Five Years Ago Today

A picture of my young mug, around 2006 at a Providence Welcome Banquet. Thanks Dave.

I have found myself in a reminiscing mood as of late. This August will mark the 5th year since I started as the pastor of MacGregor EMC, with July 19th marking the 5th year since we moved to our new home. And if you would turn back the clock to five years ago today, while I could not tell you exactly what I was up to save for furiously texting and emailing back and forth with Don Butterfield, Jeff Thiessen and Mike Toews all to make sure the I’s were dotted and T’s crossed for the fast-approaching move, I could safely say that what I was feeling was a sense of anxiety over the unknown.  

I remember my first day at Providence. It was September 2nd, 2004. I remember that day largely because the one before it I consider to be one of the worst of my life, which is awkward to say as it was my sister’s birthday (in my defence, she doesn’t think highly of that particular day that year either). In that one bad day, all in the span of about 6 hours I would find out that my grandfather had collapsed due to the effects of what we would come in time to find out was the fast-acting leukemia that would take him from us in just a few short months, as well as I would open a letter from my doctor revealing to me that I had failed my flight physical due to a congenital heart defect. The original reason I applied to Providence was to go into their aviation program, which was a dream of mine since I was a child. While I do not have it anymore, there is a picture of me as a baby sitting in a box, with a pilot’s hat on. It is adorable. And it also serves to illustrate to the extent I found myself, upon arriving on campus for my first day, not knowing what my life was going to be.

But Providence helped me to figure myself out, through classes, the friends I would make there, the wife I would find there, the professors I would grow close to over time and the lessons it taught me about my faith and the complexity of the world around me. And so it was that my journey with Providence beginning one rainy September day in 2004, would go on for the next 13 years of my life, with only a short two-year hiatus during which I got married and tried my hand at city life (3/5 stars in my book. Give me the country every day of the week). Over my time at Providence, I would be there first as a student, undergraduate then graduate, then as a resident on campus and finally as a staff member. There was a solid amount of time in my life that I simply assumed that Providence would be where I would spend my life, as it had been for many others before me.

This is not to say my time at Providence was all roses; far from it. It was during my time at Providence that my first business, Russell Doerksen Bookkeeping Services, came crashing down around me and along with it a period of unemployment that would cause me to have to rethink how I thought of my personal sense of worth. It was during my time at Providence that I learned that sometimes for some people there is a choice that has to be made between food and rent. It was during my time at Providence that the heart condition I have had since I was born went from just keeping me from flying to instead becoming a real concern in my daily life. And it was during my time at the school when Shannon and I came to understand that we had issues with fertility, which would in time become a problem that would completely rewrite how our marriage operated and how we interacted with the world around us for nearly a half-decade before we were fortunate enough to be blessed with a beautiful baby girl, born only days before my time at the school came to an end. These and many other things happened during those years. They were unbelievably hard points in our lives, the kind that shaped who I became, but they happened in a place where there were people who walked with us through them.

And so it was that on my last day working at Providence, with all the junk I had accumulated over the years finally moved from my office to my already box-crowded apartment, my goodbyes said to my co-workers and a boss who had been a mentor to me in all the best ways, that I remember crying thinking about the era I knew was about to come to an end.

Five years ago today, while I was furiously texting and emailing those three gentlemen about the unknown that was about to come, I remember this is how I felt… as if before me there was a cliff and a wall of fog and that soon the time was going to arrive to take a step. A step into the unknown. A step away from what I knew. A step toward something new.

What you will find below are just a handful of pictures that I have found from going through my camera roll from the past five years. I share them with you without comment, but if you want an explanation, feel free to ask in the comments below. There are so many other memories that I have from my time here that I now regret not taking pictures of, but c’est la vie. Some of these are of my family, others are from church, and many are just from this town that I have come not only to call home but to truly love as well. I believe everyone you can see the face of knows these pictures exist and are online, but if not let me know if you want them down.

I suppose I share these pictures now as a way of saying, that though the future may be unknown, that doesn’t mean it will be bad. The past five years have contained their share of ups, downs, as well as a literal pandemic, but I wouldn’t trade these memories for the world. I have no doubt that I came to MacGregor because I was following God’s leading, and I like to think some of these memories bear that out.

And so I will end this post by saying simply this. To my old home, Providence, I thank you for all you have given me. And to my new home MacGregor and my family at MacGregor EMC, I thank you for calling me to be your pastor. I thank you for bringing me here and welcoming us into your lives. I thank you for asking me to take that step five years ago into the glorious unknown. And know now, that I am still as excited as the day we arrived to see what God has in store next. I pray you are as well.