As the St. Lawrence River flows to the sea, at certain points it divides two vast nations, Canada and the USA. But Christ’s Church has its own boundaries. The St. Lawrence Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) ignores the natural and political division by spanning both sides of the river to involve itself in Christ’s kingdom in both countries—in the province of Ontario, Canada, and the state of New York, USA. This close connection to some of the American RP churches may have been the vital link that kept the two remaining RP churches in Canada alive.

This is the story of God’s work in preparing a man and his family for the ministry and a people for a church plant in a city where there had been no previous RP church, and in a country where the RP church seemed to be near total demise. This is the story of a church—the Ottawa RPC—that has recently celebrated 30 years since its beginning, as well as 30 years of faithful ministry by its organizing pastor, Dr. Richard Ganz, and his wife, Nancy.

Here is an account of God’s merciful providences over these past 30 years.

A Pastor Prepared for the Ottawa Work (1970–1980)

In 1970, I, a U.S. citizen, met a Canadian girl, Nancy, who would later become my wife. During the following year I made many trips across the border into Canada, and in 1972 I became a Christian and was married. (See my testimony at www.rpcottawa.org.) In 1973, we began attending the Syracuse, N.Y., RP Church and, after a year, became members. I also began my theological training at Westminster Theological Seminary. After two years of study, I came under the care of the St. Lawrence Presbytery, and in October of 1976, I was examined and licensed to preach by the St. Lawrence Presbytery.

It was during that meeting of presbytery that I first heard of Ottawa. Dr. Edward Robson (pastor of the Syracuse, N.Y., RPC) suggested to me the possibility of beginning a new work in Ottawa, Ontario. I did not consider the idea for even a moment. It was so far from what I planned to do and where I planned to be that I did not even pray about it. However, I later asked my wife, who was from Ontario, if she knew anything about the city of Ottawa. She gave me a look of exasperation, reserved exclusively for Americans who know nothing about their northern neighbor, and answered, “Don’t you know that Ottawa is the capital of Canada?” No, I hadn’t known that. I knew the capital cities of the 50 American states, but I knew very little about the nation north of us, except that it was cold. I was a typical American, largely ignorant about Canada—and that attitude was surely part of the problem facing the Canadian churches in the RPCNA. They were dependent on an American church that had almost forgotten that the word north was in the name of their denomination.

In 1977, I began teaching at the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) in Philadelphia, and, along with it, Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) courses at CCEF. The following year I was ordained as associate pastor in the Broomall, Pa., RPC for my work of teaching and counseling at CCEF and WTS.

Feeling a call elsewhere, with Nancy and our two young daughters Shoshannah and Elisha, I left my home, my work, and my church in 1979 to go to Switzerland. There I planned to make an evangelistic film to reach my people, the Jews. The project collapsed before it ever began, and I found myself wandering in Europe and wondering (not for the first time since I had become a Christian), “Now what am I supposed to do with my life?” That year ended with Nancy and me on our knees in Basel, Switzerland, humbly asking God to show us what we should do and where we should go. We were His servants.

The next year began, not with a New Year’s resolution, but with a conviction that I must preach the Word of God. The Spirit was working in me, calling me to give my life to this work. I prayed fervently for many months that God would open a door for me to preach His Word and to feed His Church. Meanwhile, I had to feed my family. During that winter, I taught courses in biblical counseling in seminaries across Europe. I taught in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Northern Ireland.

By April of that year, I felt I must take a permanent position somewhere. Nancy and I had left America with a newborn baby and a two-year-old. We had been traveling and living out of suitcases for many months. I needed a home for my family, but God still had not opened the door for me to preach somewhere. Perhaps He wouldn’t. Perhaps I should take some other work. I had been offered a teaching position at a Christian college in the Netherlands. Nancy and I had been converted at the Dutch L’Abri, and we viewed the Netherlands with much love as our spiritual homeland. We were seriously considering this option when I received a phone call from Canada, from RP pastor Ken McBurney in Almonte, Ont. Would I be interested in pastoring a new RP work in Ottawa, the capital of Canada?

I had forgotten all about Ottawa, but God had not. During those years when I had not given it so much as a thought or a prayer, others had. People in the Almonte RPC had been praying for years about a work in the nearby capital city. Dr. Edward Robson had been urging this dwindling congregation to take a step in faith, while there was still time, to begin a new work there. Also, there was a family in the Ottawa area—Aubrey and Joy Ayer with their three children—who had left the large and liberal Presbyterian Church of Canada and were interested in a Reformed and Presbyterian church beginning in Ottawa. The Ayers had been attending the St. Lawrence Family Conference, an annual three-day camp, where they had made contact with people in RP churches on both the American and Canadian sides of the river.

