Pastor Simeon Norton and the congregation of Virden Alliance Church welcomed the annual One Hope Canada Support Raising Tour on March 30 – the fifth stop on its eight-community itinerary.
The evening included a concert by The Fehr Family Band, a nine-member ensemble who make their home near Stony Plain, Alberta. Nine siblings - Bethany, Samuel, Adam, Isaac, Julianna, Rebecca and Felicity, along with parents James and Heather, make up the band. On occasion, the group expands to 13 when the four youngest children join in on stage.
“We started with music lessons for the kids,” Heather said. “They’re home schooled and part of the home schooling is that they have to take piano. After they did piano, some of them wanted to be introduced to other instruments. (When) we were playing at local events, a pastor heard us and invited us to come and play for some seniors’ events and it just kind of started from there – about six or seven years ago.”
Harold Giesbrecht, Manitoba Public Relations Coordinator for One Hope Canada met the Fehrs at the Willow Creek Gospel Jamboree last summer in Granum, Alta. and invited them to take on this year’s fundraising tour. They agreed, and so began their first taste of life on the road.
“This is our first tour where we’re doing a different city or town every day,” James said. “We’ve done lots of stuff throughout the summer on weekends. This is the first time we’re on a bus travelling like this and it’s been a pretty fun experience for us. Our eldest five and I work so we had to take a whole bunch of vacation time… and here we are. Apart form our eldest daughter Bethany, none of our other kids have ever crossed the Saskatchewan border into Manitoba so they’re enjoying that very much.”
According to their website, the Fehrs are “a family band whose style blends family harmonies and acoustic instruments with a range of genres, from good old fashioned hymns to bluegrass to Southern Gospel.” They have two CD releases to their credit - Joy to the World, a collection of music for the Christmas season and The Sunny Side, which contains an original composition and is billed as inspirational, acoustic gospel music with a bluegrass flavour.
“We did our first CD in 2020 and later when the pandemic hit and all the concerts were cancelled we decided we’d do a Christmas one as well,” James said. “We put a lot of work into that and are really happy with how it turned out. On our Christmas CD, there’s a lot of acoustic and a little bit of Celtic arranging of some of our favourite Christmas music…some of it lesser known and some of it more known.”
Their eldest daughter’s love of the Celtic repertoire shines through.
“We have a couple of daughters that play the tin whistle. We take songs we know and put a Celtic spin on them. It’s lots of fun,” James said.
The family appreciated the opportunity for some family bonding while supporting the work of the national mission organization.
“We don’t do this full-time, but we love doing it on weekends and whenever we can,” James said. “I have even more fun up there than it probably looks…playing with my kids. I consider it a real blessing. The kids love to do it and that’s what makes this work. We’re also excited to support this ministry because everyone on stage here has worked for the local (Bible) camp near us for many summers.”
When summer does arrive, the Fehrs will have a full calendar.
“We’re busy just about every weekend in the summer at a different jamboree in either Alberta or Saskatchewan and we’re really excited about that – getting to hang out with other musicians and people we’ve met before,” James said.
In Virden, just over $4,600 was raised in support of One Hope Canada’s summer program of Bible camps for youth.
