It was pasta night at First Baptist in Thorold, Ontario. Rev. Chris Stefanidis, the church's freshly-minted pastor, had his hands wet. He'd just worked in the kitchen, making the pasta sauce, plunging dried pasta into pots of boiling water, washing pots and wiping kitchen counters . . . he was cooking for the church's general meeting and calling on his years of training in his parents' Greek restaurant to pull it out. He finally sat down to eat . . . next to Bev Bouck. "Keep it up and they will never fault you for anything!" she said quietly in his ear.

The tone was set for the relationship that Bev and her young pastor enjoyed right up to her death. Bev made a point of encouraging him . . . no matter what. Rev. Stefanidis admits that he made a "ton of mistakes," and yet she went out of her way to encourage him: "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. We're a really tough bunch," she told Rev. Stefanidis one day. "I could trust her. She wanted me to succeed," he admits in a choked voice.

Indeed, Bev had always been a faithful encourager and her family and her church enjoyed Bev's generous giving - of her time, talents and money.

Family
When in her twenties, she gave up an opportunity to stay in New York, where she had a good paying job, because she felt called to come back home and look after her parents in Thorold. Most don't know this but by returning, Bev gave up the chance to be married in New York. She chose to remain single for the rest of her life.

Her church