Alumni of the Year

2010

2010 Seminary Alumna of the Year

Joanna (McLeod) Shaule

Joanna (McLeod) Shaule

 1986 MA Counselling

God uses all of our experiences to guide us to the next step and make us effective in our present situations. Looking at Joanna (McLeod) Shaule’s life you can clearly see this. Growing up in a home where she saw her parents live faithfully for God gave her a strong start. 

Joanna received her Bachelor of Arts degree and her teaching certificate in 1972 from the University of Saskatchewan. She taught a mix of native and non-native students in Cut Knife High School in Saskatchewan for three years. From there, she moved to James Smith Reserve, a Cree reserve east of Prince Albert, SK where she taught for eight years. In addition to teaching, she also led a children’s club, a youth group, and taught Sunday school.

Through the relationships that Joanna built, she found many of her students coming to her with their personal problems. She was able to share with them about hope in Christ and his love, but felt that she needed more training to be able to help them with the challenges they were facing. Joanna was praying about this when her father wrote her and let her know about a new program starting at Providence Seminary. In the fall of 1984, she started as a student in Providence Seminary and graduated in 1986 with her MA in Biblical Counselling. After graduating, Joanna worked part-time at Providence Seminary leading counselling labs. She also worked part-time in downtown Winnipeg counselling at Hope Clinic, using some of her past experience as well as her training from Providence.

Life was full for Joanna and it was about to become fuller. On September 1, 1990, Joanna married Darrell Shaule, a widower with six children and two grandchildren. They settled in Lucan, ON, and within a year Joanna had established a small counselling ministry out of her home and gave birth to their son, Drew. Opportunities also opened up to teach various seminars on working with victims of childhood sexual abuse. Joanna enjoyed this but didn’t like working alone.

Late in 1997, the pastor of her church asked Joanna about working part-time in the church. Her work in the church includes crisis and pre-marriage counselling, and also introducing and overseeing a Stephen Ministry. Since 1998, Joanna has helped to train over sixty men and women as Stephen Ministers. They receive fifty hours of training and then walk alongside hurting people, providing spiritual and emotional help and support. Joanna has also prepared over sixty couples for marriage and has introduced the GriefShare Ministry to her church, a support group for grieving people in the community and church body. Recently Joanna started a ministry in the church for those fifty years of age and over. She loves being a part of a local church team.

Joanna has been faithful by passing on her training to others and helping others find hope. The Rising Above Conference is another place that Joanna has served. Rising Above started in 1993 and is a First Nations led ministry that addresses issues of sexual abuse, residential school abuse, addictions, and depression from a Christian perspective. Joanna has been a guest speaker at all eighteen national Rising Above Conferences that are held in different locations across Canada. In 2005, Clair and Clara Schnupp (2009 Alumni of the Year) invited Joanna to join a team of people training and ministering to others in Greenland for two weeks. Joanna’s life paints a beautiful picture of God using the informal training of past experiences and the formal training at Providence Seminary to give her so many opportunities to be effective in her ministry.

Darrell, her husband, has been a strong support over the years in whatever ministry opportunities God has given Joanna. Her family has grown to seven children and fifteen grandchildren, two daughters-in-law and two sons-in-law. Joanna thanks the Lord for each of her children and grandchildren and the opportunities she has had to support, encourage, and love them all. She has been particularly blessed that all of her children and step-children have chosen to call her ‘Mom’.

Joanna is so thankful for how her training at Providence Seminary prepared her to respond to the various challenges she has faced over the years in her family and her ministry. God is enabling Joanna to follow her parent’s example to live faithfully for God. We were privileged to honour Joanna as Providence Seminary’s 2010 Alumna of the Year.
 

We need your nomination for Alumni of the Year

We need your nominations for a Providence College or Seminary graduate that has shown commitment to God through the years in the way they have lived their lives and has made a significant contribution to church and society through their profession and/or as a volunteer.Please send your nomination and a short ministry description to:

Sue Screpnek
c/o Providence College and Theological Seminary
10 College Crescent
Otterburne, Manitoba R0A 1G0

You can also send an email to Sue Screpnek