St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church - Montreal
75th Anniversary Celebrations

• The banquet on Saturday, the 5th of October, filled Beck Hall at 6:00pm. with well over a hundred guests, spread out over ten or more tables.

• Besides St. Ansgar's parishioners, many visitors came to toast our 75 years and to wish us well. At the Head Table were the honourary consul of Denmark and his wife, Pastor Helmut Saabas and his wife, former pastors Thom Zumbrock and Sid Nelson, current pastor Samuel King-Kabu and his wife, and Council President Don Findlay and his wife.
  We were especially pleased and blessed that Don was well enough to join us, and to lead off with opening remarks, as he has been quite ill of late.

• Anne Jorgensen served as master of ceremonies.

• The food was excellent, having been prepared under Rosa's careful direction, and it was difficult to keep her in chair, to relax and enjoy the meal. Service, though, was quick and excellent, quite a feat considering the number of people and the bare handful of servers.

• Rev. Samuel King-Kabu led us in singing grace, to the tune of Edelweiss:

  Bless our friends, bless our food, Come, O Lord, and sit with us.
  May our talk glow with peace, May your wisdom surround us.
  Friendship and love may it bloom and grow,
  Bloom and grow forever. Bless our friends, bless our food,
  Come, O Lord, and sit with us.

• Dessert was accompanied by special music:
  
  • We all sang the celebration song written by Svend Berg.

    Click Here to see the song!

  • Henriette Hansen performed a violin piece, accompanied by Julia Shantz
  • Maren Nelson-Miller gave us a solo performance of an inspiring song: Bless This House, and then returned later for a "fun" piece: Second-Hand Rose.

• Former pastor Sidney Nelson was the guest speaker. His topic was Grace, and he remembered cherished times at St. Angar's, interspersing the anecdotes with kernels of humour.

• The mike was left open as a number of people came up from the floor to deliver impromptu remarks.

• Finally, Anne Jorgensen closed the formal presentation by reading a number of congratulatory letters that had been received.

• We closed the evening with the hymn: Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee