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 Elder
My Life Story
I was born in Jos, Nigeria to godly missionary parents. At the young age of 6 while at a mission boarding
school in Nigeria during a Sunday evening chapel service, I came to understand through the work of
God's Spirit in me that I was a sinner separated from a Holy God, by my sin. I understood that I could not
solve this problem of my sin on my own and that I was in need of a saviour. I understood that night that
God loved me and that He had given His only Son to die for me to save me from the just consequences
of my sin, death and separation from Him forever. With the limited understanding of a 6 year old, I
received Jesus Christ as my Saviour that night, trusting only in the merits of His sinless death on the
cross of Calvary for me. (Ephesians 2:8-9, John 3:16)
Over the past 45 years as I have walked with Him, through seasons of trial and failure as well as times
of great blessing, I have grown in my love for my Lord and in love for His people. My testimony is that
God truly is gracious, merciful, faithful and good and has proven to be so in every season of my life. In
that time, I have also experienced an ever growing passion and love for God's written word, the Bible,
both to know it and obey it. I am so thankful for God’s ongoing work of grace in so many areas of my
life. Since coming to Harvest, God has continued to challenge and change me. In particular, I have grown
to better understand and live a “Spirit and Truth” life (John 4:23). I seek to walk, work and worship as a
passionate follower of Jesus Christ in the only way possible, by the power of His Holy Spirit working in
me. I am seeking to grow more each day in my love for the Lord and His people as I share in the family
life of God's people here at Harvest Oakville. I am married to my wife Nancy. We just celebrated our
27th wedding anniversary in the summer of 2010. We are also recent “empty nesters” as the last of our
4 Children has left home this fall. We are very thankful to the Lord that, like us, our four children are all
Christ followers.
I am thankful that the Lord has given a clear job description to elders in His church outlined in Ephesians
4:12. Ephesians 4:11-16 “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and
teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all
attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and
fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in
deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is
the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it
is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
I am also sobered and challenged by the charge given to elders by the Lord through the Apostle Peter
in 1 Peter 5:1-4 “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of
Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is
among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for
shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
As one who must give an account to the Lord for my work in this office, (Hebrews 13:17), I ask that you
pray regularly for me and my family. Like every member of the family of God, I am an object of God's
grace and mercy at every level. In myself I am not, in any way, sufficient for this calling (2 Corinthians
2:16). All that I have of any good has come from The Lord and I remain fully dependent on His Spirit
for everything of any value yet to come (1 Corinthians 4:7). My ambition, by God's grace and in the
power of His Spirit, is to glorify God by bearing abundant, spiritual fruit that remains and by finishing
well, receiving "well done" from my Lord. In the mean time I, like many of you, am seeking, by faith,
to passionately embrace God's calling on my life to love Him with everything and to love and serve my
brothers and sisters in Christ at Harvest Oakville as together we "declare the praises of him who called
us out of darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9)
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