Over the past 41 years, Dr. Harry Haberstock has conducted nearly 2,000 church services, more than 700 funerals and as many as 400 marriages. This week he hands over the keys to Redeemer Lutheran Church to his replacement, Pastor Greg Kjos.

Admitting that spending almost all of a long career in one community is not the norm, Haberstock recalled the decision to come, with his wife, Mary, and their infant son, Paul, to Creston from St. Louis, Mo.

“They asked us to stay for at least two years and I said at least five,” he recalled. “Very quickly we realized five isn’t enough. But I did not have a plan for staying this long.”

Raised in a large family on a farm near Yorkton, Sask., Haberstock completed his high school years in “our church’s school”, Concordia College in Edmonton. He completed two years of college there, too, before moving on to Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1965 to pursue a degree in arts. The next move was to St. Louis, to begin a four-year program that would prepare him to become a pastor in the Lutheran Church.

It was in nearby St. Charles that Harry met Mary.

“Mary almost didn’t marry me because she wanted to continue being a Grade 3 teacher,” Haberstock said.

She relented, though, and gave birth to their first son, Paul, in 1968. Wanting to settle down into family life, Harry said he knew he wanted to return to Canada.

“Mary didn’t want to go to Saskatchewan because she knew the winters would be rugged,” he said. “We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived in Creston.”

The young family arrived in Creston on July 2, 1969. Haberstock was to become one of two Lutheran pastors, with his congregation newly settled into a new church across from the hospital. It still needed landscaping. Another pastor, on holidays at the time, conducted services in the building at the corner of Cook Street and 20th Avenue, and in a Lister church, too.

“I was here just several days and there was a farming accident,” Haberstock recalled. “A tractor turned over on a man. I was involved with that over in Canyon. That was sort of ‘Wham!’ — jumping right into my work.”

The next Sunday he conducted his first regular service, delivering a sermon he called “What Is Your Name?”

“It was a way of doing introductions,” he said. “Other than that, I don’t remember much about it.”

Haberstock drew the cover for that Sunday’s bulletin, Mary helped with the typing and the one-page publication was printed with Gestetner machine. His congregation was about 75 strong in those days.

“Our people had been talking about merging prior to my coming,” he said. “Each church was subsidized so it wasn’t a viable situation. In 1970, the other pastor resigned. I had covered and helped his people while he was away. We got busy talking and negotiating—it was a smooth transition but it took a lot of work.”

For the next decade, Haberstock would work to unify two distinctly different congregations.

He credits Rev. John Morelli, the priest at Holy Cross Catholic Church, with helping him appreciate that his work was not to be solely for the benefit of his congregation. Morelli had invited Harry, Mary and Paul to dinner shortly after their arrival and soon Haberstock joined the Creston Ministerial Association.

“One part of our congregation was quite insular and the other was community oriented,” he said. “For the former, it was a big step to let their pastor be involved in the community.”

In 1973 he became involved with a group that aspired to create a seniors’ care facility and he chaired the committee for seven years. Pioneer Villa was completed in 1980.

“I’ve often seen my stay as being in segments of seven to eight years,” he said.

Shortly after Pioneer Villa was built, he was elected to the Lutheran Church board of directors in Edmonton.

“It was in the mid-’80s and I’d been here for 15 years. I asked my supervisor how longer stays in a community work.”

By that time, Mary was back to teaching full-time and their family had grown to four children. Tim was born in 1970, Sarah in 1972 and John in 1975. The family had built close ties to the community and felt settled. And Haberstock began to get “calls”.

“I have had 24 opportunities to work elsewhere. We call them ‘calls’,” he said.

Most of those calls were from Alberta, several came from Manitoba and one was from Rockford, Ill., where his former supervisor wanted Haberstock to come and work with him.

“The calls always challenged me to reflect, ‘What are you doing?’ ”

“You actually have two calls — one to go and one to stay,” a church bishop once told him. “Don’t feel guilty about your decisions.”

“Sometimes I did feel guilty because I didn’t want to leave because I was on a hockey team,” he laughed.

As he became more involved with his church at a political level and then undertook studies that would lead to a doctorate degree, Haberstock got another bit of important advice.

In a meeting with one of his supervisors, he was told not to bear the burdens that are inherent in his work alone.

“Don’t go back to Creston and sit there alone — you’ve got to find somebody,” he was told in 1986.

“I called (now retired psychologist) Dr. Gary Deatherage and asked if he could give me some time. He was completely gracious,” Haberstock said. “Having someone to talk to gave me the conviction that we can’t afford to be lone rangers — if we are giving we also have to receive. We think we can handle it all by ourselves but we can’t and we shouldn’t try.

“It’s been tough at times, especially when there is a cumulative effect. One of the greatest gifts has been those years of having Gary Deatherage help me. “

In his doctoral studies, Haberstock worked closely with two Creston men who would have a major impact on his life. Dr. William Mitchell-Banks, onetime Canadian Family Physician of the Year, and Lower Kootenay Band Chief Chris Luke became teachers, mentors and friends.

During much of his time in Creston, Haberstock has been a familiar face at the Creston Valley Hospital. Again, he points to colleagues.

“Father Morelli was a mentor. He filled me in on how to survive in small towns. I discovered I wasn’t alone when I got started with the ministerial association,” he said. “His successor, Father Joseph Barnes, was at the hospital a lot and he taught me that the church is bigger than your little congregation.”

The move into hospital ministry was a comfortable one and he made the walk across the street from his office daily.

“I went into see the people who I was responsible for,” he said.”I became friends with nurses and staff and the calls would come in, sometimes when there was a crisis and other times when someone was just lonely. Sure, there was the convenience of walking across the street but I was drawn to the work — I was always drawn to institutional chaplaincy.”

A familiar face during the annual Christmas hamper project, Haberstock recalled the early days, when 50 or 60 hampers were distributed to families and individuals in need. That number has grown to nearly 400.

“In recent years, Pastor Carl Sawler has made a huge difference. He just gives of himself. The whole hamper thing — he just picked it up and gave it something extra that I could never give it.”

As Haberstock moves into retirement, he is aware that passing the torch to a successor won’t be without its challenges, especially because he and Mary will remain living in Creston.

“My colleagues think I’m crazy staying here,” he admitted. “They see red flags all over the place. I feel them, too, so I’m going to have to be very sensitive to somebody else who has been given responsibility in this parish.”

He has moved his office from the church into the family home and is now entering a life that is not centred around his church of 41 years.

“Pray for Mary,” he laughed. “Retirement? Probably the most difficult thing is for Mary to have me move into her space.”

He remains involved with Addictions Recovery in the Kootenays (ARK) and the dream of building a rural facility in the area. Haberstock has also become a director of Langley’s Wagner Hills Farm, a treatment and recovery centre he has come to admire greatly.

Rotary also will continue to be a strong interest, he said.

“Father Barnes was the one who really talked me into joining Rotary,” he said. “The international aspect is what drew me, like micro-banks in Guatemala. I certainly envision being a part of Rotary for another long while, being a part of the community that is home for us, yet stepping aside in very crucial areas.”

Sports and outdoor activities, children and grandchildren, reading, perhaps finishing the book he starting writing years ago — Haberstock doesn’t anticipate difficulty in making his days full and meaningful.

“I still go for walks and I’ve never got tired at looking up to those mountains.”