Page 37 - Presbyterian Connection Fall 2025

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ConnectionP R E S B Y T E R I A N
Tie the Tale to
the “T” in the Tote
By the Rev. Kenn Stright, retired
minister and past KAIROS Atlantic
Regional Representative
Time to toss some “Ts” in the
tote. It seems I spent a lifetime ac-
quiring T-shirts. I have to choose
which ones still fit, which ones
pass the “good enough to wear”
test and maybe more importantly,
which ones still tell a tale I wish
to hear.
Okay, it’s time to sort. First
come the camp T-shirts—most
are from Camp Geddie, where I
was chaplain on numerous occa-
sions and on staff a time or two;
and a couple were gifts for being a
guest speaker, or the time I visited
as synod moderator. I can’t keep
them all, but one stands out as a
gift from the Rev. Donald Walker
MacKay who, at the time, was
camp director and a dear friend
for decades. Donald was one of
our long-serving missionaries in
Africa, completing several terms
in Nigeria and then in Ghana. Yes,
this “T” is a tale I retell time and
again.
Next come what I will call my
Indigenous collection. There is
one T-shirt for volunteering at the
Truth and Reconciliation Com-
mission (TRC) hearings in Hali-
fax, another expressing solidarity
with the First Nations community
of Pictou Landing, N.S., as they
demanded the closure of Boat
Harbour. I have an Every Child
Matters T-shirt, which was a gift
from the people of Sipekne’katik
(Indian Brook First Nations). The
tale I want my “T” to tell takes
me back to a truth-telling by the
Rev. Stewart Folster in Halifax. He
invited me to stand with him as
he told his story to the hundreds
gathered. Wearing my TRC vol-
unteer T-shirt, I stood with him
and held his shoulder as emo-
tion overwhelmed him as he ex-
pressed the hurt—and the heal-
ing—that have been part of his
life.
I have an entire section of T-
shirts accumulated from my lead-
ership at the Young Adult Work-
camps (CANACOM), held across
the Caribbean and Canada over a
14-year period. Each one tells the
tale of young adults giving of their
time and talent to the cause of
Christ, and each one is a reminder
to me of the importance of mis-
sion in the life of the church. From
Brazil, I wear the T-shirt of the
1996 meeting of the Conference
on World Mission. I search and
fail to find the T-shirt from the
Ecumenical Decade of Churches
in Solidarity with Women, where I
was one of 50 men invited to the
1,200-delegate meeting in Ha-
rare, Zimbabwe.
My church collection covers a
multitude of decades and issues
and organizations, such as KAI-
ROS, the Youth Trienniums (and
later Canada Youth). Thanks to my
home province of P.E.I. for gifting
me one of their Canada Youth T-
shirts! I even found my original
Congregational Life T (honesty
has me admit it is a sweaT-shirt!),
which tells the story of my seven
years on the National Congre-
gational Life Committee and its
successor, the Life and Mission
Agency Committee. The Asso-
ciation of Presbyterian Christian
Educators has a number of T-
shirts, but I get tired of explain-
ing what “Simply Zwingli” means
in our Reformed tradition. And
then there is my favourite from
this section—my David’s Place
T-shirt. What a special place this
is. Street people, church people,
tourists and anyone walking by
finds a warm welcome, warm
hospitality and a warm meal,
along with a listening ear and
helpful advice. St. David’s Pres-
byterian Church in Halifax con-
tinues this special place, though
it has been modified since the
Covid pandemic. I need to include
one more favourite in this cat-
egory as I dust off the Congress
’96 T-shirt from the last Congress
held by The Presbyterian Church
in Canada, where I served as con-
vener of the national committee.
The T-shirt tells of two years of
hard work and delicate organizing
and finally great memories.
Other shirts are in my sailing
collection. Every sail maker and
every marina and every outlet has
a T-shirt to identify their prod-
uct and are more than willing to
give out a free T to anyone who
might be a customer, or even a
cap or two. In this collection is
found one of the passions of my
life…sailing. One T is from my
very first boat that I raced, but
my favourites (let’s see, there are
seven of these) come from racing
crews over two decades. Each
represents a stage in my sailing
life and reminds me that being
part of a crew, like being part of
the church, requires everyone to
do their part for the success of
the boat.
What’s left in the tote? There
is one given to me as a gift from
CBC, where I was a community
reporter for a decade. Here is an-
other from Guyana, where I was
a temporary missionary with the
Guyana Presbyterian Church.
Then there is that T-shirt from the
World Council of Churches when
I was in Africa, and a few from
secular organizations that I sup-
ported over the years. I was gifted
a T-shirt or two from ecumenical
partners as we met at various
conferences.
I wonder what other tales would
have been told if I had kept all the
other T-shirts over the years. At
a KAIROS gathering in Sackville,
N.B., we were invited to make a
collage of T-shirts to express the
justice issues we were involved in
as individuals and as a group. The
collection was impressive!
Every T-shirt has a tale to tell,
and I hope tying the tale to the “T”
helps you remember times and
events and causes and concerns
that have been, and continue to
be, important in your life. Wear
them with pride.
So, back to sorting the tote…
Which ones do I part with, which
ones stay?
On Easter Sunday, Akongnie received the sign of God’s covenant love in bap-
tism—a beautiful beginning to a lifelong journey of grace.
Front-Row
Seat to Grace
By the Rev. Daniel A. Surya,
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian
Church in Lethbridge, Alta. This
article originally appeared at
danielasurya.substack.com
This past Easter Sunday, I had the
deep privilege of baptizing two
beautiful children, surrounded
by their family, friends and our
church family.
It wasn’t just a ceremony; it
was a story being written before
our eyes—a sacred beginning, a
reminder that faith often starts in
the arms of others before it finds
its own feet.
Moments like these—this is
why I love being a minister. Grace
unfolding, joy rising, lives being
quietly marked by the hand of
God.
After the baptism, something
even more beautiful happened.
The family, originally from Cam-
eroon, rose and danced—a cel-
ebration, a cultural expression of
gratitude to God for the gift of new
life and new beginnings. Their joy
was contagious. It felt like heaven
had leaned a little closer to earth.
Later, we gathered in the gym to
share cake and fellowship—sim-
ple things, really. Yet, I couldn’t
help but think that these “simple
things” are often where the deep-
est graces are found: laughter
around tables, hugs exchanged
between old friends, children run-
ning between chairs, crumbs of
joy left behind as evidence that
we had truly been together.
Being a minister isn’t about
grand sermons or perfect ser-
vices—though I do love a good
sermon and a meaningful service!
It’s about standing in the quiet
spaces of people’s lives—hold-
ing the joy, the tears, the mile-
stones—and bearing witness to
God’s quiet, steady faithfulness
through it all.
The photos here stir my heart
because they remind me that min-
istry is a front-row seat to grace.
Not always loud, not always obvi-
ous, but always real.
Every milestone matters. Every
life is a story God is still tenderly,
patiently, beautifully writing.
And I’m grateful to stand close
enough to see it.