In 1990, I spent three months on a short-term missionary trip to India under the banner of SIM. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, in the audience during the cool Toronto evening when I gave my presentation of my trip were one John and Marj Koop who listened attentively to all I had to say. I did not meet them that evening, but they remembered me. Later in 1991, I was recruited to a new job in Calgary, and as I prepared to move, some friends from the church I was attending mentioned to me that there was a wonderful couple who had also recently moved from Toronto to Calgary who they felt I should meet. Their comments were effectively “they are much older than you, but they are fun and very young at heart”. This turned out to be a great description. These friends gave me John and Marj’s number and also wrote a letter to them informing them to look out for me.
I then moved to Calgary in 1992 and settled in the Northwest Corner of the city, renting a house just kitty corner to Varsity Bible Church. Wanting to worship in a local church, I walked down the road to “check out” the local Varsity Church my first Sunday in town to see if it was the right fit for me. As I walked into that church I had no idea that I was being led by the Holy Spirit and that this was the church John and Marj attended. I never did see either one of them nor heard anything about them during that first visit. However, two weeks later when I returned to Varsity Bible, a wonderful man by the name of Leigh McNaughton welcomed me and told me that a couple by the name of John and Marj Koop had been asking about me. I was surprised because I did not know how they knew I was there. That week, I met Marj for the first time, and that would begin 30 years of extraordinary friendship with her and of course with John prior to his home calling in 2011 after 58 years of marriage to Marj. John and Marj were not just our friends, they literally “adopted” me into their family. I have been blessed with this incredible friendship that I have treasured initially with John and Marj for 19 years, and with Marj for 30 years.
Marj was funny, always telling cunning and often self-deprecating jokes. She loved to laugh and was always fun to be around. She cooked as authentic an Ethiopian dish of injera and wat as I have eaten in any Ethiopian restaurant. Of course, while I was in Calgary, she and John insisted that I spend as many holidays as possible with them. I remember exchanging “white elephant” gifts during Christmas with her and Julie and Brent, Sandi and Lorne, Darren, Eric and Kate and occasionally Doug and Maggie and Jeremy and Nathan. She was a prayer warrior who regularly prayed for a spouse for me long before I met my wife of 22 years, Arike. She also prayed daily and avidly for her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, natural and “adopted”. Once Arike came into my life, she and John “adopted” her into the family as well. Even after leaving Calgary about 20 years ago, we made it a point to talk with Marj regularly on the phone. She always wanted detailed updates on our three children, Arike and I. I had the special honor of speaking at John’s funeral in 2011 and have visited Marj many times during trips to Calgary. One of the highlights for our family was in 2013 when Marj came to our current home in Omaha and spent a week with us. We attended church together, prayed together, laughed together and she got to spend some quality time with our children who loved their Grandma Koop. She also enjoyed Arike’s scotch eggs and some a special punch whose recipe John had shared with us several years ago. I was also privileged to be able to join several generations of the Koop family for Marj’s 90th birthday celebration in Canmore seven years ago.
There are so many stories I could tell of Marj, of her love of her family, her writing skills culminating in “Bumps on the Trail, her never ending learning of technology, even all through her 90s, her love of the people of Ethiopia, her constant giving back to others, especially those with breast cancer, having been a survivor herself and so forth. However, it is through her love of Jesus Christ that we were mostly bonded, and her main purpose in life was to see everyone come to the saving grace of Christ. I know that Jesus has received her into her own special mansion in heaven, and she now is eternally reunited with John. Arike and I join our brothers and sisters Doug and Maggie, Lorne and Sandi, Brent and all the family, Varsity Bible Church and all the tenants at Garrison Green Seniors Community in celebrating the life of this extraordinary woman. While we will miss you Marj, but we know we will be reunited one day in heaven. Love you dearly.
Love,
Dele and Arike Davies.
