Mr. and Mrs. Jacob
Pauls Jacob Pauls spent his first seventeen years of his life at
Glenbush, where he was born. During these years , he nearly competed
his public education. When his parents, the Nicolai Pauls, retired
to Kelowna, B.C. in 1956, he moved with them and completed senior
matriculation in 1957.
Since B.C. did not hold the fascination for him, which it holds
for many others, he returned for a winter of Bible School studies
at Bethany Bible Institute, Hepburn, Saskatchewan. The following
summer found him in Vineland, Ontario where a summer job at a
mental institution extended into an eighteen month stay. It was
here that he met his wife, the former Mika Isaac, who had come
to Canada from Paraguay with her parents in 1957. Wedding Bells
rang on May 9, 1957.
With marriage behind them, the young couple decided that education
was important, and so the move to Winnipeg was undertaken. Two
and a half years were spent at Mennonite Brethren Bible College,
and one year at the Manitoba Teachers College.
By the time they took on their first school, Rosewell School No.
1071, eleven miles northeast of Winkler, Manitoba, the family
had been increased by two sons, Reg and Jonathan. The years at
Rosewell, a one-room country school, were good years. At Rosewell
the family became complete when a third son, Orlando, was born.
With declining enrollment in the school and the need for further
education becoming more evident, the Paul's family returned to
Ontario to complete a degree at Waterloo Lutheran University,
now known as Wilfred Laurier University.
After graduation in the spring of 1966, Jacob took on a teaching
assignment with the Guelph Board of Education, but since Manitoba
had become more of a home to the family, they returned to Winkler,
where Jacob taught English at the Garden Valley Collegiate from
1967 to 1971.
Though teaching was enjoyable and challenging, the family believed
that God was calling them to other responsibilities. In 1971,
the invitation came from the Herbert Mennonite Brethren Church,
asking them to come and be their pastor. For nine years they have
been privileged to invest their life in the community and church
of this southern Saskatchewan town. It has been a rewarding experience.
That is where the three children have grown to be young men. That
is where family roots have been most firmly established. In looking
over the past, life has been a time of growing, of contentment,
and of trusting the God they know and love. They are trusting
God's guidance for the future.