The Funeral.

Uncle Ben's funeral was on Wednesday September 29th. There were approximately 650 people in attendance. On the way home Trevor said to me, "he must have done something right to have that many people at his funeral." It was a wonderful celebration of his life.

The following is the tribute read by my brother Chris at the funeral. This tribute was on behalf of those that called Ben Pauls "Uncle".

Hi, I’m Chris Pauls, I grew up living a half mile from Uncle Ben and Aunt Joy’s place. Uncle Ben is the uncle that we had the opportunity to get to know well. I think we often took him for granted because he and Aunt Joy farmed together with my parents and so he was always around. If Dad wasn’t around we’d just pick up the two way and ask uncle Ben. Some of my earliest memories of him include the bachelor pad that he and Don Gerbrandt shared in Purves, that green sprinter that he used to drive and a lot more hair than he was sporting recently. Uncle Ben taught me to wink and he taught me to spit.

Uncle Ben always enjoyed both building and playing games. One day when I was quite young Uncle Ben was lying on the floor playing a game with someone and I was busy going back and forth, climbing over him to go upstairs. He then informed me of the bears that live upstairs at grandma and grandpas house. My trips upstairs and over him were over for the evening.

When Uncle Ben and Aunt Joy built their house on the farm in 1986 I was still young but able to help too. I remember the day that Uncle Ben badly needed a tool from my parents place a half mile away so I got on the mini bike and drove home. When I described to Dad what I was looking for he laughed. Apparently Dad didn’t have a board stretcher to lend out.

Mike and I were both surprised the day that Uncle Ben told us that he was a pilot. We’d never known that before. Then he explained to us that with his backhoe he could pile it here or pile it there.

Uncle Ben loved Aunt Joy and his children: He was fascinated with Anthony and Nicole when they were born; he delighted in his little “skippy” and you would often see Eric with him in the tractor.

Uncle Ben was always inventive. He built a rope swing for the pool and a nice play structure out of a large hydro spool. As a steel worker I’ve always been amazed at Uncle Ben’s ability to look at assemblies in two completely different pieces of junk and amalgamate them into one big useable piece of junk. After every election he was sure to cash in on the wealth of election signs that were littered around the country. He used them for everything from go-carts to sun visors as long as the Liberal and NDP signs were not pointing out where people could see them.

A good joke or story never went unnoticed and he never wasted his energy stifling a laugh. He usually made sure that they were better the 2^nd time around though.

My brother Mike spent a summer hoeing trees, and in payment received a Honda XR 80 which he drove for a lot of years. Uncle Ben and Aunt Joy had a lot of trees to hoe.

In the way they farmed together Dad and Uncle Ben taught us the ‘ours’ concept. Dad and Uncle Ben worked really well together. As we discussed this together Beth commented that with some of the equipment, she didn’t really know who’s it was, Dad’s or Uncle Ben’s. It seemed that Uncle Ben held all that he owned in an open hand. Both his time and possessions were free to be lent out and free to be used by God. This was evidenced in the hay that went to camp, the commitment he had to working at clubs, the camp workdays that he participated in and the many times that he lent us a truck, a trailer or other stuff.

I’m so glad for Uncle Ben that he’s in heaven now. I’m so glad that we don’t need to worry about him, but rather about ourselves and how we’re going to do without him. So what about heaven? Isn’t that just something people say at funerals to make themselves feel better about their lost loved ones? What did Ben Pauls do so good that he gets to go to heaven? The answer is quite simple: nothing. Uncle Ben was a good man to be sure but Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That means that all of the good that Uncle Ben did wasn’t enough to buy him a ticket to heaven, he still fell short of the glory of God. In Ephesians 2 we’re told that our salvation is a gift of God given to us through our faith in Jesus. Uncle Ben isn’t in heaven today because of the good man he was, he’s in heaven today because he accepted that gift from God as a youngster at Winker Bible Camp. The good that he did was his response to the gift God had given him. If you haven’t put your faith in Jesus Christ then you’re not prepared to die. I don’t believe that Uncle Ben knew it was his time to die. His tractor door was open and the radio was on. It was a routine type of day but Uncle Ben was ready. Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? Are you ready?