"Elderhood Trail" Travels With Dan...
"Today we introduce an Elder ancestor of mine... one that I never met, yet who inspires me in My Elderhood Journey..."
“Pastor Ekse, one of our older and highly respected pastors, died suddenly on the 24th of November, 1930, and his funeral, attended by an unusually large number of people, was held at Singaas Congregation’s Church near Hendricks, Minnesota, on the 28th of November…”
Dear Fellow Hikers,
Today I want to share an Elderhood Trail story at a reader’s request. My seminary friend Matt has heard me often talk about my Great Grandpa, Pastor Jacob Ekse (1860-1930), on my Mom’s side. He emigrated from Norway to America in 1882. Pastor J.J. Ekse, an ancestor that I never met, but through a three page obituary** (that I found in a pile of family history papers) has inspired me for many years. But the inspiration has increased significantly the past couple years as I’ve begun my Elderhood journey. I think that’s probably because the obituary was written as he had just completed his elderhood journey… as an older and highly respected pastor… now returned to dust.
His story makes me think about how each of us will be remembered when we complete our own Elderhood Trail Hikes. The obituary includes a very interesting story of how he died, a biography of his life, a re-cap of the funeral, and some traditional funeral ending comments of Pastor Ekse’s life. I intend to publish the text in its entirety in a future post. But for today, I want to share a few excerpts that are becoming the foundation of my elderhood inspirations. These paragraphs, located in the middle of Pastor Ekse’s story, spoke to me of his character, his personality, and the gifts God gave him… the things that guided him in his calling to guide others in the development of their relationships with God. This I believe is everyone’s calling… to authentically live their lives as God created them to live.
I am not writing this letter to say that I have the same characteristics and gifts as my Great-Grandpa. However I am saying, that I aspire to follow his lead. I want to work hard to identify the gifts that I have been given… develop and utilize those gifts in the places I feel called… and share them in the ways God intended. I hope you enjoy the kind words that the obituary writer shared about Pastor Ekse. I have highlighted the words that most inspired me.
“… All this and more that could be mentioned shows clearly that Pastor Ekse was a man who enjoyed the trust and respect of people not only as a true christian with a living faith, but also as a man with considerable learning and gifts of leadership. They looked up to him as one of the leading men within our church. Both in times of strife and peace he was the same humble, peaceful, well balanced and dedicated to God man and christian who well understood how to hold the reins and steer in such a way that the Lord‘s work was advanced and that the congregations grew in a smooth and steady way from year to year both as far as the inner and outer life were concerned…”
“… Ekse received the grace to perform a great work where our Lord had placed him to labor in His kingdom on earth. As a preacher he was above the average and his proclamation of God‘s word was solid, clear and above all practical. He was allowed to experience quite a bit of spiritual awakening in his congregations from time to time. He never thought he could go it alone. He had a need to make use of all the gifts of grace in the congregations and time and again he invited laymen and pastors from outside of his own congregations to come so that they together with him could throw out the net of God‘s word and then draw it in again, and not so few times it happened that Pastor Ekse together with his coworkers were able to make a good catch. Many came to life in God, the Lord be praised…”
“Solid… Clear… Practical… Always done in community.” These words are the rock foundation that I intend to build my Life Hike upon. Enjoy!
With Care and Gratitude, Dan
Postscript…
Re: ** The Obituary… Other than the font, italics and bold emphases (those are mine), the obituary text above was copied using the sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling as it was originally translated from Norwegian. I believe the obituary was translated many years after the original Norwegian text was written in 1930.
Next Up: “What’s in a Name…” (Friday 03/21/25, S2/L16)