We experienced two deaths in two months at Living Hope, our small church family in Orillia: Bill Dykstra Sr. and then Glenn Stronks, who helped Doug and me record roughly forty songs for this website. 

In between these two sad events, I was drawn to Isaiah 43 and its imagery of God’s people safely passing through rushing waters and raging fires.. An ancient Celtic benediction that pictures God before, behind, beneath and beside us also comforted me. Then came a melody, a gift on a cold, January night. The result? “Don’t Be Afraid” which I sang for Glenn at home and then again in hospice two days before he passed away on Valentine’s Day, 2025. 

This video is a clip from his funeral where, at his wife Joanne’s request, I sang it in public for the first time.