Rick

Wycliffe Divinity:  Class of 1979 / Reunion 2024

Richard (Rick) LeSueur

Greetings Friends! 

How I would enjoy being with you at the reunion luncheon in Toronto next week. So many times, over the years, I have thought of you, looked at the graduation photo of us all, wondered “How is … ? Where is he/she now?” One can be sure we are all in the ‘retirement years’ even if not ‘retired.’ There have been sad losses in our group. And the winds of the Spirit have led each of us into ministries and vocations none of us ever imagined when we embraced and said farewells 45 years ago. 

Remember Rhonde? 

My life partner now for 44 years. We live in Canmore – where I first served in 1976 for a summer ministry after our first year at Wycliffe – and where I fell in love with this mountain splendor. 

We have two magnificent grown sons. Jamie serves as the head of emergency operations for the International Federation of The Red Cross (lives wherever there is a new humanitarian disaster). Phil lives here in Canmore (happy dance) and is a geo-hazard specialist with the federal government. Both are married, have dazzling accomplished wives and now a clutch of children. Delight. 

Alberta Bound

Following graduation we enjoyed fourteen wonderful years of congregational ministry in southern Alberta. Lethbridge in a team ministry. Okotoks south of Calgary with a mix of young families commuting into the city, salt-of-the-earth prairie farmers and ranchers to the west. In 1986 Herb O’Driscoll reached out and invited me to join him at Christ Church, Calgary. (Tough decision.) We had magnificent years during which he became a dear friend and cherished mentor. The reason why I cannot be with you at the reunion next week is because I am preaching at Herb’s memorial service this weekend and then officiating the internment. 

Jerusalem

In 1992 we sold half our belongings, put the remainder in storage, gave our dog to my parents and packed up our two young sons for three years in the Middle East, where I joined the teaching staff of St. George’s College, Jerusalem as the director of their desert program. It changed our lives. 

T.O. 

In 1996 we came back to Toronto. No one was speaking about PTSD then and I figured going from a war-zone in East Jerusalem to a large inner city parish in Toronto was a simple move. It took about nine months to realize it would be a short-term ministry with St. Clements. 

Stampede

In 1999 I joined one of the most dynamic and creative parishes of my ministry. Two months before my arrival they sold their historic location of 93 years with the vision of relocating 50 blocks further west in the rural areas being turned into new subdivisions. When I arrived with a box in my arms I was told “don’t unpack anything.” It was fun, exhilarating. We became a ‘church without walls,’ worshipped in a school gymnasium and asked a fundamental question: “What does a vivid, lived, noticeable Christian spirituality look like when there is no longer a building to define your identity?” Instead of funding a broken old building the people were free to fund new ministries in a new young community. 

It was during that decade, with the privilege of serving on committees of General Synod and as Archdeacon of Calgary, that I discovered administrative leadership in the life of the Church was not my deeper vocation. Jerusalem had opened a vast new horizon of insight into Jesus’ ministry and the emergence of the Christian faith, as understood in context, in the land. In 2007 I launched a travel business Pilgrim Routes Travel that ‘housed’ the next 14 years of pilgrimage programs to Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Ireland – that was carried out in parallel to parish ministry. 

Coastal Vibe 

In 2010 we pulled our Alberta stakes, handed over our spurs and headed to Cadboro Bay, Victoria to join a parish that fit like a glove. Clergy who head to Victoria usually do so at the end of ministry with the plan to stay on the coast. After six wonderful years I retired from congregational ministry and headed home to the mountains to expand the pilgrimage ministry.

Sure .. why not? 

In 2017 we were invited to return to Jerusalem where I served as the interim Dean of St George’s College for a year, followed by an interim with Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver until covid shut us down. 

New Ventures in Film 

Since the ‘drapery was pulled shut’ by covid I have been writing screen-play for an online video series called “Fifth Gospel” to be filmed in Israel-Palestine and Jordan – making available to any and all what only a few can experience. Endorsed by the Anglican Church of Canada, Global Relations with funds gathered from former pilgrimage participants, we were all set to leave last October 9th to commence filming – and then October 7th happened. We rebooked for last month but cancelled again in June when it became clear that a new front of the war was about to be launched into Lebanon. So, with the prospect of filming in Israel quite remote now, we did what happens today, you ‘pivot.’ 

I leave next week with my cinematographer on a 10-day desert excursion into south Sinai to commit to film that extraordinary biblical landscape and its people. I am very excited to return with one jeep, a driver and a dear old friend with whom I have shared more than thirty excursions into the wilderness of the south Sinai. The result will be an online video series, posted for free, next Spring, on the theme of, ‘Wilderness wisdom for a church in transition: Reclaiming our nomadic roots.’  

Rhonde

Rhonde had a career serving people with disabilities; ran agencies, taught at the University of Calgary and then headed up the Disabilities program at Mount Royal University, Calgary. Retired, she now lives an active life, designing spectacular quilts and being a gentle grandmother. 

Please be in touch – come and visit us in Canmore. 

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