This is part of my story…

I was born and baptized Anglican. In fact I was born premature. I don’t think Anglican had anything to do with that, but either way I survived. Having a cleft palate took me into school early so that I could improve my speech. This resulted in spending two years in kindergarten in a private school in Regina.

Grade school was routine, but going to Sunday school and church I found interesting. I became a server at the Altar and also played the organ for the Children’s service. Those were the days when there were four services on a Sunday – early morning, children’s service, main morning, and evensong. This has resulted in a very long interest in serving in the church. Special Sundays, like Christmas and Easter were nick-named the “technicolour services” with the different colours that the clergy and servers wore.

After some University courses, I went north to work surveying and researching. During this time I met my wife and partner, Patricia. The single female to male ratio was about 1 to 700 at that time, so I believe that God had a hand in bringing us together. Moving east, we had our children and then moved back west to northern Manitoba. I took up other interests in the church, becoming            a lay-reader. Part of the lay-reader’s responsibilities was to take services to other communities along the railway who were not fortunate enough to have a priest. Our parish priest also travelled to those communities but not as frequently as we did.

After we moved south to the St. Andrews area, we became involved in St. Andrew’s on the Red, and then the Cathedral. Music is what brought us here.

Finances were sometimes tight with six of us in the family. However, we always made it through with just enough for what was coming next. There were other special expenses for medical and other family reasons, but somehow the money was always provided. We have been blessed with good health even though there are exceptions in some areas.

Through all of our almost sixty years of married life, I can honestly say that God’s promises have protected us from major incidents, have ensured a reasonable quality of life, and have continued to bring blessing to us and those we work with.

Stewardship, to me, is how we use the talents we have been given and the time we have to give to God’s service as well as how we use our money. In short, how do we serve the Lord in our living?

Roger Stagg, Sacristan & Treasurer of the Cathedral