In 1978, the St. Lawrence Presbytery had taken the necessary steps to begin outreach work in Ottawa. In 1979, a monthly fellowship group had begun meeting in the Ayer home and morning worship services were begun in Kanata, a fast-growing community just outside Ottawa. The pastors from the RP churches in Almonte, Ont., and Lisbon, N.Y., conducted these services. The next step was to find a pastor willing to work there full-time and carry the work into Ottawa. Dr. Robson suggested contacting a wandering Jew and former clinical psychologist named Richard Ganz, who was also an RP minister—if they could find him. After a few transatlantic phone calls, Pastor McBurney finally tracked me down in the Netherlands. Would I be willing to come to Canada?

On May 6, 1980, my family and I flew into Ottawa. My first thought was: Is this an international airport? Is this the capital of Canada? It looked to me as if we had landed in some remote northern wilderness. This brave, New York City, all-American boy was already having some doubts about this place, but his wife wept tears of joy as she saw the Canadian flag waving to her in the wind. Nancy had not lived in Canada since she had married me 8 years earlier. She was very excited by the possibility of moving back to her “home and native land…the true North strong and free.”

Pastor McBurney met us at the airport and drove us through the city. Ottawa was a beautiful old city with European charm. Unlike many American cities, it was clean and safe, with miles of bike paths along a tulip-lined canal, leading past Carleton University and the University of Ottawa to Parliament Hill. Road signs were in English and French, distances were given in kilometers, and temperature was measured in Celsius.

After a quick tour of the city, Pastor McBurney drove us to his home in Almonte, a typical small town in Ontario. As we drove past old log farms with cedar-rail fences and redbrick houses with geraniums in the windows, Nancy felt as if she were finally coming home. If I accepted this call to Canada, a homesick wife would not be one of the problems! The following Lord’s Day, May 11, 1980, I began preaching and leading the worship in Kanata. It was obvious from the beginning that there were plenty of obstacles to be overcome for a church plant in Ottawa:

There were no people. There was only one family, and although the Ayer family wanted a Reformed and Presbyterian work, they were not currently members of the RPCNA. This was to be a hard, lonely work, in which dependence was to be wholly on the Lord. As I walked through the streets of Ottawa that summer, speaking to everyone I met, I prayed to the Lord, who could raise even the stones to life, to raise up a people in this place who would glorify His name.

There was very little money—either for a salary, or for a church. The job that was still open to me in the Netherlands had offered me four times the salary, as well as housing. A family of four could not live in Ottawa on the small amount the Almonte church was able to pay. After a little bargaining the salary was raised, but it was still below the poverty line. I had a responsibility to my family. Should I consider accepting a call to this work? Of course, I would not make this decision based upon money. God had answered my prayer—He had opened a door to preach His Word and proclaim His gospel. How did I view that privilege? Did I value God’s Word as more precious than gold, than much fine gold? (Ps. 19:7-10). Yes! The Lord would take care of me. He said, “Do not worry…the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry” (Matt. 6:31-34).

There was no building. There had been no Canadian pastor in the Canadian RP Church for over 100 years! There had once been over 100 congregations and teaching stations in the Canadian branch of the RPCNA. By the summer of 1980, only one organized congregation, Almonte, remained. A congregation at Lochiel, Ontario—an hour and a half east of Ottawa—had been for over a decade without a pastor and was down to just a few people. This sad state of affairs had come about because there was no Reformed Presbyterian seminary in Canada to train Canadian men for a Reformed Presbyterian ministry. Without indigenous training, there is no way to have a sustained ministry.

Needless to say, the problems were not all one-sided. I was not the clean-cut, seminary student that the conservative congregation of Almonte had been expecting. I looked more like a rabbi or a radical than an RP minister. When I was in Northern Ireland, I was frisked continually, even when I went into grocery stores. The folks in the Almonte church were required to take a big step of faith too! Rev. McBurney and his wife, Virginia, were a real blessing and encouragement to our family.

