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April 14, 2019

Rob and I came to CapChurch in 1998. Jake came to meet me and find out who my people were.  We are mennonites on my Grandma's side. Jake knew my Grandma, Kay Brose, and some of my great aunties and uncles... John and Mary Fast (nee Dyck), Jack and Rose Dyck and others. They lived in Yarrow too. I felt good knowing about that connection.  Coming from long lines of faith has always made me happy. 

When we were first married, Jake and Carol invited us over for lunch after church. I remember being immature and wondering, "why?" - I hadn't yet been exposed to people who wanted just to hang out and be hospitable for the sake of relationships; I had previously only known people in the church to host something to get a project done or because one was related to someone. It was a silly response, I know, but it opened up something for me... 

I became an elder a couple years later and prayed, learned and cared for people alongside Jake and others who were older than me. I learned a lot in those early years of eldering. I knew enough by then to keep my mouth shut and listen and learn. (No one made me feel that way, but I thought it was best! - but sometimes I forgot. :) ) 

For years, probably close to 20 years, after those early eldering days, Jake would say hi on a Sunday morning and ask me how I was doing and reassure me that leading something, or preaching something, or raising our kids well was important and good work.  I really appreciated that.

One of the early times that I experienced hearing the whispers of the Holy Spirit inside me was one morning at church when people were being prayed for. I joined a circle praying for Carol and Aaron Fee who were sick. I remember God whispering to me to pray for peace for Carol as she would be going to be with Him and for faith as Aaron would be facing hard things. Sorry, that's not really a story about Jake - but part of my faith experience. 

Blessings to all who grieve Jake's passing.  May the stories of who he is in the shadows and in the sunshine carry us on. 

Jenn Ohlhauser

Wonderful friend

April 13, 2019

Ray and I moved from Winnipeg to Vancouver in 1963 with a one year old son and a second child about to be born. One of our first priorities was to find a church and we chose Killarney Park Mennonite in south Vancouver. If I remember correctly, Jake and his first wife Jessie were the first people there to invite us to lunch with them after church.

Perhaps because we shared the same last name and they had a son named Ray, we bonded. It was the beginning of a friendship that would span 56 years and three wives. Jake had good taste in wives -all three were, and are, winners,  and we were privileged to share many good times with Jessie, Carol and now Anne.

I can’t find words to do justice to a man like Jake, a man gifted, multi-talented, sensitive to people’s needs and always eager to pitch in and help. He was an amazing multi-tasker,  working simultaneously as a school principal, church administrator, builder and ---? He loved to create in his workshop and many of us were gifted with rocking horses and we with his expertise in finishing our basement. 

Jake maintained a positive attitude to life even in tough times, losing his only daughter, Kathy, and his beloved wives, Jessie and Carol. In his latter years he courageously battled cancer and endured the necessary treatments.

The key to Jake’s long and fruitful life was, of course, his faith in God. This faith was most evident in his love for people. He was an encourager, a hugger supreme and we all the beneficiaries.

Recently we visited Jake and Anne in their lovely home in Horseshoe Bay. By now Jake was spending many hours in his rocking chair enjoying a beautiful view through his living room window and praying through the church list for us all. Shortly after, he entered hospice where we visited daily. Ray finally encouraged him to jump over the Jordan-and so he did. And  now he is enjoying life with Jesus and his heavenly Father.

Jake,  you will be in our hearts until we meet again.

April 10, 2019

i sit
looking west
i see the hill
you lived beyond
i wait the day to end
my tears have passed
now only
my eyes behold
the blazing flame of a setting star
your time had come
another journey for you to take
travel well dear father
i will see you always
in the glory
of the rising sun

Dutiful Son - Driving Miss Daisy

March 22, 2019

Uncle Jake will always be remembered and appreciated for the gift of bringing Gramma Penner to our house in Lethbridge for a visit. For whatever reason I'm not sure, but that was the only time ever that Gramma was ever in my childhood home! It was special to me but even more so for mom.

The trip from Vancouver was via the newly completed Rogers Pass and in the new red Grande Parisienne that, I recall Uncle Jake saying with some satisfaction that the tires squealed "only on a few corners".

He shoots! He Scores!

March 22, 2019

In Vancouver on a business trip, I decided to attend a Canucks game getting a last minute ticket in the back rows section. During the second intermission I was aimlessly scanning the crowd on the opposite side of the Coliseum when my eye caught sight of a familiar face. Shocked I recognized that it was Uncle Jake and doubly shocked that he was with a lady obviously on a date!

Although we didn't meet that night, it was my introduction to Aunt Carol and the bonus was that I knew something that his sisters (mom &  especially Aunt Elsie) didn't!


Faspa Delight

March 22, 2019

It was a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon - a perfect day for a drive around Stanley Park. While stopping there, the North Shore mountains beckoned and as we were crossing the Lions Gate Bridge it occurred to us that Uncle Jake and Aunt Justina lived up there someplace. Not having a clue where they lived, we headed up the mountain toward the newer homes and turned down a street. It was a dead end and turning around to head back suddenly there was Uncle Jake standing in the middle of the road waving us down like we were the prodigal son!      

