For those who wanted me to post my response to "Where was Koch ?", here are my observations.

Derek and his family along with Irislee's parents and her brother and wife who had just arrived from Calgary were about an hour into a well deserved "day off". We were at the beach in Kelowna with a BBQ planned later at our place, when we noticed the smoke. While it was another day at the beach for most, Derek immediately became "pastor". Roy ran to the truck to listen to the news while Derek was on his phone trying to track down other pastors and staff. Knowing his senior pastor was away made it even more urgent. Unable to track anyone down for confirmation. we assessed the situation to be serious and church families were being affected. Although we had no solid information and traffic was still flowing freely over the bridge, Derek began to pack up with "I am sorry family but I am a pastor, I just can't stay here when my church family may need me." Within two hours he was at the church, a miracle itself considering the traffic and road blocks. While trying to get to the church Derek functioned wonderfully in his roll as Community Pastor with calls to community leaders, organizing volunteers, checking to see if any church families were needing comfort at the Boucherie Community evacuation centre, etc. It was beautiful to watch. He still got to the church in time to help those already there when the church became Command Central and then helped rescue critical files and documents when the church was evacuated.
Needless to say the BBQ didn't happen, we could not get home because of road closure--but then Derek would not have partied while his community and church were in crises.

So where was Koch ? Along with dozens of sung and unsung heroes at Emmanuel and the community evacuation centre, Koch was in the thick of both. To see the 'pastor-heart' of my son-in-law was better than the steak we missed.

The unbiased report of a proud mother-in-law.

Olive Ralph

A very nice tribute and testimony on Pastor Derek Koch's final day of work! Well done!

Working alongside Pastor Derek Koch for many years I have to totally agree with everything that Olive mentions above.