That summer of 1980, I preached in Almonte, prayed in Ottawa, spoke to people about Christ in both places, and attended Synod in the USA. I explored the capital city as I looked for a house to buy (with money borrowed primarily from my inlaws, since no bank would give me a mortgage based on my salary) and waited for my green card, which would give me landed-immigrant status in Canada. Before I could be issued a work permit, I had to demonstrate that no Canadian could fill my position. I assured the immigration department that there were no Canadian RP pastors standing in line for my job. That, in fact, was the whole problem!

That summer I also read a history of the RP Church in Canada by Almonte’s previous pastor, Robert More. His book was called Aurora Borealis and began: “Aurora Borealis is traditionally translated as northern lights…and aptly describes the Canadian Reformed Presbyterian Church.” I was shocked to learn that there had once been over 100 Covenanter congregations and mission stations in Canada, stretching from one seacoast to the other. These early churches had been primarily under the care of the Irish Synod, but some were organized by the Scottish and North American Synods too. What had happened? With heavy heart I read how the Canadian Covenanter Church scene could be “likened to the Arctic sky wherein appears the scientific phenomenon called the aurora borealis. After the season of sun, the bleak black darkness of daily night silently falls….Such is the present state of affairs.”

What had caused this darkness? The historian quoted from a Scottish synod in the 1800s: “We have loud and urgent calls from the Canadas, but we cannot respond to them,” because there are “no men willing to devote themselves to the work of the Lord…in the Canadas.” The Irish Synod also made appeals for help to the USA Synod: “We are really distressed for want of help. Promising stations are slipping out of our hands because we cannot attend to them. Other denominations are likely to enter into our labors. Is it possible for you to do anything for us? We again renew our formal and most earnest appeal for help.” Little help came from the American church. Ministers did not want to move north into Canada. Over the next century the Canadian church dwindled from a membership of 2,000 to the discouraging figure of 70. An even smaller remnant faced me in the pews of the Almonte church during that summer of 1980.

I felt like weeping. What was the point of giving my life to build a church in Ottawa if it was doomed to die anyway? That was when I realized that the work would all be in vain if there were no Canadian men trained for the ministry in Canada. History would repeat itself unless the Canadian church could produce its own Canadian pastors. A Reformed Presbyterian seminary was needed right here in Canada! What better place was there to build one than right in Ottawa, the nation’s capital?

I read Rev. More’s final words to the Canadian RP Church: “It is during this deathly silence of winter that the mysterious, but welcome, illumination of northern lights shines forth. So, little remnant lights, do not despair. Hopefully, as the natural northern lights overview their surrounding darkness and are soon replaced by the life-giving sun, so too your times of quickening may even now be drawing nigh. Amen. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

In September 1980, Nancy and I moved to Ottawa. I began preaching at the morning worship service in Kanata, and Nancy began a Sabbath school for the three children attending. It did not seem wise to abruptly end services in Kanata, so I agreed to continue preaching there for a year. In October 1980 I was installed in the Almonte RPC as associate pastor for outreach work in Ottawa. That same month, we opened our home in Ottawa for evening worship services, and I began the public proclamation of the Word of God in Ottawa. That first night was an historic event that went by unnoticed by the world and most of the church. Worship of the living God in spirit and in truth had begun by the RP church in the capital of Canada! There were only two families in attendance—the Ganzes with their two small children and the Ayers with their three teenagers.

When I was disappointed by the turnout, Aubrey Ayer said, “Just enjoy it, Rich. It will never be like this again.” He was right. There would never again be a worship service where just our two families were present. From that time until the present day, God led, and continues to lead, new people into our midst.

Often in a new work there is an unbearable pressure put upon the one or two core families, as if the success of the work depends upon them. I did not want this to happen. My reliance was upon the Lord. The Ayer family faithfully attended morning and evening worship, and supported the work prayerfully and financially. At the same time, the Ayer family had no starry-eyed expectations about what this new work should be or what this new pastor should do. Aubrey and Joy Ayer had been involved in the initial stages of two other Reformed works, both of which had failed. From their previous experience in church planting, they knew that the road ahead of us was long and hard. It is with grief and tears that we sow the precious seed. A new work would require patient endurance.

Joy and Aubrey Ayer were, and still are, amazing. Not once during that first year (or the many years following) did I ever hear a negative or discouraging word from either of them. Now that I have been a pastor for 31 years, I know how truly remarkable that is! Aubrey went on to serve as an incredible elder for 30 years in the Ottawa RPC. In January 2010, Aubrey decided to step down from the active eldership due to his battle with Parkinson’s disease. He is sorely missed as an elder, and has since been appointed as the Ottawa RPC’s first elder emeritus.

