From Ontario to Quebec: A Life of Service in Mission

by David Somers

Although officially retired decades ago, Pastor Frank and Nancy Morgret decided to support LCC’s French missions soon after the founding of the mission in Quebec City in 2008. They moved from Ontario to Quebec and resolved to learn French in order to participate actively in Word and Sacrament ministry there.

Despite the challenges of acquiring French language skills, they nevertheless quickly became steadfast and key participants in the mission. The generous sharing of their gifts with the Sainte-Trinité congregation proved to be a stabilizing force as the small group painstakingly grew and moved from one rented meeting place to another. A particularly edifying element of Pastor Morgret’s presence was his regular pastoral letters, translated from English, sent to all the members.

The size and isolation of the group, along with the greatly varied linguistic, cultural, and religious backgrounds of the two dozen or so members from seven countries, as well as the absence of a full-time francophone pastor (though there were many part-time), and supervision and coordination carried out by the MAL in distant Montreal via email, phone calls, and visitations, would all seem to have been insurmountable obstacles impeding the very existence of this Lutheran community. Yet the members did exist and grow and worship—but by the grace of God.

Pastor Morgret shared this reflection on the Quebec City experience: “The brothers and sisters in Christ in Sainte-Trinité are a genuine blessing to Nancy and me. Tertullian wrote of the love for their Lord and for one another he saw among third-century Christians. It is also easy to see here among these folks, as we know well.”

The Morgrets have returned to Ontario for a “second retirement.”

Rev. Dr. David Somers is the Missionary-at-Large for Lutheran Church–Canada’s French Ministries. Somers is also the founder of the Institut liturgique luthérien francophone, and editor of the Lutheran Church-Canada hymnal Liturgies et cantiques luthériens (LCL) & the LCL-Édition africaine

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