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By Lloyd Mackey
WHEN Marie Vautour read about six Jamaicans who were
doing carpentry and concrete work on the William R. Bennett Bridge, she
wondered if her church could help them.
Vautour, a single mother of two adult children, is the
missions committee chair at the 75-strong Kelowna Church of the Nazarene in
Rutland.
Since her youth, when she did short-term missions to
Dominica and Grenada, she has enthused about Christians reaching out to
others worldwide. She has organized Third World baby showers, where church
members handcrafted quilts, baby caps, diapers and other such items.
They are shipped to the Nazarene Compassionate
warehouse in Victoria, for forwarding to various South American countries.
This time, the tables were turned. That was because Richard, Orvil, Ranick,
Jason, Kevin and Andre came to Canada from their native Jamaica.
They had visited a job fair at home, where Greyback
Construction was trying to recruit workers for the new floating bridge. In
September, 2007, they arrived in Kelowna and temporarily set up in a
hostel.
That was where Vautour and her fellow Nazarenes,
including pastor Geoff DeJager, found them. Richard Ramsay, the informal
leader of the six, says the contractor liaison office had circulated a note
to several Kelowna churches. The Nazarenes responded.
Recalls DeJager: “They brought only their work
clothes and equipment. The hostel housing was temporary. We helped them
find a duplex and rounded up some furniture and kitchen utensils.”
Adds Vautour: “People from the church rallied
around. A couch came in, then bed sheets, winter jackets and so on. Later,
people brought in presents for Christmas.”
It did not take long for various church members to
‘adopt’ the six – inviting them into their homes for
meals and including them in various church events and services.
Ramsay, who has a partner, a baby daughter and a
stepson back in Jamaica, says the experience deepened his relatively
nominal Christian faith. “I have a clearer understanding of what it
means to be a Christian. In Jamaica, I had never been in a church that
stepped out and helped people this way.”
DeJager suggested we ask Ramsay about the chicken foot
soup. As it turns out, that was the Jamaicans’ way of thanking the
church.
Early one Sunday, Ramsay organized a breakfast at the
church and turned chef for a couple of hours. One of the Jamaican
delicacies he offered was chicken foot soup.
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“The feet bring out the flavour,” he
explains.
Vautour notes, diplomatically: “I took a good
look at the soup, then chose something different.”
For retired couple Neil and Myrtle Larose, the
experience has been like finding a new family. Myrtle suggests that
“now Richard looks at my husband as sort of a father figure.”
Now that the bridge is finished, Greyback has moved the
men to Silver Star, a ski resort about 50 kilometres northeast of Kelowna
in the Monashee Mountains. There, they are working on a large new resort
hotel.
Notes Neil: “It is a little harder for the
fellows to keep in contact with the church. But we have gone up a couple of
times and brought Richard down to spend the weekend in our home.” The
Jamaicans are hoping that, beyond their Greyback contract, they will be
able to stay. But they will have to find work, and the church is helping
them to network.
Ramsay said that if he can stay beyond two years
“I will be able prepare to file for citizenship.”
Difficult as it is to be apart from his partner, he is
assured of her support. “She encouraged me to come here and to find
out if there would be a way to stay.”
As for the Nazarenes’ thought on the future:
Vautour suggests that “we want to see if there are ways that, as a
church, we can reach out and help international students and
immigrants.”
The student help possibility is emerging with the
growth and development of University of British Columbia Okanagan. The
possibilities, to De Jager and his congregation, are considerable.
July 2008
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