We had our last Northwest Mennonite Conference Convention this last weekend. Mal gave our public resignation in his report, effective the end of August. They surprised us by calling us forward for a bit of a Farewell.
As you can see from our expressions, it included some humour. Our Office Administrator and some children did a bit of an African dance for us. Then they had a powerpoint presentation of some of the things Mal does as Conference Minister.
Mal was given some garden art for his retirement garden!
And I was given this beautiful Dining Room sign.
Then they finished it of with some cake.In these last few months we'll visit many of the churches for the last time, and that will be difficult. We have so much enjoyed this work and these people. It's been enriching for us to make friends all over Alberta. We've stayed in a lot of different homes, experienced wonderful hospitality, come to love the various churches and feel like they are all a family. It's been a wonderful way to finish off almost 40 years of ministry.
We had our first church on Vancouver Island in 1972, 40 years ago. However, we did take 3 years off for a "semi-retirement" in Keremeos which turned out not to be retirement at all. But God is good, and called us to ministry again with NWMC and we have felt that the work with this family of churches has been a gift from God to us.
