From Vision to Village: A conversation with Elim’s first Executive Director

When Elim Village first began taking shape in the 1990s, it was little more than a bold vision shared by a small group of people who believed in creating a community where spouses could age together. Turning that vision into reality required faith, perseverance, and strong leadership.

In 1998, Gerry Ebbers became the first Executive Director of Elim Village. Hired by the Elim Housing Society, he helped guide the project through some of its earliest and most formative years—from building community awareness and navigating public hearings to welcoming the first residents and preparing for future care services.

In this conversation, Gerry reflects on how he first became involved with Elim, the challenges of getting the project off the ground, and what it feels like to see the community today.

How did you first hear about Elim?

I was the Director of Development for Trinity Western University, and I got a call from one of our donors asking if I would have lunch with him and another donor. I thought this was related to Trinity business, so I met with them. Instead, they told me about this new project, Elim, and asked if I would be interested in coming on board. I was intrigued by the whole idea, the whole concept, the whole project.

What did your job entail when you first started?

The job was multifaceted and there were so many things going on that it’s hard to pick one title or to describe in one way what I did. A lot of what I was doing was establishing a base of potential people who are going to live at Elim. One of the things I did was visit almost every church, community organization, and seniors organization in Surrey to just let them know about the Elim project and define it and explain it so that we could begin to build up the critical mass we would need in order to fill buildings as we were building them. The community that came up with the concept was not large enough to fill all the buildings and never intended it to be any kind of an ethnic group – it was for everybody. So, I did a lot of that marketing and got involved in all of the decisions that were going on related to Elim.

Elim faced a lot of opposition at that time. What it was like to navigate that?

There was community opposition to Elim being on this site. Work went into making good connections with the mayor, Mayor Doug McCallum at the time, and a few of the city councillors that were favourable of the project. That was really helpful for us in moving forward. So was getting people who lived in the community and were understanding and supportive of Elim to come to the public hearing that the city had in order for us to get our approvals.

Was there a point where it felt like Elim really found its footing?

I probably felt that about the time I left in 2004. At that point we had a couple buildings up, we had residents, and we are operating as an organization. We were moving into the whole strata management side of things. The next project was going to be The Emerald building, the care side of things, and that was really the step forward in fulfilling that vision of what Elim Village was always going to be about.

Was it challenging to take the vision of the Bible study group and board and make it a reality?

Yes, it was challenging, but it just wasn’t me. The original group of people that came up with the idea were very much involved as we moved forward. They became board members, for example, of the Elim Housing Society. They became the first residents. They became people who invested in the project financially in other ways. So that was really the group that had that vision and wanted to make sure that it moved forward.

How did you feel when Elim finally broke ground?

I don’t have a lot of memories of the day of our groundbreaking ceremony, but when I see the pictures, it brings some of them back. I’m just imagining that must have been for us a confirmation that, yes, it’s happening. We’ve got the permits, we’ve got the money, we’ve got the contractors, we’ve got the plan, we’re going to start building and so it must have been a really exciting time of confirmation. I was probably so busy making sure the thing you know went off as it should, that I wasn’t paying attention to anything else.

At that time, did you ever picture that Elim would be anything like it is today?

I’m just amazed and so thankful that it has become what we always envisioned it to be, what we hoped it would be, and in a relatively short period of time. I never doubted that it would happen because once we started building, once we started operating, the whole concept caught on with seniors who wanted to live here. It wasn’t like we were desperate to sell units. And the whole concept of this campus of care really caught on in the province. I used to go to conferences for the care industry that would talk all about these senior care projects, and in rather short order, Elim became the standard. People would say, “Oh, you’re from Elim.” They knew what our vision was. They wanted that vision, as did the Ministry of Health. So that was another affirmation that the whole idea of Elim was the correct one, and that it had every chance to succeed.

How did faith play a role in those early days?

I can’t point to miraculous things happening, but I do have an abiding memory of how things fell into place when they were supposed to, that people you needed were there when you needed them, that the response was there. To me, that was an indication of God’s guidance in this project and His blessing on this project.

Something that has guided me in all the work I’ve done in my life were Paul’s comments in Corinthians where he talks about how God takes the weak of this world and shames the strong. I think that’s so true of all the endeavors I’ve been involved with in my life. One would look at them and say, “Who are they,” or “What are they?” And yet, lo and behold, look what they do. That was true for Elim when I was here: the right people came together at the right time. I meet people now who are here, and I see these are the right people for the right time. They come with qualifications and yet, at the same time, they come with the right spirit, and I think that’s what’s key.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.