Present work during COVID: Like everyone else, since COVID we have been largely in lockdown or certainly around home. So we have been helping in the small apartment complex where we live. Additionally it has been an excellent opportunity for me to write some booklets that had been put on hold – one for a long time. I have finished a 70 page booklet on the Book of Ruth, two shorter booklets: one on the nature of gifts in the local assembly and the other on the seat of the unlearned of 1 Corinthians. At the moment I am researching additional material to add explanatory appendices to the booklet on gifts. Some have asked for further explanation for the rationale on my position on this subject.
Additionally I have just finished revising the Gospel book, “Full Assurance” by Dr. Harry Ironside. It went out of copyright earlier this year. The language and style was dated, but the content is outstanding. Having finished these I am working on a Gospel booklet that I started years ago. I am printing these myself. Joyce and others have been helping with editing. I work at a study at the Newbury Gospel Hall and work there most days of the week. While there is so much sadness connected with the pandemic that burdens all of us, it has been a time of opportunity for me. So while I am not thankful for the pandemic, I am thankful that I have found a useful way to use the time.
Past Information
We were commended to the work of the Lord in 1969. Our exercise at the beginning was to engage in evangelism to establish new work in seeing new assemblies established. We teamed up with Bill and Janet Metcalf in Strathroy and Wallaceburg. Because the Wallaceburg work opened up, we concentrated our effort there and an assembly was formed a few years later. We also had weekly newspaper columns in the area newspapers around Bothwell, Ontario for over forty years until the local papers no longer existed or did not have writers’ columns any longer.
On October 1st, 2015 we sold our house in Bothwell and moved to an apartment beside the Newbury Hospital six miles away. Since then Joyce has taken courses in palliative care and we work together in the palliative care suite. Joyce understands palliative care much better than I do and has helped me in this work. She also visits from room to room with patients. I have been added to Pastoral Care at the hospital and Joyce has continued her work as a volunteer in the hospital gift shop using this opportunity to minister to the spiritual needs as she has opportunity comes. People visiting loved ones often come to the gift shop just for a break and it gives Joyce opportunity to minister to their needs.
I have also continued my Bible Teaching in assemblies of God’s people as well as evangelism both in public preaching and private visitation.