In March 1988, I took over the position of Protestant Chaplain at the Shelburne Youth Centre.  I maintained this position for over eleven years until my retirement in December 1998.  This was a part-time position so, along with this, I was pastor at a part-time church.

 

The last few years that I spent at the youth centre, my wife and I became quite involved in the Christmas programs for the youth.  Most of the time the number of residents at the Youth Centre ran approximately 70 — boys and girls.  Quite often about half of the residents, or more, would spend Christmas at the Centre.  Some were allowed to go home.  On Christmas day, there would be approximately 40 present at the Christmas service and dinner.  Many times their families would be there as well.

 

The last few years that we were there, we approached some of the churches to help out with the gifts for those who remained at the youth centre for Christmas.  The youth centre would provide one gift for each resident.  For some of the residents this was the only gift they would receive — nothing from home, so we took it upon ourselves to arrange for extra gifts for them.  This made a lot of work for us, but we enjoyed it.

 

On one occasion, a girl was sent to the centre on Christmas Eve and it was too late to get her a gift, so my wife went to the drug store and bought her some gifts.

 

The residents would come to Chapel on Christmas Day, all excited about the gifts they had received and were quite surprised to find out that we hadn’t opened our gifts yet.

 

Those were some of the best Christmases we ever had.  Of all our years in the ministry, we enjoyed these the most.

 

Leslie Jobb