Personal Testimony

I was born to Larry and Thelma Kelway on September 9, 1939 in Victoria, BC. About a year and a half later my Father left home. My Mother founded a hair dressing business and later worked as a telephone operator to support us. We moved back and forth between Victoria and Vancouver then to the interior of the Province where we lived in several communities.

When I was eleven, we moved to a little Okanagan Valley town called Enderby. One spring day I saw a boy about my own age turning a skipping rope for some girls on the school grounds. His right leg was in a cast. I don’t remember having seen him before. Though he was some distance away I felt strangely drawn to him. So I went over to talk. After school, because the sidewalks were still snow packed, I pulled him home on his sleigh. His name was Brian. Later he would become a good friend.

Brian invited me to the Sunday school at First Baptist Church. The congregation was associated with the Convention of Regular Baptist Churches of British Columbia. Later the Convention would join, The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada.

That summer Brian, another friend and I attended Sunnybrae Bible Camp near Tappen, BC. On the second evening before the end of camp the speaker spoke to us about sin and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. After the campfire I went to my cabin, knelt down and asked God to forgive my sin and Jesus to be my Savior. I told my counselor what I had done and he took me to the camp director to whom I repeated my story.

The next night, the last before the end of camp, there was a testimony time. I stood up and told the group, “I got saved last night.” So I was on record. When I returned home I told my Mother and our Pastor what I had done. Shortly after I was baptized and joined the church.

Committing my life to Jesus resulted in two dramatic changes: For some years I'd cursed like a sailor but it suddenly stopped. My Mother was stunned by the change. The other change was my addiction to the “show hall.” There were two movies in Enderby every week. I went to both of them. During the time I watched the movie a void was filled in my life. It returned when I left the theater. But when I had received the Lord Jesus the empty feeling had gone. Those two events and what the Scripture says in John 1:12 convinced me that I had truly become a Christian.

It wasn’t long before I became involved in the ministry of the Church. I served as an usher and also started the wood furnace on Sunday mornings. Service suitable to my age and experience became a lifestyle. A brief summation of a lifetime of ministry may be seen in my resume.

I am so grateful for the mercy and grace I enjoyed throughout my life as a child of God. Without the Lord Jesus I would never have had a chance at life.

Family Thumbnail Sketch:

Erika and I have two children: Greg lives in Sarnia, Ontario Canada with his wife Audrey, two girls and a boy. Elizabeth lives in Port Huron, Michigan USA with her husband Gerald and two boys. We are a short walk from the beautiful St. Clair River which is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway.