POTTER, Les Webmaster and Publisher of this web site 1993-2003

by Robert Brow  (www.brow.on.ca)

POTTER, Les Les was a personal friend for ten years. We talked on the phone nearly every day, and had lunch together once a month at Mino’s Restaurant west of Kingston on Princess Street. He always ordered Chicken Brochette and I liked a Chicken Caesar Salad. We each had a bottle of Labbatts Blue. We worked very closely together on the Model Theology Website (www.brow.on.ca) which under his care grew to an average of 600 people coming in every day. I wrote new items every week, Mollie edited them, and I sent them to Les to be ordered and put up on the web.

He had taught himself a wide range of computer skills when he worked at the Dupont Fiber Plant in Kingston. And with these he was able to present the materials for this website in creative and constantly fresh ways. He felt free to reject anything I wrote that was irrelevant or not up to standard. He had no time for "churchianity" and outdated church traditions. What mattered was that our Christian witness should be honest, clear, credible, and relevant to the modern world.

But his work with me was only a part time interest. From 1982 he was heavily involved in every aspect of the Cursillo Movement. He believed in this as a way of encouraging lay people to use their gifts in local church situations. And he himself served wherever needed in the activities of the parish church he and Marg attended. He also offered his computer skills in problem solving for the Anglican Diocese of Ontario. Les had two children and four grandchildren, Isaac and Rachel, and Travis and Craig, who were a great joy to him. They, and all of us miss him terribly.

When he and Marg celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on June 21, 2002 he already knew something was going seriously wrong in his back. By January he had to use a laptop computer as he lay on a sofa to work on the website. When he went into Kingston General Hospital with prostate cancer invading his spine I felt devastated, and I was totally unable to write anything for five months till he died on October 23, 2003. The day before he had woken up from heavy sedation, said "Hi, Bob," and went straight back to sleep. Those two words meant a lot to me. He believed in the immediate resurrection of the body (expressing our personality) , as I do, and I can just imagine the creative contribution he is making in the City of God (Revelation 21:22-22:5)


 

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