With those first worship services in Ottawa, new ground was being broken, and the work was demanding. That year I met with my former pastor, Dr. Edward Robson, to be strengthened by him. I wish I could say that it was a time of mutual encouragement, but that would not be accurate. It was a one-sided ministry. He encouraged me and counseled me; and together we brought my concerns and requests before the Lord. We met once a month at the USA/Canada border along the St. Lawrence River, between his congregation in the USA and mine in Canada. I praise God for godly men, like Ed Robson, who have led other men in the faith and the work of Christ.

A People Prepared for the Ottawa Work (1981–1991)

Somehow I survived my first winter in Canada. It was a brutal experience. In January of 1981 the temperature often dropped to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and stayed there (on and off) for six weeks. It was one of the coldest winters on record and people kept assuring me that this was not a typical winter. What they meant was that usually the temperatures would soar to between minus 10-20º F for a day or two between the cold snaps! The water pipes in our house burst, the windows glazed over with ice, the locks on my car froze, the children had frostbite. The words of Paul, as he recounted his sufferings for the gospel, took on new meaning for me: “I have been cold,” (2 Cor. 11:27), as did the question in Psalm 147:17: “Who can withstand His icy blast? Who can stand His cold?” Don Millar, who was the first young man from Ottawa that God brought to our church, and who is still with us today (with his children and grandchildren), once said to me that he believed the winter of 1981 had the fury of hell behind it, to drive me away from Canada forever. But by God’s grace, I stood my ground on that frozen landscape.

The winters are not only hard; they are long. I remember a joke that I heard when I first landed in Canada:

Q. What are the two seasons in Canada?

A. Winter and July.

That was an exaggeration, but I have preached during snowstorms in May. As difficult as the winters are in Canada, I have noticed over the years that it is during those long, cold, dark months that the church significantly grows. That first year was no exception. As the tulips were blooming again, in May 1981, our small but growing mission work in Ottawa was organized as a congregation of the RPCNA. Nine months of labor in Canada had culminated in the birth of a new church! At a special service with our mother church, in the historic stone building at the bottom of the hill in Almonte, 20 people (including the Ayer family) joined the denomination. I was installed as the pastor of the Ottawa RPC and Aubrey Ayer was ordained as an elder.

In September 1981, we began morning worship services in a dubious community center in Ottawa. Evening worship services and a midweek Bible study and prayer meeting continued to be held in our home. There was tremendous activity and interest in this new and unique ministry.

In October, the first concrete step was taken towards the dream of a Canadian RP seminary. I wrote a letter to the St. Lawrence Presbytery in order “to apprise you of the current status of the work of the RPCNA in the Ottawa area and to propose to you my hopes and goals for future ministry. Fellow elders, I would like to propose the Canadian branch of the seminary of the RPCNA. If we really mean business about a work in Canada (and I believe we do) then this is an absolute necessity. We must have the facilities here to train young men who possess the gospel call on their hearts. A teaching institution in the United States will never be the answer. While this is an enormous commission to undertake, it is an enormous omission to neglect it. I know that our church can grow and become a vital influence in Canada. For this we need indigenous training. While there may be lean years for a while, this is the obvious time to begin. We have a great possibility before us. God will provide the necessary resources, time and strength to accomplish His work. We should consider beginning classes on some kind of basis by September 1982.…If this vision for the training of men and expansion of the church is from the Lord God, then I urge you to share in it with me.” Excitingly, the St. Lawrence Presbytery was willing to share this vision.

During the next few months, I began speaking with many people from many different seminaries about how to set up a theological educational institution. Everyone assured me that what I was attempting to do was impossible. There was no money, no building, no students, no library, and no faculty. There was nothing! But the more I kept hearing “It’s impossible!” the more I kept thinking and believing, “Nothing is impossible with God!” (Luke 1:37). In the eyes of the world we had nothing, but I knew our church had everything. We had the Lord; we had God’s Word; we had faithful pastors and teachers who could train other men for the work of the ministry. God had not given us a spirit of fear. He had given us faith and hope and love. He had entrusted us with His truth. What more did we need? So we pressed forward with the vision of the seminary.

At the beginning of 1982 our third child, Natanyah, was born. Without knowing all the reasons, we sold our home in the city and moved to a farm just outside Ottawa. One reason was that Nancy and I first heard the gospel in an old Dutch farmhouse in the flat fields of Holland, a place which was called L’Abri (“The Shelter”). We had visions of this century-old, Canadian, log and brick, country house functioning in the same way. Indeed, many people have heard the gospel at this farm.

