In memory

New Brunswick — where Indian Affairs had hired me to administer welfare on Burnt Church Reserve but . . . while in Chatham, my wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than a year to live. Though I was succeeding in my career in New Brunswick, we were not happy there . . . racial attitudes were “sharper” than on the Island and my wife missed her family on Lennox Island Reserve. So, we returned to Grand River in 1973, bought the house from the Forbes, and began the most intense and challenging period of our lives.

I will never forget the kindness of the Forbes’, and Bertie andJohn Yeo, and so many others in the church and commu- nity during that year. My wife was so taken with the quality of community you had that she willingly joined me in becom- ing a member of the Lot 16 congregation. From her Catholic background, my wife had a substantial respect for the personal element of faith my own “loose” liberal Protestant back- ground had, I fear, left me quite destitute in this area.

The year before my wife’s death was hard, but

good. We both learned — at a young age — to trust the Lord in all things and to be open to the goodness He

can bring to even our darkest hours. The truth was, The Oak Cross and however, that her faith greatly exceeded mine and, in Background hang— the weeks and months following her death in March, ing behind the pul- 1974, I was frequently in utter despair. It was in those

pit and choir has been dedicated in memory of Mary

times that I sought help where my wife had found her strength -— but I needed intellectual understanding. I

consumed Barclay’s commentary on Romans — and

Margaret Pellissier. one cold dreary fall day, when I seemed to have hit a

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new “bottom”and just wanted to die also — I prayed with all my heart a sinner’s prayer — “Lord, forgive me and help me — I believe help my unbelief!” Only years later have I looked back on that dark, dreary night as to the start of my saying “yes” to Christ .. . and in the quarter century since then, He has truly given me great blessings.

ThisJune (2002) I am “winding up” my on— again— -off- again career as a parish minister, and am going back into prison min- istry, from which I hope to retire in another eight or nine years. The prison, I believe, is my primary calling — and though I am

LOT 16 UNITED CHURCH AND ITS PEOPLE