Surprise Encounters

It was a marked contrast from serving as a padre in the Canadian Army to being posted to Change Islands in the North Atlantic. My new mode of transportation couldn’t be more different from an army jeep—a thirty-eight-foot sea-faring vessel. The M.V. Messenger was to be my ocean home, but it would have been my coffin were it not for my faithful Samoyed dog, Sabre. Taking the “Good News” to the remote communities of Northern Newfoundland wasn’t without risks. Navigating through the ice floe, walking over the frozen bay, or flying with the bush pilots had its challenges. But one did not count the cost when on a divine mission. My calling was to minister to the families of fishermen and loggers nestled in the coves and bays. It was far different from my ministry in a suburban church in Metro Toronto, where the storms were of a different nature. Victor Frankel, a psychiatrist and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, affirmed that a person’s greatest search is for meaning. I have shown that life’s greatest and most difficult experiences can be overcome by trust in God’s faithful promises found in scripture. Is that a place where you might begin your search?