I remember one conversation in particular when we sat outside discussing our faith with a Jewish economist, a civil servant from Ottawa. He stated to Nancy, “It is just blind faith. You have no evidence that God exists.” She answered confidently, “You’re wrong. I do have evidence.” He continued, “I mean visible, tangible proof—something that you can show me.” Nancy responded, “Yes, I can show you something right now, if you want to see it, that proves the existence of God.”

The man turned ashen. What was this woman saying? To what could she be referring? Reluctantly he asked to see the evidence. “It’s all around you,” said Nancy. “Don’t you see it?” Green trees were blowing in the wind; white clouds were drifting across a brilliantly blue sky; butterflies were fluttering above the fragrant flowers; birds were singing their praises of joy to God. “Of course,” said the man, “You are right.” From there we proceeded to show him further evidence, from the Word of God, that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.

Another reason we moved to the country (unknown to us at the time) was this: It was not good for the church to be so dependent on our home, nor was it good for our family. For almost two years, worship services, midweek Bible studies, church dinners, congregational meetings, daily counseling sessions—everything—was taking place in our home. We needed some distance so that we could continue the work to which I had been called. As soon as we moved, the work of the ministry was shared by the church members. Since then, we have had, and continue to have, many Bible studies and small groups meeting in many homes all across the city.

In hindsight, we see another reason why God moved our family west of the city. The Lord would use me to organize a second church, and for four years I would be pastoring two works. Our farm was located midway between the two places. This would have been impossible had I remained in the east end.

The vision for a seminary in Canada was brought before the 1982 Synod of the RPCNA. Approval was eventually given, but not without a struggle. It was an American Synod that had to be convinced of the need for a Canadian seminary. Pastor Ken McBurney and myself, the RP Church’s only two pastors in Canada, spoke to the Synod of this need. A committee was appointed to study the proposal, which later urged Synod to “go on record as commending the vision and energy in the establishment of the Ottawa Theological Hall.” The new seminary would be under the authority of the St. Lawrence Presbytery. For classroom space, a church was rented for use during the week. Aubrey Ayer was appointed registrar (and also took care of the OTH library). Rev. Harold Harrington was appointed dean. Later, in 1986, I was appointed president.

In September 1982, Harold Harrington gave the opening address at the first convocation of Ottawa Theological Hall (OTH). Classes began that same week and have continued to the present. At the beginning we had six men enrolled as full-time students, and classes averaged around twenty per class. We were on our way!

Although the Synod of the RPCNA would offer no financial assistance for the Canadian seminary, various congregations in the USA would lend us their pastors to teach for one or two weeks at a time. Harold Harrington would begin traveling across the Canada/USA border several times a year to teach systematic theology. Ed Robson would begin his many long journeys that crossed the St. Lawrence River to teach New Testament exegesis. Rev. Ken Smith would also begin the first of many visits to the new seminary in Canada to teach evangelism, and Pastor Bill Edgar would fly north to teach church history.

Over the years, many other names would be added to that list of men in the RPCNA who were willing to travel and lecture in the capital of Canada: David Weir, Wayne Spear, Roy Blackwood, Bruce Stewart, Clark Copeland, Dean Smith, Jonathan Watt, Jack White, Kit Swartz, Anthony Selvaggio, Rick Gamble, George Scipione. Later, ministers from the Irish RP Church would also preach and teach in Ottawa: gifted men such as Ted Donnelly, Andrew Quigley and Robert McCollum. These men were all faithful pastors and teachers who were committed to training men for the work of the ministry.

These men not only blessed the students at the theological hall; they blessed the new church in Ottawa. A constant stream of men, bringing the truth of God’s Word and the life of Christ’s Church, began flowing into Canada from the congregations south of the border and across the ocean. The Canadian RP Church was no longer an isolated outpost on the edge of some vast North American wilderness. It now had many vital contacts and living connections with the rest of the church. I too thrived on this continual interaction with my fellow pastors in the RP Church. In God’s providence, Ottawa Theological Hall was providing a lifeline for the whole Canadian church.

