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
"Bev did all kinds of things that kept the ministries going at our church and she was never even noticed or wanted to be noticed and yet, when she could no longer do them, it became very apparent to our church how much she actually did without any acknowledgement," says Stefanidis. Bev served in Thorold's Sunday school from the age of 14 . . . and 40 years later, she was still serving. Bev didn't stop there. She served Christ on the church's mission committee for over 40 years, and every week, she counted the penny boxes and deposited over $1,400 per year, on average . . . all in pennies!
But Bev didn't just count pennies for missions. She valued people. She would take in students from China who were attending Brock University as a ministry for the church and she treated them like they were her family . . . without ever expecting anything in return. "One student traveled over 2,400 miles to be at her memorial service," remembers Stefanidis.
"She wasn't hard to love," Rev. Stefanidis says today as he looks at a piece of varnished wood on his desk. He reads the words inscribed on it: The hardest part of doing nothing is knowing when you're through. Those words describe the quality and quantity of service and ministry Bev did in her 40+ years at First Baptist Church, Thorold. They explain Bev's love and support of Baptist Women. She served Baptist Women faithfully for over 50 years. She believed in and supported its mission.
No surprise then that Bev's words of wisdom for today's Baptist woman would be: Don't give up supporting missions. Even pennies can be used by God to do much more than we could ever think for or ask.
By Renee James
