Ken Peters

“Long long ago…” spoken like a wise old man hahahaha

I was the one who continued a work begun by my elder brother, John, at our high school John Taylor Collegiate. It was a IVCF bible study group. It was made up of any and all faiths that wished to come along.

I was around 16-18 years old during that time. Somewhere in there I have this memory that might be referred to as an embarrassing moment except that my friend Ken put it into a different light one day.

First the memory. We were at the Peter’s home, in their basement. Our group was made up of those from the Mennonite Conference, United Church, Baptists . . . and myself, I was a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada boy. We were all holding hands, praying. I remember ‘losing it’ and there was shouting, hand squeezing, vibrating, tears, nose running . . . I was alone with God, with these others. At our church, in the prayer room this wasn’t uncommon, but as I said amen and looked at the faces of those around me, I realized it was quite the new thing for them. They looked horrified!

I’m sure there were other times that I’m not aware of that Ken referred to one day . . .

Back in 1995 my first marriage was in the final stages of death. I was at my brother Andrew’s place. An extremely small two bedroom apartment in behind a Pizza Hut Pick-up location. Outside my bedroom window was the BFI bin (industrial garbage can) for those businesses there. My bed was a foam mattress in the middle of the room, the only other piece of furniture was a chair in the corner. On the other side of the curtain that served as a door, was the kitchen, and the other two rooms, their room and the bath room. Ken came to visit my brother, Andrew, whom he’d gone to bible school with. I was in a broken state. My days were made up of crying myself to sleep at night, crying until I went to work, only to come home and do that all over again, interspersed with time spent with my brother and his wife of the time, Lisa. Kleenix strewn all aound my ‘bed’.

Ken was leaning on the kitchen counter, and said to the broken, discouraged man that I was . . . “you’re the reason I’m a pastor” he said. He told me that those times at ICF in Winnipeg had inspired him. He had prayed and asked God to put the fire he’d seen in me into his own heart. He wanted what Laurence had 🙂