The new rector at St. Paul’s Anglican Church moved halfway around the world to a new parish, a new pulpit, and a new kind of freedom.
Rev. Vernon Foster, who moved to Nanaimo from Pretoria, South Africa, will be inducted as rector of the downtown church this Sunday, Sept. 8.
Foster said he was very happy doing his previous work a school chaplain, but wanted to seek out a different experience. An important consideration, too, was that a move to Canada meant he wouldn’t have to be vague anymore about his same-sex relationship, and could bring his partner into the church without fear of reprisal.
“It’s probably the most important part of my journey into this space,” Foster said. “Not that it was the motivating factor; it wasn’t, I could have gone on for years the way I was, I loved what I was doing, I was respected … But the beauty in coming here is there is no fudging.”
He and his partner Dolph have been welcomed in the church and the community. Foster raves about a Service Canada worker he dealt with who not only remembered them by name some time later, but was genuinely interested in how they were settling in.
It will take some time for him to learn about his new home. Around St. Paul’s, in Nanaimo’s downtown, Foster sees similarities and differences to Pretoria. Drug use is somewhat more visible, but mental health problems and homelessness exist most anywhere.
“There’s a lot of that here, but alongside that are people that are living rather more privileged lives – there’s quite a stark juxtaposition between those who have not and those who have,” he said.
Part of St. Paul’s mission is to provide the support and resources to alleviate some of the hardship people are experiencing, he said.
Asked about joining a parish in Canada’s least-religious metropolitan area, Foster said he’s been doing some reading about why the U.S. Pacific NorthWest and Canada’s West Coast are some of the most secular places in the world. While many people in Nanaimo don’t subscribe to specific religious orders, it doesn’t mean they are not spiritual, he said. He knows organized religion has made mistakes, and understands why people are suspicious about churches.
“That is a challenge, to say that actually, this is a good place to belong. It’s good to come to a community of faith and be part of a community of faith, but many people feel that they can’t, because they’re suspicious of that ordering,” Foster said. “But it does not mean that they don’t have any sense of the divine or any sense of who God is and where God is in their lives.”
Filling the pews would be nice, but the measure of the church’s success, the priest said, will be how well it can communicate to people that they are loved and valued for being who they are as creatures of God. Foster has already been preaching on Sundays and has sought to remind the congregation that while “it’s very easy to try and put God in this box we call St. Paul,” they should be aware of those around them and exist not only for themselves, but for others in the community, church members or not.
He wants to bring to the church new life and excitement and joy, some of what he’s been feeling himself.
A few weeks after arriving in Nanaimo, just as the Sunday service at St. Paul was finishing up, Nanaimo’s Pride parade was making its way up Church Street.
“It was the very first time that I could stand outside at the parade in my church clothes, in my vestments, with my partner next to me, and there was no question [if] that’s a problem…” he said. “For me, that liberation and what I felt can only be of God.”
