USask News page<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nNavy Lieutenant Dr. Wilson Gonese (DMin) grew up on a farm in Gutu, Zimbabwe. He received a calling from God and, after high school, told his parents he wanted to be a minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first it was not accepted because ministers were not paid well. My family wanted me to go into nursing or teaching\u2014anything more secure\u2014but I was convinced God was calling,\u201d said Gonese, who completed a doctorate from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) while serving overseas aboard HMCS Calgary.<\/p>\n
For 13 years, Gonese served as a minister in the Reform Church, in several communities in Zimbabwe and Botswana. In 2007, with hopes of a better life, he and his wife and their two children took a one-way flight to Canada where he continued to work as a United Church Minister in Newfoundland in the communities of Burgeo, Springdale, and Carbonear.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoving to Canada from Africa was a huge transition. The cold weather, cultural shock, not knowing whether we will succeed or not,\u201d he said. \u201cStill, the people of Newfoundland are very friendly and welcoming so I had a very good time there.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2018, Wilson had another calling, to join the Canadian Armed Forces as a Chaplain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to serve the country alongside serving members. I looked at the men and women in uniform and I wanted to give them the support they need, to be there for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Gonese began the biggest adventure of his military career thus far; serving on HMCS Calgary providing moral and spiritual support for those on board. He is currently embarked with the ship on its deployment to the Indo-Asia Pacific and Middle East regions on Operations ARTEMIS and PROJECTION.<\/p>\n
During this deployment, on March 9, while the ship was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Gonese successfully defended his doctoral thesis via a Zoom teleconferencing call. It is believed to be the first time a doctoral thesis has been defended on a Canadian warship, while deployed on an operation.<\/p>\n
Gonese\u2019s thesis is entitled\u00a0Moving from loss and lament to hope and new beginnings<\/em>, and is a case study about his old community of Carbonear, and how they dealt with the closing of their church in 1990. Gonese was granted a Doctor of Ministry from St. Andrew\u2019s College through the Saskatoon Theological Union, affiliated with USask, during a virtual convocation ceremony on May 7.<\/p>\nHis crew members keep approaching him and lovingly call him \u201cDoctor Padre.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonese feels his journey has been a very positive one. He and his wife currently live in Victoria, while his daughter also serves in the Royal Canadian Navy on HMCS Charlottetown as a supply technician and his son is studying to become a neuroscientist in Newfoundland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exciting. Coming to Canada and joining the military were some of the best decisions I\u2019ve made in my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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From growing up on a farm in Zimbabwe to serving on a Canadian warship, a chaplain on Her Majesty\u2019s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Calgary feels he has made all the right choices along the w…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_wp_stack_schedule":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1497,"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions\/1497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrews.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}