THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
KEITH MALCOLM HUNT
We had arrived in Florida, bought a nice small duplex, on the edge of Clearwater, and we were heading for the Sabbath at a church under the umbrella of The Church of God, International.
CGI was the abbreviated letters it was known by. Now they were a group of ministers and lay members that had left the Radio Church of God about 1979.
The service was over, but not the talking—— their one time minister had moved to another part of the USA; his secular work had transferred him. This “deacon” stood up and ballasted their one time minister; his wife and some others were cheering him on. There was the opposite side voicing their opinion. Back and forth it went like cats on a hot tin roof trying to fight each other. I was shocked that this was happening. I could take it no more and finally told up and said, “I am a minister, and brethren this not the way to be going on, especially immediately after church service, with strangers in the room, like my wife and myself. You should be handling this in private, church members only present.”
Well that got this deacon, his wife, into more agitation. Within seconds I had become the enemy of this deacon and his wife.
I had no idea what all the rift was about, and at this point I did not want to know.
That service was over and it was clear there were two fractions of this congregation opposed to each other. The CGI office was situated in Tyler, Texas. One of the men there I was equated with. This church rift of course got back to the Tyler office. The man I knew there, told the one time pastor of this CGI church in Clearwater, to get back to them for the next Sabbath service and try to sort out the problem.
The following Sabbath service arrived; their one time minister brought the sermon, I guess he and the Tyler office hoped it would fix things up. It did not. This man deacon and his wife immediately after services, was again accusing this pastor of this and that. The split in the congregation was at it again. It was sad to see nothing had changed. I well remember that pastor leaving very sadly, and going back home to wherever he was now living in the USA.
That local church was now divided over me, the deacon and his wife suspicious I had some secret agenda going on. I told this deacon to his face that I had no agenda at all. We were just visiting for the winter. He did not believe me or did not want to believe me. My wife and I just kept a very low profile from then on out. Some people in the congregation did warm up to us, and over the winter months we invited them over to our home for fellowship and a meal after services. Yet the deacon had his followers would not talk to us. Each Sabbath service you could cut the air with a knife. I sat down and wrote a letter to this deacon explaining again we were not there to do anything but to fellowship with the church on the Sabbath. My letter still never got through to him and his wife. For them they were the “good guys” and we the “bad guys.”
I did write to the man I knew in Tyler [his name was Ron Dart], and told him I had tried talking to this deacon and his wife, to no avail. I did tell him the trouble in this Clearwater church was most definitely being cause by the deacon and his wife.
The months went by, and it was close to Passover time. Ron Dart informed the Clearwater church he would come down and conduct the Passover service and stay for a few days into the Feast of Unleavened Bread and bring a sermon or two. I think the deacon and his wife and their followers, were thinking my wife and I would not show up, because for them we had some secret agenda to do something like take over the church and take it away from the CGI umbrella. Which was utterly ridiculous, but when demons are at work, anything can get twisted around in the minds of people.
Passover service came., so did Ron Dart; so did my wife and I.
The first day of the Feast of Unleavened bread, there were others there from out of town. Ron Dart brought the sermon. After services it was our custom to all mingle and fellowship with each other; we usually had drinks and finger food. At an appropriate time, when Ron did not have a group of people around him. I went to him to talk; we greeted each other warmly and had a conversation. I’m sure most everyone saw that Ron and I were good friends.
Shortly after I had walked back to my wife, a couple came over to us and said, “We are sorry, but we got off to a bad start with you, please forgive us, and can we start over again?”
“Of course we can” I replied.
We were good Christian friends from then on out.
After Ron Dart’s visit a few more warmed up to us; sorry to say the deacon and his wife did not; they were still at loger-heads with us and others, and they still had their group, but now somewhat smaller.
It was a few weeks later that my Dad called me and said, "Keith your mother is dying better get up here fast. Now I knew my Mom did not have good health, but this was still a shock. My wife and I packed our suit case, was able to get a flight immediately to Toronto, and on "compassionate" fare fee. From Toronto a flight to Kelowna B.C. We arrived at about 7 pm in Kelowna. We headed straight for the hospital. My Dad was there and told us the story. The day before, Mom could not lift her leg off the couch. Dad told her he was taking her to the emergency. The doctor took a blood sample from Mom. He returned and told my Dad that she had contracted a rare cancer that attacks the muscles. It is painless so you do not even know you have it, until you can't move a leg or arm. He went on to say that the last muscle it attacks is the heart. My Mom only had hours to live.
We stayed till 11 pm and then a "hospice" lady came for the night. Mom was already asleep so I never got to speak to her and she never got to see me.
