CANADA 1
Blind Church W Beth Thomas is a freelance writer living in Maryland, United States, with her husband and two children.
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hen Ralph and Patricia (Pat) Page and Charles Thomas began a small group for the visually impaired 10 years ago, they hardly dreamed that their vision of a church for the blind would become a reality. The Pages and Charles worked for Christian Record Services (CRS) Canada, an organization dedicated to empowering the visually impaired. Each year, CRS and National Camps for the Blind sponsored a camp at Camp Frenda, the Adventist summer camp in Ontario. Feeling a need to continue nurturing relationships with campers who attended each summer, several CRS Canada staff created a monthly gathering
called Hope Vision Fellowship. The Pages invested heavily in the group by renting a conference room at a hotel in Scarborough, an eastern district of Toronto. Charles was the point person, and Kevin Avery, a blind camper who had recently been converted, organized the activities. Their goal was to eventually establish a church for the visually impaired. When the CRS Canada program ended in 2008, Hope Vision Fellowship continued meeting. Unacquainted with the work of Hope Vision Fellowship, Theodore Sargeant, director of Compassion Ministries and Services for the Ontario Conference, and Mansfield Edwards, Ontario Conference president, sat down to discuss
the needs of various groups in their territory. It became clear that those with special needs or different abilities weren’t being served the best that they could be. During a routine visit to one of the churches in the conference, Elder Edwards learned of the small group meeting in Scarborough. He was invited to speak for their monthly Sabbath worship service and, after visiting with them, was so impressed with the concept that he commissioned Theodore to serve as group pastor, providing oversight and guidance. In 2016, the conference was satisfied that the group had enough stability to be formally organized as a congregation and, on October 26, Hope Vision
