Ponder Anew

December 9, 2025

Good afternoon,

How do you frame your personal story or memoir ?

Addresses of the houses where I have lived ?

76 North Street. St.Catharines, Ontario

I was born in St. Catharines, Ontario, the sixth child of David and Annie Redekop. The house was just off the downtown, and I think it was a poor street and area of the city. I was hospitalized with rheumatic fever before 1965. I am not sure of the year, but I remember my parents visiting me in hospital. Also sometime before 1965, my father had an accident with his milk truck. He broke some ribs and was off work for months. On Christmas Eve, Santa came to our house bearing gifts. There was a gift for everyone in the house, and I remember the canned goods rattling against each other. That sound has stayed with me. I do not know who told someone about our family… the church, the dairy or social services, but I believe in Santa Claus because of this event.

363 Simcoe Street. Niagara-on-the-Lake

We moved here in the summer of 1965. The house was old, and it had survived the War of 1812, The US burned most of the town, after the British had burned down the White House. It was called the Creen House, and was one of three houses designed by the same architect in a square block in Niagara-on-the-Lake. My dad bought it for 9,000 dollars. He sold it in 1968 for 17,000 and change. After we sold it the  new owners stripped it down to the chimneys and the frame, and rebuilt it. The last time it was on the market it was for the asking price of over 2 million. I started second grade when we moved, and we attended Parliament Oak public school. I met Mark Graham here, and he became my best friend.

220 Mary Street. NOTL ( Two and half blocks from Simcoe Street )

This was a much smaller house. All eight of the children were still at home. My brother John and I slept in the TV room, just off the kitchen. There didn’t seem anything abnormal about it. Before my parents moved into St.Catharines, all of us had left the house, moving to other places and going to school. I graduated from Parliament Oak and Niagara District Secondary School. Trent University, Peterborough I attended Trent from 1977-1980. I had grown up in a conservative household and church, so it was a big move. At the time, Trent was considered the most gay friendly university in Canada. I lived in residence at Lady Eaton College for three years. I majored in English and History, and I considered myself an average student. I participated in student government and played on the university basketball team. I really enjoyed my time there, and I made major steps in thinking for myself.

Ferme Liehouse, Biederthal FRANCE

 I signed up for the MCC InterMenno program in January 1980. We were to live with European Mennonite families for a year. I was accepted, and went to the orientation time in Akron. PA. This is where I first met Shirley Stauffer. We flew Icelandair to Luxembourg, my first  airplane ride. My first placement was with the Goldschmidt family in Alsace, France. They lived on a farm, where they raised beef cattle and hogs. The couple I lived with were Pierre and Mary-Jane and his parents lived upstairs. At that time they had two girls. They would have a boy a few months after I left. The family still lives in this 500 year old house.

 Altersheim Weyergut. Bern, Switzerland 

In the second six months of the program, I worked and lived at a seniors’ home. I was a custodian there. The directors, the Andenmattens, of the place had lived in the US under the same program, in Oklahoma. I explored the city of Bern in my time off, and went with the train all over Switzerland.

AMBS  3003 Benham Avenue, Elkhart Indiana, USA

After I returned to North America, I started my Seminary education at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Since grade 4, I thought I wanted to be a minister. My first courses were challenging, and it was not what I thought preparation to be a minister would be like.  I had assumed the Bible was dropped out of heaven for the church. I learned that it was written by real people, in real time, and about real issues. It was a human book with divine realities and teachings. One experience sits with me today. I asked a question about a theological issue, and the theology professor said, ” if you had asked that question in the Reformation you would have been killed.”  No other comment. I was devastated.

Box, 9 Phanat Nikhom, THAILAND ( two different houses )

Shirley and I got engaged in April 1982, and married in July. After I did an internship at my home church in Virgil, Ontario in the summer, we left for a three year assignment serving with MCC in Thailand. We listened to the suffering and pain of thousands of refugees from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The camp was surrounded by barbed wire, and the refugees were not allowed to leave, unless they got accepted by a Western country to resettle there. It was a difficult experience for us, but our understandings of the world and faith were helped by everything we saw and heard. Our oldest, Lucas was born in Bangkok in June 1984.

AMBS  3003 Benham Avenue

We returned from Thailand in October 1985, and I began my studies again at AMBS. I was more settled there in my faith and life. We left there in May 1987 to take a position as a pastor in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Our second, Jared, was born while we were there, in Goshen Indiana in May 1986.

443 Hawthorne Drive, Lancaster PA, USA

I started as pastor of Bethel Mennonite Church in July 1987, and served there for four years. I did not know anything about the traditions of the church there, and so I learned a lot. I preached almost every Sunday. I was helped by the former pastor, Paul Wikerd, and my cousin, Judith Rempel Smucker, who were members at the church. At some point, we decided that we wanted to raise our children in Ontario, so made application in early 1991. Our two youngest, Hannah and Caleb, were born at home in February 1989 and July 1991. We had the help of a midwife, Rosena Howard. I accepted a call to be pastor of Floradale Mennonite in August 1991.

27 Main St ( or 2356 Floradale Road ) Floradale, Ontario

I stayed 25 years. We were fortunate to be able to raise our children in such a stable environment. I accepted five five year covenants with the church. They offered me three sabbaticals, 1996, 2003 and 2011. They were generous with time and money. In 2007, I suffered a heart attack, but returned in April 2008, and served eight more years, finishing 2016. There are thousands of other stories to tell from 1991-2026. Till later.

4 Ernst St. Elmira , Ontario

We moved here in 2015. I took a job with MCC telling the MCC story on Sunday mornings, and to community groups. I worked there from 2016-2020. In 2017, Poole Mennonite asked me to come on as interim supply for six months, and then in 2019 I returned half-time. In March 2020, the Sunday that the pandemic hit, I started full-time. I served there until March 2025. I retired then.As you might think or imagine, there is more to my story. I could shape it with anxiety attacks, worry, health challenges, my marriage, my children, my faith or the over forty years of wilderness, cheering for the Maple Leafs and Cleveland Browns. Sorry for the length, Any questions or comments ?

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? MPL 2025

8

	)