Due to some technical difficulties, Pastor Bekah’s thank you speech audio was cut off on our recording of the service. Here is a copy of her speech, for those who joined online or who watched later and were unable to hear this portion of the service.

Victoria Alliance Church community, family and friends, both here in the room and watching online: thank you feels like an inadequate phrase for the depths of gratitude I feel in my body in this moment.

When I came to Victoria Alliance Church just over six years ago, I wasn't sure this day was where my life was heading. I was wrestling with God, I was healing from the many griefs of church gone wrong that I held as both a pastors kid and as someone who'd been working in churches almost my whole life.

In fact, for most of my life the Alliance was a denomination where being a pastor was not even an option I saw as available to me, so I truly could not have even imagined this day - not until even a few years after the official legislation changed in 2012 and women were included in the ordination practice for the first time. Truthfully, I didn't start to imagine it until the day I landed here.

It took me a long time to find my fit, and I am so thankful that Jesus brought me on this journey in the way that he did. Because through it, I learned so much about what it really means to serve the church - and how it's mostly that we are always, always, always learning. Always trying again. Always aiming for more grace, more forgiveness, more love, more joy, and more peace.

And so if you’ll indulge me, I would like to honour out loud a few of the teachers whose faith, love, leadership and care made a big impact on me and helped me get to this moment.

My parents, Rev Trevor and Lisa Hagan, who will be watching this later because they're serving at their own church this morning in Northern BC - thank you for loving this strong willed child even when I exasperated you. Thank you for always supporting me and loving me, even and especially when we didn't always agree. Thank you for showing me Jesus with integrity and truth.

To my grandparents, Rev Lawrence and Janet Hudson, whose own churches became second homes to me growing up on the prairies. It is an honour to stand on your shoulders as pioneers of Alliance ministry in Canada.

To my siblings Jacob and Rachel and my in-laws, LaDona, Alloys, Leslie, and Kathleen, and Grandma/GG Agnes Balzer and all the Ahenda/Balzer family, thank you for cheering me on without reservation.

To a handful of mentors, men and women who have seen me and taught me and loved me: Clint Mix, who was my Ordination Mentor and marked all my papers (though I'll be honest you could have been meaner), my Aunty Robyn Manning who was the first woman pastor I ever knew, Patricia Love, Cyndy Ingram, and Carla Olsen Draper, Lisa Rohrick, Erin Knott, Ruth Shareski, and Miriam Charter, women who showed me there are so many different ways to lead and love the church. Bonnie and Derek Burnett, and Darren and Naomi Herboldt, who witnessed my young and very green self stumble my way through an internship in Thailand with big thoughts and very little experience, thank you for making space for me in your lives and opening your homes to me when I was so far away from my own.

Finally, a thank you to Lenore Rohrick, secretary at Lake Windermere Alliance Church, a church that I called home for almost ten years. Lenore has been cheering me on with personalized birthday cards since I was 15, and she in fact surprised me with another one this week for my Ordination Sunday. I always know when it's mail from Lenore, because she’s used her typewriter to professionally set the send and return address - a skill I have yet to master. Lenore has served the church for more years than she would probably want me to say in a public service. While she's never been formally called a pastor, if I become even half the leader she has modeled to me with her service I will consider my life well lived.

Mark - you are the love of my life and the best pastor's wife I could ever ask for. And I say that with deep respect for the role that Pastors Wives have played in support for churches and their communities - a role that you have embraced with enthusiasm and joy. Thank you for loving me, and for enthusiastically throwing yourself into all of this with steadiness, a good sense of humour, and thoughtfulness. Serving this church is an honour, but it comes second to being your partner and loving Robin and Bergus (the name Robin has given our coming child) with everything we've got.

Pastor Kyla and Pastor Rob: you invited me into this team and let me expand fully into myself. You love me and you push me and it has been the highlight of my career to grow alongside you these past six years. I could publish a novel here, but I won’t so I’ll simply say: thank you.

Reverend Cres, thank you for your leadership and for the teaching you gave me and my peers at ordination retreats. Your wisdom and deep knowledge of intercultural fluency, communication, and how we can better represent the love of Jesus as many nations is so valued by me, and I know by our community here. I look forward to more opportunities to continue to sit at your feet and learn from you as we serve the Alliance Community together. Please also pass my gratitude on to everyone at the district office - I love you all very much and am so glad any time I get the chance to send you an email and work together.

Finally, to you, Victoria Alliance Church - the board who has supported this journey without question, all of our leaders, volunteers, members, and even those of you here this morning for the very first time and maybe the only time - everyone who makes this community the beautiful expression of Jesus’ love that she is - each one of you is an essential part of this body. That I get to serve you with my calling is a gift, and I promise not to take it for granted. I promise to hold it loosely, but not lightly. What Jesus is building here among us and around us and beyond us is truly so special, and I can't wait to see how we keep growing into a fuller expression of Jesus’ love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control together. Always together.

Now I don’t know about you but I’m hungry. Can we go have our cake now?

Amen.