The example of a man who had claimed to be a decorated soldier during the Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa in 2014 was the motivation for the Remembrance Day message given by the minister of Westminster Memorial United Church in Kamsack on November 6.
Kevin Sprong, minister, used the example of Franck Gervais, who was not a member of the Canadian Forces but falsely impersonated one, contrary to the Criminal Code of Canada.
“Why would he do that?” Sprong asked, and then explained that big events have big emotions to them. “We don’t put plaques up for people who buy the biggest trucks, but for war veterans we do.
“I learned that courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it,” he said. “The brave person is not the one who does not feel afraid but the one who conquers that fear.”
As examples of brave persons, Sprong listed soldiers, widows, persons fighting cancer and those who have lost children, and said that big events evoke big faith.
But some people lose that faith after the fear is past even though everyone knows that there is something there that is great, he said. Some know there is a deep truth hidden from those who will not risk deep faith.
“Big events give opportunity for deep faith,” he said.
Participants in the program included: Marilyn Marsh, the music minister; Susan Bear, choir director; Ralph Cuervo, bugler; Olga Bobyk, greeter and Adeline Nykolaishen, who read scripture.
