Dear Willowdale Church
My name is Emma Duchesne, and I just finished my third year of Religious Studies at Burman University. I have had the pleasure of being placed at your church for my summer field experience placement. I am excited to get to know all of you and experience the family here at Willowdale. I have never been to your church before, so this is a new experience for me.
A little about me: I was born and raised in Ontario as a pastor’s kid. For most of my life, my dad has served in small churches across Ontario. For this reason, Ontario as a whole feels like home to me. I am much more familiar with small churches, so my first real exposure to a larger church was College Heights at Burman University. If I seem like a fish out of water for the first couple of weeks, that’s why.
I did not always want to be a pastor or be involved in ministry. In fact, growing up, I always said that I did not want to marry a pastor. Little did I know that God was calling me into ministry. My teenage years were a difficult season for me because my parents divorced, and I drifted far from God. I had been ignoring Him for years, trying to live life on my own terms. When I had to decide what I was going to do with my life, God pointed me to the Religious Studies program at Burman. I wrestled with that calling for a couple of years, but eventually I listened and reluctantly enrolled. God has been faithfully growing and shaping me over the years, and now I love my program and the direction that God has led me in. As I always remind myself, God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called.
I am excited to learn and grow here among all of you, and I look forward to seeing and experiencing how God is working in this church.