I was born in Lucky Lake, July 7, 1970 because my mother wasn’t comfortable with the doctor at the time in my home town of Beechy. I came home to a farm 8 miles northwest of Beechy that my Father and Mother had been renting since 1965 I believe. I had an older sister Tammy (Tamara) who was 3 and 3 years later to the day I would receive another sister named Sonya on July 7, 1973. I have a few memories from those days on the farm, one that came back to me many years later when I gutted my first chicken at my sister in laws after I married my wife which was of my mom gutting a chicken on the kitchen table at this farm. The other memory I have is being stomach flu sick in my bedroom there which was shared with my sister Tamara at that time. My favourite memory by far was when my dad got me my first bike from Canadian Tire, it was bright yellow. I rode down the hill with training wheels at that farm and loved it.
A little less than a year after my younger sister Sonya was born, Dad and Mom got a chance to buy a farm in 1974 only 3 miles from town. So we moved there in 1974. I remember puddles everywhere in the yard as the previous owners the Driedgers had their auction sale in spring before we moved there. 1974 was a winter of much snow which took a long time to melt. It is this farm that I live on to this day with my wife and 3 youngest kids.
My parents were both believers and very active in our Mennonite Brethren Church on railway street in Beechy across from the Pioneer elevator where my dad hauled most of his grain. Dad was moderator of the church council often, led the church choir and taught adult Sunday school. My mom was the church pianist and played a lot for church services and the choir and she led the children’s choir. We did a lot of musical stuff growing up. We had a little family band where I played Tenor recorder in together with my sister Sonya who played alto recorder and my older sister Tamara who played flute together with my dad and my mom who accompanied us on the piano. All of us kids sang in the kids choir and did musicals a lot. Later I would start playing trombone in the band in Grade 5. My sisters and I all were started on piano before school started it seemed the the Kelly Kirby method of learning piano. In grade 8 we would join Dad’s choir at church when we became of age. I learned guitar for a year in school in Grade 9 but that was as far as it went for me in guitar as I found my wrist got sore holding guitar from the fallout of a broken arm in Grade 9.
My faith journey with Christ started when my mother shared a Good News booklet with me about what God had done for me through His Son in dying for my sins and being raised from the dead so I could be forgiven and have eternal life. I wanted to be forgiven as even at 5 years old , I recognized the lack of perfection in me at that time already and I wanted to go to heaven when I die and not be separated from God forever. I received Christ by faith into my heart at that time. I remember sharing my faith with a classmate from school underneath the sandbox in our kindergarten and grade 1 room. I was pretty pumped about Jesus at that time.
I was an academically inclined kid who found school easy and did very well in all my classes except Penmanship. My writing is very bad still. Be thankful I’m typing this. I actually was good at that, achieving 55 wpm on a manual typewriter while starting my training in Grade 10 with only 1 hand because of recovering from a broken arm at the time.
Although I had enthusiasm in my faith at school in the beginning I found that my desire to be accepted by peers generally trumped my willingness to step out and talk about what I believed with my classmates very often. And so I was quiet about my faith for the most part. I had a friend who shared my faith who I did a lot with whose name was Kevin. His presence was a great gift in my life helping to preserve my faith and to give me a friend I could do a lot of fun things with including fall prey to temptation with.
One of the things my parents taught me quite strongly was the dangerous influence of alcohol in ones life. Although I saw alcohol in my grandmothers fridge once I have to admit I was shocked because of how evil my perception was of drinking alcohol and the conviction that I had from my parents instruction that a Christian should never drink it. One day in grade 6 will forever be etched in my mind was a day a bunch of my classmates thought it would be a great idea to bring alcohol from home to school and drink it on the playground. I managed to avoid temptation number one when one of my cousins suggested I try drinking some of the “water” he had in a container. I wasn’t that easily deceived. However, later on that day when a certain female classmate came up to me with a 7up bottle in hand containing a mixture of vodka and 7up offered some for me to try, I had a much harder decision to make. Would I stay with what my parents taught me and within the school rules or would I try some to see what this evil substance tasted like and maybe not look so prudish in front of this pretty girl…
Tune in next week for part 2 – The Teenage Years