calgary back to Kamloops in 1985, I was 54 years old.  I dearly loved my eight years in Calgary at Rockyview Alliance Church , but I have to be honest, I certainly preferred Kamloops weather over Calgary's.  Three of the weekends in September, our last month in Calgary, we had snow.  Those three weekends were very wintry.  Arriving in Kamloops the 30th of September was like summer all over again.  The month of October was such a welcome treat.  This is not September.  It's winter 1985 / 1986 It was n...