At 2 am the phone rang. It was the Hospital telling us my Mom had passed away in her sleep.
I conducted the funeral service three days later. It was a very nice funeral, with songs my Mom always liked; there was a good turn out as they had been part of a 10-pin bowling club since 1985.
We stayed around for a few more days, making sure my Dad was okay with things. He was, because for 10 years he had done all the cooking and house work, because of Mom's bad health with the crippling type of arthritis she had. Some years earlier I had made her a pair of shoes to fit her feet, as her toes were all bumped up and out of shape. I made an extra one for me to keep; so it's also here on my book stand.
My Dad was okay, and so we headed back to Florida.
It was the same ol' same with that CGI church in Clearwater.
I had done all I could to try and set things straight with that deacon and his wife.
I said to the Father, “I’ve done what I could, as Jesus said in Matthew 18, if you have problems with your brother. I’ve done it Father, and now I have to leave it in your hands.”
So it was now Spring time, and time for us to move on.
We decided to go north—— way up to New Brunswick; we’d never been there before, but we knew a few people in the Saint John area. The travel north was unaventful. What was amazing was when we were over the top of New York city on Interstate 95, and I looked over to the city—— it blew my away as to land long the skyline went with sky-scraper buildings, truly amazing.
We arrived at the town of Saint John, a town back then of about 75,000 people, with some smaller towns around, close by.
It is a lovely area of Canada, rolling green hills, a river running through Saint John. Fredricton is the capital city of New Brunswick, and driving across country to it from Saint John is just picture perfect, small farms amidst rolling green hills.
We were not sure how long we would stay at Saint John, we would play it by ear as the saying goes. We contacted the people we knew and they were delighted to see us. They gave us a tour of the area. We decided to stay for at least 3 months, and then make a decision if we would move along. As it turned out I meet the young couple who worked in their shoe repair store, in Saint John’s largest mall. And he needed help to keep up with the work. So I found myself offered a job. I decided to take it.
We were into the summer of 1991. Word arrived that my wife’s mother had died. We took off for Ontario, to a town called Orangeville, north and west of Toronto. The funeral was over. My wife inherited $20,000. Back we went to Saint John, New Brunswick. There was a house for sale in the village of Hampton, about 20 minutes from Saint John. It was an income property; a main floor with two bedrooms; and the lower level was two, one bedroom apartments. We bought the house, lived on the main level and rented out the two apartments. All was going well—— then—— the Refinery went on strike. Have to tell you about the Family that pretty well owns New Brunswick—— the Irvin family; they are the richest family in Canada. They started off with Grandpa’s having a corner gas station, and slowly moved up, invested etc. Now 4 generations later they own New Brunswick, in the number of businesses they own and the number of people they employ. The Refinery they own; the Ship building docks they own; they are into Forestry; into Potato Chips; they are into Oil; they build ship tankers to carry their oil around the world.
The Refinery goes on strike for reasons I never found out. It went on for some months, when people were going to lose their homes the Union caved in. The Refinery is back to work. Then the Ship building docks goes on strike. Now that reason I do know after talking to a carpenter in another Union, who worked on the ships. I was asking him why that particular Union went on strike. He told me, “Keith the Irvin family are very nice people, I’ve worked for some of them doing carpentry work in their homes. They found out that the men in that Union were only working about 4 hours out of their 8 hour shift. And the Irvin’s wanted the right to be able to fire them.”
“What on earth were they doing the other 4 hours—— playing cards in the corner? I kinda jokingly replied.
“That’s exactly what they were doing!” He answered.
He was dead serious, they were doing exactly that, playing cards for hours of their shift.
The Irvin’s told the Union them they want to be able to fire such people; the Union said no, and said they would go on strike.
The Irvin’s replied, “You do that, we could care less, we are billionaires, and can have our ships build in Japan.”
Now you talk about some silly, stupid Unions—— that is one classic example.
But the damage to the local economy had been done. The young couple I was working for, they were having a hard time keeping me employed. I finally said to Terry [the man’s name], “Terry, you’ve bent over backwards to keep me employed but I know you just can’t do it any more; lay me off and at least I can collect Unemployment Insurance. Terry said thanks Keith, and so I was out of secular work.
The shipbuilding Union lost their fight; the Irvin’s got to fire those bumps who would not work their full shift.
I was out of work again. We had our income home, so we were okay.
It was now close to the fall of the year. A man at the age of 82, whom we knew from a local Seventh Day Adventist church, called us and said, “I hear you have a duplex in Florida with one side vacant. How about you taking me there for the winter months and I pay you for looking after me?”
We thought about it for a day, and told him yes we would do that.
So once more we were back in Clearwater, Florida.
