Hello Everyone, We are taking a break from our 2016/17 series written by former Day Campers to bring you a special post written by a former Team Member who came to join the Day Camp Teams in 1981!
John William was the first billet my parents welcomed into our home and since then we have hosted close to 300 Team Members spanning those 36 years!! We still correspond regularly and each of us is part of the other’s prayer support group.
I know you will enjoy this message sent from the other side of the world especially as it illustrates how amazing it is to be part of the global family of Christ.
Welcome John William!
Summer Camps in Canada, anyone interested? 1981, London, England. I was a first year student at Oak Hill Theological College and Rev Dr. Gerald Bray, a friend of Brett Cane and a Canadian from Montreal became the link for theological students from England to become volunteers in Crosstalk Ministries. I was very excited about the prospects but I did not have the financial resources so I made it a subject of prayer. Back in Sabah, Malaysia, The Rev. Alan Mcmahon, an Australian missionary working in my home diocese convinced his parish to send me some mission funds which was more than sufficient to finance the whole trip.So in June that year, I boarded an Air Canada flight heading for Montreal.
I was met by Brett Cane who drove me to my first billet, the Taylors’. There began a friendship which has lasted till this day, Valerie being a member of my prayer group.
My lasting impressions of my time in Canada with Crosstalk Ministries has to be the spectacular hospitality and friendship. Vina Sweetman was a key person along with her mother who started the tradition of mailing me the Canadian church calendar each year until her death, after which Vina continued until her death.
From Montreal to Lachute, to Ottawa and many other places, I travelled with the team with Nick Btotherwood, a fellow student at Oak Hill as team leader at the VBS. In some instances I led the team. It was an incredible joy ministering to the children, being billeted in different homes from the very affluent Town of Mount Royal to more humble wooden homes in small towns. In one small town, the church service was interupted by a flying bat which the huge sized vicar who almost became the bishop of the Yukon dealt with!
Many meaningful relationships were fostered and the kindness, generosity, hospitality and faces remain etched indelibly in my mind.
While there, I was able to meet up with Dr. Willis and his family who were missionaries in Sabah (then British North Borneo) and knew my family well. In fact, Dr Willis had written about my mother in one of his books which I came to know about for the first time in their home in Montreal.
Names like the Trentmans (St. Peter’s TMR), Betty Garlick, Robillards, and others whose faces I remember,though not their names, bring joy to my heart even as I recall nearly forty years after.
The Youth camps were exceptional, fun with catchy songs (here we sit like bumps on a cedar log..bumps on a cedar log waiting for Brett to…) and largely impactful.
Till this day, I am in regular touch with Valarie Taylor who remains my link with CTM.
God plans the steps of His own and for me, the Canadian trip was totally unexpected but totally in His perfect will. It forms a large part in the tapestry of my life’s journey as a Christian. I remember CTM in regular prayer.
I was blessed when in April 2013, Stella Sweetman along with her husband and daughter holidayed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and we were able to meet up for lunch. It was special for me because as I hosted them, I felt I was doing it for Vina and for Canada.
Thank you, for all the hospitality, food, friendship, ministry opportunities and for going the extra mile. You remain forever in my heart.
Rev. John William, now assists at Christ Church, Malacca as well as writes and travels to preach.
What an amazing journey you have had, blessed and been a blessing.
Alan