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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday January 14, 2009 - 13 Living Oakville Beaver LIVING EDITOR: ANGELA BLACKBURN By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Sign up now for guitar, bass, drums, and piano OAKVILLE'S MUSIC STORE 324 Kerr St. 905-339-3515 w w w. g e a r m u s i c . n e t Phone: 905-845-3824, ext. 248 Fax: 905-337-5567 e-mail: ablackburn@oakvillebeaver.com Preacher turns spotlight on HIV/AIDS in Africa T he Rev. Dr. Mervyn Russell is a 68-yearold man of the church who hails from England. If you expect him to be very British, you are right. If you expect him to speak his mind, be a social activist, interfaith emissary and champion of those fighting HIV/AIDS -- right again. "For some time, it was my deliberate intention, which I put into practice ... that I wanted to keep in touch with what was going on in the world around me. I wasn't going to live just in a kind of church bubble," said Russell. Ordained in the British Methodist Church, Russell is one of the few who have permission from the bishop to work in both Anglican and United churches. He also hails from the heart of England in the Second World War and has, over the years, become involved in social activism, an interest that took hold with the nuclear disarmament movement -- if not his own family history. He also dove into a long-standing commitment to help those affected by HIV/AIDS when he worked in Orono, Ontario. In addition, Russell has a good heap of singing talent. After being in the church choir, Russell was discovered by former CBC performer Harold Bruin, and after having a string of voice teachers, completed the highest level of exams for voice set by the Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music in England. The tenor will take the stage with worldrenowned mezzo-soprano Norine Burgess, also of Oakville, on Saturday, Jan. 24 to raise funds for $Million or More Oakville ($MOMO) and the Stephen Lewis Foundation. All funds will support the Foundation, which is funding grassroots projects and programs in sub-Saharan Africa to help those, many of them grandmothers, raising children -- numbering more than 13 million, and climbing -- orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The event, dubbed The Three Gifts Concert: Faith, Hope and Love, will take place at 7:30 p.m. at St. Jude's Anglican Church at 160 William St. in downtown Oakville. Tickets cost $20. Burgess and Russell will be accompanied by St. Jude's assistant music director Andrei Streliaev who will also perform solo on piano. "One day I went to see Norine and said, I want to put to you an audacious proposal," chuckled Russell. "She told me, `You better tell me what it is,'" he laughed. To his "considerable surprise," the professional singer of international repute, agreed to perform with him in the benefit concert. Russell is native of the City of Plymouth, England, born in 1940. He never knew his father, James, who was from Northern Ireland, but stationed in Plymouth fighting in the Royal Navy during the war. "My father was killed in action, lost at sea, in 1941 and his body was never recovered," said Russell. IN AID OF AFRICA: Rev. Mervyn Russell will take the stage with worldrenowned mezzo-soprano Norine Burgess of Oakville on Jan. 24 in a concert at St. Jude's Anglican Church to benefit the Stephen Lewis Foundation. NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER "If you're not going to say anything, if anyone isn't going to go home and think about what came from the pulpit, why bother to open your mouth? I've always enjoyed what I call the freedom of the pulpit. It's one of the places where you can speak freely and not be constrained by political loyalties, where you can say what you conscientiously think and feel." The Rev. Dr. Mervyn Russell He and his brother, Morris, were raised by their mom, Elsie, on England's south coast. In 1959, Russell went to London to study. His mom eventually remarried and the family worshipped in the British Methodist Church in which Russell pursued his career. From Birmingham, England, he went to New York City on a scholarship, then returned to Britain and was ordained in 1968. He then returned to the U.S. in 1975 to work in Washington, D.C. and then moved to Canada, working in Lion's Head on the Bruce Peninsula. The pulpit later took him to Binbrook, the Village of Paisley in Bruce County and Orono, Ontario. In 2000, Russell, father of two children, Luke and Katherine, had remarried Patricia and the couple moved to St. Vincent in the Caribbean until 2003 when Russell returned to England to be closer to his mother who was then in her 90s. In 2006, Russell retired and he and his wife returned to Canada to be near Russell's children in the Toronto area and Patricia's three sons who live in the Dundas area. After settling in a condo on Forsythe Street, Russell began attending the Wednesday morning service at St. Jude's Anglican Church where he drew attention at the small service and then befriended church leader The Rev. Dr. Michael Thompson. For the last 18 months, Russell has not been retired, but rather working as Honourary Ecumenical Assistant at St. Jude's. He said while he preaches and leads services, as well as organizes events and represents the church on Oakville's Interfaith Council, he dresses differently than the rest of the church worship staff as he comes to the church somewhat differently. That's not new to Russell, who, though ordained in the British Methodist Church, worked in the United Methodist Church in the U.S., in Canada in the United Church of Canada and in the Anglican Church. The Methodist Church had its origins in the Anglican Church and the United Church of Canada is a combination of the Methodist Church of Canada, Congregational Union of Canada and those of the Presbyterian faith. "I've always been curious," admitted Russell, whose family hardship in post-war England and his proximity to leading figures in Britain's nuclear disarmament movement led him into a lifetime of social activism. His own drive to get involved outside of church led him into the fight against HIV/AIDS and it's where he saw his wife, Patricia, working as a caregiver to those affected. A simple stroll down Kerr Street (probably en route to Fortinos, he said) led him to discover the Oakville Community Centre for Peace, Ecology and Human Rights (OCCPEHR). "I thought, how extraordinary. I didn't expect it ... to find that, here in Oakville," he said. Russell grew up in the shadow of famed Methodist minister Rev. Dr. Donald Soper and attended the first nuclear disarmament marches in London's Trafalgar Square with the likes of Bertrand Russell and J. B. Priestley. He was in the U.S. during the time of the civil rights movement and voter registration. He also saw how war affected his own family. "I knew first-hand the kind of damage war does, not only to people doing the fighting, but also to the survivors. The effects of war do not end when a peace agreement is signed," said Russell, who noted his mom was left with two small boys to raise and had lost her home, which had been bombed, leaving her to clean homes to earn money. "My mother had no body to grieve over. The note she got said my father was missing, presumed dead. She clung to that hope for years. It literally bent her over ... the tension tightened the muscles in her back such that she needed special treatment. She just could not let that desperate hope go," said Russell. Russell himself had to "let go" of some preconceptions regarding gay and lesbian relationships when he came close up with the HIV/AIDS fight. He explained that he witnessed the love of people involved, applied his faith values to what he saw and said, "People who are in a terrible See St. Jude's page 14