Despite our protestations and unsuccessful attempt to explain it was not our intention to be uninvited guests - we were just out for a drive - we were marshalled in and enjoyed an impromptu faspa of home made buns, cold meat, pickles and, if memory serves me correctly, Platz. As young, poor student, parents we were mortified when toddler Noel began clambering for food like she was starving! No sweat - everyone was welcome here especially little ones wanting a pickle.

A treasured memory of love and hospitality.

Herb & Nancy Thiessen

This man still wants to drive when he’s 100 years old

March 12, 2019

This is a story published in the Vancouver Sun by Alyn Edwards (Feb. 5, 2016)

Jake Penner bristles when it is suggested that he may have just bought his last car.

Penner, who lives in Vancouver, B.C., turned 95 on Dec. 13, 2015 – and received his new driver’s licence that day. The licence is good for five years and Penner plans to still be on the road at age 100. To celebrate, he bought a new car.

The long-retired Vancouver elementary school principal had just told the story about saving enough money in his first year teaching all grades in a rural Alberta one-room schoolhouse to buy his first car. That was in 1942. Penner immigrated to Canada from Russia when he was four-years-old. The family of eight children settled in a small village south of Swift Current, Sask., and scratched out a living growing wheat.

Penner learned to drive on the farm in his early teens and particularly liked his family’s Diamond T grain truck. He did his early high school years by correspondence and was sent away to an academy for his graduation year, before starting to teach at the age of 20.

Penner had been earning $780 a year and needed a car when he moved to Vancouver and began teaching at St. George’s College. That car was a 1931 Ford Model A with a rumble seat. Penner was 22 years old at the time; there would be little money in those early days of teaching but many cars over the years.

Driving in Vancouver in the 1940s was often hampered by fog so dense motorists had to open their doors to follow the dividing line.

“There were beehive burners at the mills in Vancouver and most people heated their homes with sawdust or coal-burning stoves in their kitchens which greatly added to the foggy conditions,” Penner explains.

On one trip to see his parents, who lived in the Fraser Valley community of Yarrow, Penner and his brother had both doors open on the Model A Ford coupe to follow the lines when they realized they were on the wrong side of the dotted line.

He loved to look at newspaper classifieds to find bargains. One of them was for the City of Vancouver selling building lots around 41st and Main Street for nonpayment of taxes in 1944. Newly married, Jake paid $175 for a 33-foot building lot.

“There was no money and you couldn’t get wood during the war,” he says of the challenges ahead. But he knew the right people to get enough shiplap to build foundation forms. Then he used the same lumber to frame the house.

He and his wife partitioned off a small section of the basement for a place to live while they completed the house as availability of building material allowed. The total cost of the completed house was $5,000. Then, Penner started buying lots and flipping the houses he would build as he sought to do the same with cars.

“At the end of the war, everyone wanted cars and they were hard to get,” he says.

He would buy an old car for $200, improve it and sell it for $300, pocketing a 50 per cent profit. In the meantime, the cars he bought provided transportation.

In 1945, he ordered a new, two-tone Chevrolet Fleetline sedan. Then, he went down the street and ordered a new Dodge. It would be nearly two years before the Chevrolet dealer would deliver Penner’s new car. It came in as a 1947 model and cost $1,800. The shrewd young teacher had a car salesman friend who bought the car for $2,400.

The salesman knew some wealthy Fraser Valley farmers who were so desperate for new cars he sold the new Chevrolet Fleetline torpedo back coupe for $3,000. That was Henry Block who would later go on to form the highly successful Block Brothers real estate empire.

The following year, Penner’s Dodge – the one he had ordered several years before – was finally ready for pickup. It was a 1948 sedan and Penner re-sold it as a new car for a tidy profit.

Penner drove a Buick in the 1950s then graduated to Oldsmobile cars. In later years, he owned a handful of Volkswagens, which he loved. Still buying cars used, the 95-year-old recently purchased a 2013 Mercedes-Benz GLK with all-wheel drive.

“I like the safety systems, including the blind spot warning,” he says.

Driving with Penner is like being piloted by a 30-year-old. He is attentive and sharp as he negotiates the sharp turns and narrow streets of his neighbourhood. Once home, he activates the automatic garage door opener and skilfully backs his SUV into its resting place.

“I have always loved cars and plan to keep on driving for as long as I can,” he says. “After all, I’m now licensed to drive until I’m 100 years old.”

He is definitely planning on that.

Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in Peak Communicators, a Vancouver-based public relations company. You can reach him at aedwards@peakco.com.

a beautiful dying (February 21, 2019

March 12, 2019

(written a few weeks prior to Dad's passing)

my father
a life time
spent
a living model
always growing
showing a way
how our time can be spent wisely
now dances with death
not the death
we hoped for him
sitting in his soft chair
looking over the water
the mountains
going to sleep
these vistas his dreams
but a slow dance
surrounded by family
by friends
by love
waiting his time with grace
ever retreating into
himself
slowly waiting
his right time
to move through
that final
gossamer curtain



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