We arrived at the CGI church for Sabbath services. A man in the parking lot, greeted us really warmly, kinda overly warmly. We got to the church door, and was again greeted with enthusiasm.
“Do you not know? Have you not heard?” One man said to us.
“No, not heard anything,” I replied.
“You know that deacon who had it in for you. Well only about 2 weeks after you left he came down with cancer from head to foot; he was dead within a week!”
My….O my, I was in total shock; I know I told the Lord I would have to leave the situation with Him….. but, my O my, never in my wildest thoughts did I expect that was how He would take care of the problem.
The deacon’s wife was a changed woman, you’d never have known it was the same lady. The atmosphere in the congregation was totally turned to humbleness, it was a 180 degree turn, and smooth humble joyfulness was everywhere evident. So it was, so it came to be in that church.
I’ve never said that prayer again when in uncomfortable situations with anyone, in or not of the Church of God.
We settled down to have a nice warm winter in Forida.
It was January 1992. There was a “For people older that 65” Retreat, not too far away. Our 82 year old man [forgotten his name, we’ll call him Tony], said he’d like to go to it for a week. We drove him there and said, “Have a great time Tony, see you in a week.”
A week later, we picked Tony up, and he had had a wonderful week, indeed so. He was quiet for a while in the car, then said, “I’ve met a lady over the last week; would you mind if I go back to Canada?”
What are you going to say to such a request.
Tony was off back to Canada within a few days.
My wife and I sat at the table and looked at each other and said “Well what are we going to do now?”
The house in New Brunswick was rented out, all three sections.
“You are a shoe maker and orthotic maker; try looking for work
here in this part of Florida” said my wife.
So I did. And yes I found work. Now someone in my situation at the time, this is how it worked then in the USA. The Federal Government put an ad in its system for someone of my qualifications, if it was answered the company wanting to hire me had to interview that person. They could refuse that person the job, but had to tell the Feds why. If there was no answer from that ad by the Feds, you then went the next step. The company wanting you, had to put an ad in the local paper, 2 inched by 3 inches; they could say whatever they wanted in the ad. If someone answered the company had to interview them; if they refused the person the company had to tell the Feds why. If no one answered the ad, then the company could hire me, pending a medical.
Not one person every answered the two ads.
I had my medical, passed with flying colours and was now employed in the USA.
There were a number of small churches in south Florida who had left the Radio Church of God at different times, for different reasons. So I was engaged to help them spiritually on the weekly Sabbath and Festival times. One congregation needed a pastor each Sabbath, over Fort Lauderdale way. So for about a year I was their pastor, and travelling from Clearwater to Lauderdale each Sabbath, the church there paying my expenses for travelling and one night in a Motel.
There was a pastor up north and west some, who was very happy to have me come once a month and bring a message and fellowship with them.
The spiritual work was full and rewarding over the 3 years that we lived in Florida, not without a few problems here and there, but when pastoring to a variety of congregations, you very seldom in my experience have no spiritual and physical problems, yet there was nothing of a serious nature to contend with. Not even close to the one I had in Clearwater the first time over that winter of 1990/91.
Florida was not at that time a prosperous state of the union, more of a senior retirement state. A young skilled carpenter who did some work on our duplex, told me that for all the skill he had, he could find no work that paid more than $12 an hour.
When you are the last to be employed, you are usually the first to be let go. Over those three years I ended up working for these companies.
There was one very good working job I did for the second company I worked for.
This older than middle age man came in to my boss and asked if he had a man who could make him shoes like he was wearing. My boss brought him to see me.
“I understand you are a show maker, but can you make shoes like these I’m wearing.”
“Yes I can” I answered.
“I mean really like these, not slipper type shoes, but like these I’m wearing.”
“Yes I can, I am trained in making exactly those type of shoes.”
“Well……. I’ve searched for you all over the USA. Everywhere I go I look in the yellow pages for shoe makers. When I get to see them they tell me they only make slipper type shoes. My shoe maker for many decades has died. I’ve search for you all over the USA. I am so glad to find you.”
I made shoes for him; his name was Jim Lynch. I made an extra cast and one extra upper, to keep for myself. I still have then on display here on my book case. Jim had one short leg about 1 and 1/2 inches shorter than the other. I incorporated a cork build up inside his shoe. I felt blessed got have been able to serve him; and I’m sure he felt blessed to have found me. It was one of those things that was meant to be. I was there when he needed me. God does things like that…..ah you bet He does.
Three years had gone by and jobs had run out on my trade. We heard from the people renting the main upstairs of our house in New Brunswick—— the roof was leaking. It was time to sell up in Florida and head back home to the village of Hampton.
…………………………
To be continued
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