May 18, 2008

90 | 65

Those are two pretty significant numbers.
Tonight, at the church on the mountain,
we celebrated those two numbers.
They are a quick description of the life of a man.

Rev. George P. Tunks

He celebrated his 90th birthday on Thursday.
Tonight we celebrated his retirement ...
from 65 years of ministry.

He was born 1 year before the official formation of the
Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.
The same year as another great preacher:
Billy Graham.
His first wife, Ruth, was the first women ordained by the PAOC.

At the age of 83 he was hired part-time, to pastor our Seniors,
he told our Senior Pastor:
"I can give you seven years!"

Can you imagine?
Almost 20 years past the time everyone else is looking to retire ...

I can't even begin to imagine the number of lives he has touched.
The souls that are in the kingdom because of his faithfulness to the Call.

A humble man.
An intelligent man.
A gentle man.
A man faithful to the Word.
A man who's appeal reached across generational lines.
A man with a snappy sense of humour.

"I woke up happy ...
and I'm happy i woke up."

I'm going to miss him around the office.
I'm glad I'll still see him in the pew.

4 comments:

Patti said...

Wow, that is really wonderful. What a great post! Thanks for this!

Patti said...

I tagged you for a meme at my blog. It's OK if you ignore it.

:)

LadySox said...

Hello Kelly,
My name is Catherine and I am Pastor George Tunk's niece. Would love to contact you about this special man who passed away yesterday.

Kelly said...

Catherine;

i'm so sorry for your loss. Pastor George was a remarkable man. It was so nice to see him in church yesterday morning.

you can reach me at the work email. kelly@bgthamilton.com