The Peru Gazette

By John T. Ryan

Many North Country residents know Reverend Kenneth Parker as the man who brings loveable miniature donkeys to our parades, nursing homes, hospitals and senior facilities. Members of a Methodist Church and a Presbyterian Church in Moriah know him as their minister. Others have known him as a Naval Reserve Chaplain, a Peru Central School board member or as a board member of a community service organization. Members of the Peru Community Church know Reverend Parker as the man who served as their pastor from 1970 to 2003.

It’s hard to believe that it was almost 45 years ago that Reverend Parker accompanied by his wife Helle and their three young children Scott, David and Kaari arrived in Peru. Ken Parker could have easily pursued another profession. His father, Norman A. Parker, was a successful funeral director in Little Falls, New Jersey. Ken recalled, “Funeral directors are #2, only behind farmers, in children following in their parent’s footsteps, but I grew up with a strong faith and I very much felt a call to ministry. I felt that’s where God wanted me to be. I decided I would be more use to God with the living.” 

Ken made his career choice while he was a student at Middlebury College. In 1962, just eight weeks before graduation, he made another important decision when he decided to ask a classmate, Helle Thomsen, for a date. The date must have gone very well because about a year later, while Ken was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, Ken and Helle Parker became husband and wife.

In 1965 Reverend Parker was ordained a Presbyterian minister and became pastor of churches in East and West Hebron, New York, small Washington County communities about 110 miles south of Peru. He enjoyed serving those communities, but by 1969, he decided it was time for a change. He recalled, “I really wanted to be in a church where I could lead people to do mission, to do things for other people. We didn’t have the mass in Hebron to do this.”

At about the same time the Peru Community Church was seeking a new minister. The church’s search committee included Dorothy “Dot” Finney, Janet Alexander, Rodney North, Dwane Waterman, Everest Allan, and Donald Cromie. One Sunday they traveled to Hebron to hear Reverend Parker deliver a sermon. Following the service a Hebron church member remarked, “I don’t think you made much of a hit. They got up and walked out before the last hymn.” Actually, the committee left so they could travel to Saratoga in time to hear another minister’s sermon. Ken was named Pastor of the Peru Community Church effective May 1, 1970.

Reverend Parker and his congregation turned out to be a near-perfect match. Just a few days after arriving in Peru he worked with Paul Calkins and George Burrell to organize an auction that raised $3,000 for earthquake victims in Peru, South America. He recalled, “Afterwards people said to me, ‘How come you got into this big project so fast?’ I wanted people to know that if they have me we’re going to be active and it’s not going to be for them. It’s going to be for others.”

That auction was a sign of what was to come. Ken recalled, “The highest compliment we received over the 33 years was an unbidden editorial in the Press Republican. It was a moving editorial.” The Peru Gazette found that 1999 editorial online. One sentence read, “Did you ever notice whenever there is a great need in our community or on the other side of the world, the Community Church of Peru is among the first out there doing things…The fact is that, no matter what the circumstances are, that congregation invariably opens its hearts and wallets to try to ease somebody else’s burden.”

The church’s response to the devastating 1998 ice storm will go down in history. The ice felled thousands of trees, downed power lines and knocked out electricity for days. The Community Church set itself up as a disaster center. Volunteers served hundreds of meals, entertained the children and fifty to one hundred people lived in the Fellowship Center. A doctor even ran a clinic out of one of the offices. Reverend Parker recalled an especially poignant incident. “About six or seven days into the disaster, a man walked in and said, ‘My father lives out in Peasleeville. I understand he’s here. We’ve come to take him back to New Jersey.’ His father was up on the stage playing checkers with the kids. When he saw his son he said, ‘What are you doing here?’ The son responded, ‘We’ve come to take you back to New Jersey.’ The father replied, ‘ I’m not going back to New Jersey. This is more fun than anything I’ve done in my whole life. I’m up on this stage playing checkers and teaching the kids how to play monopoly. Why would I want to go back to NJ and sit in your house while you go to work?’”

Being a success in any chosen profession is complex and involves many gifts. Reverend Parker cited two important attributes of a pastor, “Always be honest with people. I think one of the advantages I had was that I was very comfortable with people in all stages and places in our society. It really doesn’t matter much to me whether you were the president of Plattsburgh State or if you were the janitor. Everyone should get the same attention and understanding. The other one is being available. I’ve run into clergy who turn off the phone at night. I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you get word tomorrow that you have pancreatic cancer, I’m not going to send somebody in my place to talk.”

At one point Reverend Parker realized that he needed to improve his counseling skills. In 1978 he earned a Masters Degree in Counseling at SUNY Plattsburgh and in 1980 following several two-month summertime on-campus classes, he was awarded a Doctorate Degree at Sewanee University of the South. His doctorial thesis examined “professional burnout” and concluded that most professionals should take a career break every seven to ten years. Shortly thereafter, he participated in a minister exchange program with Reverend Noel Butler of Invercargill, New Zealand. Ken and Helle packed up their family and moved to New Zealand for one year and Reverend Butler came to Peru. Ken said, “That year had a tremendous impact on our family. It gave us an entirely different outlook on the world. Helle and I have been back three or four times.” In 1990 he entered a “preaching contest” conducted by a Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, NSW Australia. The church received recordings of sermons from 135 ministers from six countries and chose Reverend Parker as its six-month guest preacher.

In 2003, following multiple medical problems for many years, Reverend Parker decided it was time to retire as pastor of the Peru Community Church. He explained, “I decided I couldn’t do it any more. It wouldn’t be good for the church.”

Retirement, however, has many meanings and the man who came to Peru with a mission wasn’t about to sit back and relax. A few weeks after retiring he founded Thera-Pets Inc., an organization dedicated to improving the health of children and the elderly through activities with farm animals. Its miniature donkeys, miniature goats, Alpacas and other animals are housed at Butternut Ridge Farm, only a few yards from Ken and Helle Parker’s Calkins Road home. He explained, “The donkeys are so friendly. If you could see the look on somebody’s face when a donkey wants into his or her bedroom in a nursing home where life just never changes.” All the Thera-Pets activities are run by volunteers and provided at no charge. The organization relies on donations to fund its many programs.

Three years ago Reverend Parker agreed to be the part-time pastor of the Moriah Methodist Church and the interim pastor of the Moriah Presbyterian Church. Each Sunday he makes the 45-mile trip southward to conduct services in each church. On June 12, 2015 he will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of his ordination. As he looks back on his 45 years in Peru he can take pride that he accomplished his mission to keep people active, not for themselves, but for others. As he stated at the close of our interview, “I try to follow in the steps of Jesus. I feel God has called me to this community and I never felt I should be any place else.”

St. Augustine’s Church Pastor Father Alan Shnob and Reverend Parker. Peru’s Catholic community and the Peru Community Church work together on many programs.