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By John Keery
ALBERT BALDEO, seen by some as Kelowna’s
‘pastor emeritus,’ has learned that humour and gratitude are
key ingredients in tackling life’s trials and tribulations.
Now 78, and 18 years into a struggle with
Parkinson’s Disease, Baldeo still comes up with one-liners which make
people laugh – and make his point.
“Don’t take life too seriously,” he
says. “None of us are going to get out alive.” He quotes
Proverbs 17:22: “A cheerful heart is good medicine.” He adds:
“Even at a funeral, I have people laughing.”
Baldeo was born and grew up in Trinidad, and got his
post secondary education in Presbyterian institutions in Canada. About the
time he graduated from St. Stephen’s Theological Seminary in
Edmonton, he met nurse Beryl Hobbs. “I took a turn for the
nurse,” he says.
After graduating and getting married, the couple
returned to Trinidad – where he served as a Presbyterian minister and
she taught at a high school for girls.
During their 12 years together in Trinidad they had
three girls. Now there are eight grandchildren – “the
reward for not killing your children,” he says with a wry smile.
In 1971 the Baldeos moved to Toronto, and Albert began
teaching school. Then he got a call asking him if he would be willing to
become a United Church minister in Coaldale, Alberta, near where Beryl grew
up. It would give him half the salary he was then making – but,
says Baldeo, “I had to go. God brought me here to Canada.”
Four years later they moved to a church in Edmonton;
and six years after that, he was asked if he would like to become a
minister at St. Paul’s United in Kelowna.
It was 40 degrees below zero in Edmonton when he got
the call, Baldeo says. “I told Beryl, ‘I am going to pray about
it – but you start packing.’”
In Kelowna, Baldeo became known as a humorous preacher
– theologically conservative for a United Church clergyman
– who seriously tried to move out from behind the church walls and
minister to the whole community. He and Beryl were, and are, a ministry
team.
Albert has been a Rotary Club member for 35 years, and
has used this as a gateway to serve the community outside the church.
Churches – and church members – must
continue to move out into the broader community to offer help in various
ways, he says.
Baldeo was voted Kelowna’s Citizen of the Year in
1982, and in 1992 he received the Queen’s Commemorative Medal for
service to the community. He organized the first-ever appreciation banquet
for the RCMP; he also chaired an AIDS awareness committee for the Central
Okanagan.
He continues to write a weekly newspaper column, and
still makes frequent appearances at public functions, to offer a prayer or
poem.
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He also makes light of his Parkinson’s, and the
heart problems he had which led to a heart attack 10 years ago.
Now every day is a bonus, he says, a gift from God.
People need to accept the forgiveness Christ offers, Baldeo says,
emphasizing that Christianity is a relationship with Christ, not a
religion.
It was the revelation that he needed forgiveness
– and that someone else was prepared to pay the price – which
helped turn his grandfather to Christianity in Trinidad, from the Hindu
faith of his forbears.
Other faiths offer some light, such as the concept of
gratitude which he learned from his grandparents. But Christ, Baldeo
asserts, offers the most light.
It reminds him of the night light he has in his
bathroom. Other faiths can help you navigate in the dark; but when you
switch on the main light, there is no comparison. What happens to those who
don’t accept Christ is up to God, and not us, he says.
“I have learned to accept people the way they
are, not the way I want them to be.
“I don’t make any judgment of anybody. The
older I get, I have more questions and fewer answers.”
However, he always has a humorous answer to even the
most current question.
If Barack Obama is elected U.S. president, Baldeo says,
he fears his life might be in danger because of fanatical groups not ready
to accept a black man as president.
“Will the White House still be the White House if
Obama wins?”
But if John McCain wins, Baldeo muses, he might not be
able to dissociate himself enough from George W. Bush to be successful.
“If he becomes president, he will be
ambushed.”
In 2000, Baldeo published From
Calypso to the Land of Snow, a collection of his
poems which tell his life story. The poem of his life is still being
written.
September 2008
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