At the beginning of the third year of our new, ever-growing congregation, Bible studies and prayer meetings were being held in various homes in numerous locations across Ottawa. These studies expanded into Lanark County (Ontario) and Québec later that year as, by the grace of God, a number of families came to faith in Christ under the influence of my ministry, and as I followed up on their commitment to Christ by beginning Bible studies in their area. In September 1983, God opened up an opportunity for the Ottawa RPC to rent a church building as a worship facility. It made it all the more phenomenal to us that the church (Eglise Saint Mark, a French-speaking church) was in the heart of downtown Ottawa, just a few blocks from Parliament Hill. We rented their sanctuary for morning and evening worship services. We also rented a large room across the street in a midtown community center to hold Sabbath school classes for the children. We were now renting a total of three separate facilities in Ottawa.

In November 1983, I received a phone call from Dr. Christian Adjemian, a professor of linguistics at the University of Ottawa. We had met two years earlier (through one of his students, Shelly Ayer) and our families had become friends for a short time, but, as the Adjemians later told us, “Jesus kept getting in the way of our friendship.” They did not want to hear about Christ. Two years had passed, and now Dr. Adjemian was experiencing a crisis in his life. He and his wife wanted to meet with us, this time to listen to what we had to say about Jesus. We invited them to our home that weekend to talk.

In the meantime, I had to attend a two-day meeting of the St. Lawrence Presbytery in New York State. While there, a snowstorm began. Most of the presbyters decided not to risk driving home in it. I felt an urgency to get home and drove 8 hours that night through a raging snowstorm because of the Adjemians’ visit. It was long after midnight when I crossed the border bridge over the St. Lawrence River into Canada. The next morning the Adjemian family waded through the deep snowdrifts on our long laneway, and we began the most important conversation of their lives. It lasted many hours, but by God’s grace, it resulted in eternal life. Dr. Christian Adjemian became what he had always been called—Christian. His wife, Laura, also came to faith. The next day, he and his family attended the church for worship, and that same week Dr. Adjemian began his studies at Ottawa Theological Hall. Christian had a very good friend, Dr. John Coombs. He too, along with his wife, Wendy, committed his life to Christ. I began leading a Bible study in their home in MacDonald’s Corners (an isolated rural community over an hour outside of Ottawa), near the town of Lanark, Ontario. It was not long before more than 20 people were attending this Bible study. That year, many people came to faith in Christ and/or came to an understanding of Reformed doctrine. Flowing out of that, there was a core group of people who wanted to begin an RP church in that area.

In January 1985 we began afternoon worship services in Perth, Ontario (a half hour from MacDonald’s Corners, and over an hour outside of Ottawa) for these people. I found a small chapel room where our little group could meet. It was in the large, beautiful, and historic building of the most liberal church in Canada—the United Church. When I was making the rental arrangements with the pastor of that church, he laughed when he heard that I was a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. “You used to own this whole building,” he said. I then learned that there had once been two thriving Reformed Presbyterian congregations in Perth. I further learned that the Reformed Presbyterians who had once owned the building had sold it for $75. We were paying more rent each month for a tiny little room in the building than what the RP Church had received in selling the entire church building almost 100 years before! It was one of the most discouraging moments in my ministry. It all seemed so futile. However, what does Scripture teach? “Your labors in the Lord are not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). There was obviously a lot of ground to regain. We went forward by faith. I began preaching the Word of God in a building and a town that had lost it long ago, and people began hearing that Word and believing it.

I was now pastoring two churches. In January 1985 I wrote that “I would preach mornings in Ottawa, afternoons in Perth, and evenings in Ottawa. I would also give Tuesdays for pastoral work in the Perth area.” Specifically, each Lord’s Day, after the morning 9:30 a.m. worship service and Sabbath school in Ottawa, I would leave Ottawa at 12:30 p.m., drop my family (now including another daughter, Micaiah) off at home, and travel to Perth to conduct a service and lead the adult Sabbath school. I would then leave Perth, pick up my family, and arrive back in Ottawa in time to conduct the 6:30 p.m. evening service. I also devoted Tuesdays from noon until late into the night to evangelism, counseling, and Bible study in Lanark County. All of this was in addition to my teaching at OTH and the other midweek Bible studies, counseling, evangelism, and prayer meetings in Ottawa.

That January I also predicted “that by next year’s annual meeting, we will be bringing in another man to join in the work of this [the Perth] ministry.” How wrong I was! Without missing a single Lord’s Day or Tuesday, I would be driving to Perth through rain, snow, and sleet for the next three-and-a-half years (until June 24, 1988). We were about to face the first major assault on our work. Not only would we not have another man for the ministry, but also there were times when we wondered if there would be any church left at all.

—Rich and Nancy Ganz