My Dad Kitchener, his wife Jean and myself, arrived in Sudbury Ontario Canada on March 18th 1953 after a two day train ride from New York City and after a week long boat trip across the Atlantic Ocean on the S.S America all the way from Belfast Northern Ireland. I was three years old at the time.
My dad came here to be the pastor of a group of Christians who had gathered in Sudbury from all over the world to work in the mines. On any given Sunday people would stand and read the weekly bible verse in their native language which would include, German, Russian, Finnish, Ukrainian, Italian, French English and the like, hence the name All Nations church.
After meeting in the old Sudbury Business College behind the Sudbury Arena they met in several locations including King George Public School on Regent Street and the Odd Fellows Hall on Howey drive and another school on Martindale Road. (Name I can not remember).
To facilitate Sunday evening services in the summer the church commandeered the LaSalle Drive-in Theatre and built a giant stage reaching almost as high as the bottom of the outdoor screen. Church goers would drive in, put the speaker in their window, roll up the window to prevent mosquitoes from attacking and sing along with the choir and the accordion player which was broadcast from the giant stage.
In 1958 during the first strike at INCO, (now called Vale) the first permanent church building was constructed in a vast farmer’s field called New Sudbury. Located on Churchill Avenue the church was erected for $20,000.00 from a loan by the royal Bank of Canada, secured by bonds from a non-church member and now famous land developer in the South End named Ernie Holditch.
In the later 60's Kitchener Mahood took to the air waves of CKSO Radio, live on Sunday mornings at 8:45 am. Later Kitchener would make good use of a half hour of television time provide by Canada's first independently owned television station for the use of the Sudbury and District Ministerial Association, of which my dad and his church were members.
By the mid 70's the church was bursting at the seams and the house next door, which we called Oliver House (named after the owners) was purchased. By 1975 my dad’s health began to deteriorate from a genetic heart and circulatory defect. Never intending to return from my nightclub and entertainment career in New York City, God intervened in my life and made it quite clear he wanted me in Sudbury, not New York.
In 1978, Eileen, my wife, our four month old twins and I returned to Sudbury, to a basement apartment and a $9,000.00 a year job as assistant Pastor of All Nations Church. The previous year in NYC I had made over $100,000.00. Our intention was to come for one year to see how we could help the church transition from my father to its next pastor. That one year has now become 33 years and now we are looking to see how to transition again. This time not from father to son but from son to...well we just don't have that information as of yet.
Kitchener Mahood died in 1983. As of September 2010 Jean Mahood will be 86 years old. The twins are 33. The church has grown from 85 families in 1978 to over 650 families in 2010. We have moved from the Churchill location to Prete St. a former Pentecostal church build by David Manse of 100 Huntley Street fame and we currently worship in Fraser Auditorium on the grounds of Laurentian University. The Prete Street building now houses a Day Care centre owned and operated by the church.
The church broadcasts live each Sunday morning over the KFM radio network through out Northern Ontario and around the world on an a parallel internet feed. Live streaming is also available at www.allnationschurch.ca. Construction is underway to build two 13,000 sq, ft. Monolithic Domes with an 800 seat auditorium and a children's pavilion perched high over down town Sudbury overlooking Brady Street and the Kingsway.
Be careful what you decide to do for a year, it may turn into a lifetime.
