Make Straight the Way of the Lord

My Story

I was almost grown up before I found out that my immediate forebears had been famous civil engineers. More importantly though; that they had lived out their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ throughout their home and working lives. Resulting from their success, the family I grew up in was financially better off than most and I received the best of schooling and of preparation for my life ahead.
I did not share in their glories as engineers except in a very modest way. As an aeronautical engineer I made a small but significant contribution towards the development of the Anglo/French supersonic airliner, the Concorde. After around fourteen years in a technical capacity, I found my niche in the training, education and human resources field within the aircraft industry. This move into the interpersonal field of work led me quite soon out to Australia. I was assigned to facilitate the emigration of forty technical and skilled trades people and their families to join a company subsidiary in Melbourne and to settle them in suitable rental housing on their arrival by sea or air.
As soon as this assignment had been completed I was fortunate to be selected for the newly created position of Human Resources Manager for IBM in Melbourne. This was at a time of extremely impressive growth in the Australian division of that company. After a few memorable years I obtained a transfer at my own request to IBM in Don Mills, Ontario, Canada. I was very sad to leave Australia yet this move would permit easy travel by air to visit my aging parents in the U.K. The first of many visits to the U.K. was accomplished during the following year.
My first experience of executive management came with an appointment to head up the Human Resources Department of Peek Frean Biscuit Company in Toronto during a few years of significant company success. I learned much and gained valuable new experiences with that company under the excellent leadership of a fine Christian President.
A spiritual calling led me next across Canada to Vancouver, B.C. in which I experienced church life much akin to that of the early church following Pentecost. My career now became less important to me as the Lord led me into a deeper relationship with Himself than I had ever imagined possible. My eyes were opened afresh to see how large elements of the Christian church had departed from the pattern clearly revealed and practiced in that former New Testament era. On the one hand I was dismayed at this situation yet, on the other hand, I felt grieved for so many deeply seeking souls who longed for the real Christ-centred life and worship.
At one point I found myself employed at minimum wage in a Christian Bookstore while engaged after normal working hours in lecturing to mature students at a well-known technical college. While both situations were very valuable the latter in particular, which covered in all eighteen years, was especially stimulating and memorable in that many students later found significant career success.
A student in one of my classes persuaded her boss, the Administrator of a sizable hospital, that he might consider me for the position of Director of Industrial Relations and Human Resources. He took her advice and for the next twelve years I had many adventures with satisfying memories in this challenging field.
Events ordained by the Lord took me away from the circle of believers with whom I had enjoyed the Lord and had been joined in love, into some of the very settings I had grieved about. I was particularly involved in home groups thereafter and was occasionally asked to preach, yet I declined a number of invitations to become a church member, having been clear since the time of my entrance into the kingdom that the Lord’s body is one and indivisible.
Following sixteen years as a management consultant based in Vancouver B.C. and at age 70 I concluded my working life with a heart full of gratitude to God for the pathway He had led me along. I looked back on countless wonderful events and experiences, with so many memories of the kindness and graciousness of others with whom I had been privileged to work.