Pastor Ericson

The above photo is one of many from Joan [Ericson] Swanson. Her father was Pastor Ericson, who served as pastor at the church I grew up in, the St. Vincent Evangelical Free Church (now known as the Pembina EFC...) It started out as a small non-denominational group that came to be known as the Valley Community Church. At some point they affiliated with the EFCA. Anyways, back to the photos and Joan...

I was doing a search on Flickr to see if there were any images posted from my old hometown area. Lo and behold there was. It was an image of a home I didn't recognize at first, but after contacting the user found out it was the parsonage, and she was the daughter of a former pastor of my old home church. In fact, her Dad served from 1957 to 1959, and was the one that conducted the dedication ceremony for me as a baby.

Although I never knew the Ericson family, I felt I did in a way thanks to my parents talking about them. Pastor Ericson had a special place in my parents' hearts since they were led to dedicated themselves and their family more to the Lord due to his influence. Pastor Ericson lent a helping hand and showed Christian love in practical terms, when assisting my father in building a much-needed addition to our humble home. It was acts like that, that cemented in my parents' minds that their faith was more than words.

I contacted the user, who turned out to be Pastor Ericson's daughter Joan. During our brief exchanges since then, she has kindly posted more photos of their years in St. Vincent, including group shots of the St. Vincent EFC congregation, choir, and parsonage, and a few of the town itself.

What the term 'Free Church' means; also, "Forerunners of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant were the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Ansgar Synod and the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Synod. When members of the two synods dissolved and the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant was formed, some of those who did not enter the Mission Covenant formed the Swedish Evangelical Free Mission (now the Evangelical Free Church of America). The Evangelical Covenant Church maintains ties with the Swedish Mission Church (formerly known as the Svenska Missions-förbundet; see Svenska Missionskyrkan and CIPE), and the other churches in the International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches." - From Answers.com