GOD WORKS IN PUZZLING WAYS

By Rick Hiebert
The Pentecostal Testimony, August 1997, Volume 78, Number 8

Bert and Marilyn Peel attend Mississauga Gospel Temple. For several years they've had a burden for people living with AIDS. In June they moved into Riverwood, a 3,800 sq.ft. country house and retreat centre for people with AIDS. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

For Bert, a retired church custodian, it all started after he read The Body by Chuck Colson. In the book Colson recalls the story of Bessie Shipp, an inmate in the advanced stages of AIDS whom he reluctantly agreed to visit after a Christmas speaking engagement. He and the chaplain found Bessie reading a Bible trying to "find" Jesus. After a brief visit they led Bessie to the Lord. Three weeks later she died. "It seems so strange," recalls Bert, "but I kept going back to that story, thinking that maybe God was leading me to help these people."
The next piece of the puzzle came on Sunday morning in church. At the conclusion of the service, worship leader George Grosshans led the congregation in a closing hymn. The word "who will take my love to the lost and dying?" seemed to jump out at Bert, and again he thought about what he should be doing to help people living with AIDS.

Sun shining through a Fall forest

Meanwhile, Marily, his fiancé and a former nurse, sensed that God wanted her involved in palliative care. A notation in her journal at that time reads: "Lord, are you leading me to work with people with AIDS?"

When asked why they care so much about people with such a dreadful disease, Marilyn says: "These young men have been created in the image of God. They deserve a chance to know His love." I don't think she realizes, but Marilyn has just quoted Mother Teresa.

I need to take a moment to tell you how I fit into the puzzle and take you back to COPL '93. Probably because I was the national director of social concerns at the time, I was assigned the workshop "Developing an AIDS Policy for the Local Church." The topic was one I cared deeply about and was sure COPL '93 delegates felt the same.

When the day of my workshop arrived, however, just 12 people showed up. Granted, there were 22 other workshops going on at the same time but a mere dozen people out of 1,875 registrants? Even a paint drying demonstration draws a bigger crowd than that. Fortunately, four years of undergraduate training had equipped me to deal with such a setback. Going to the Bible for guidance I found the role model I needed - Elijah. I let God know what a waste of time this had been, that I didn't deserve such treatment, and that one day the whole PAOC - if not all of Christendom - would regret missing my workshop.
I don't imagine that God was impressed. He didn't need my selfpity to give Him perspective. The people meant to be there were there, including Bert and Marilyn Peel. It was another piece in their puzzle.

After COPL '93 Bert and Marilyn were married. They soon found themselves visiting AIDS patients at the Philip Aziz Centre in downtown Toronto. They don't push Christianity on the people there but find many opportunities to share their faith.

"We're just here to love them," Marilyn says adding, "These people are very open; they have lots of questions."

That's how the idea of a retreat centre came to them. Sensing the need to provide a tranquil setting where AIDS patients and other terminally ill people could go to "sort things out," the Peels sold their house in Mississauga and bought property out in the country. God more than confirmed this as His will through a number of amazing answers to prayer.

The Riverwood Retreat Centre became a reality in June. "It's like a bed an breadkfast place," says Marilyn, "only our guests have AIDS." The only requirement is that each "guest" be able to administer their own medication. Now all the pieces of the puzzle are in place.

 

 

Visit the Retreat Centre page.