A life of ‘privilege’

Newly designated President of the Methodist Church in Ireland Reverend David Nixon’s life is one seemingly on a pre-determined path, marked by important junctures, and always with an unwavering faith in God.

“I didn’t ask for this position,” he said of last June’s designation, the highest honour his Church can bestow. Nevertheless he ascribed it “a great privilege”.

Equally, the Blacklion native expressed such feelings when celebrated in front of family and friends at a Civic Reception held in his honour at Cavan Courthouse last week.

The first convened by newly-installed Cathaoirleach, Fianna Fáil’s John Paul Feeley, the reception was sanctioned by unanimous agreement at the council’s July monthly meeting.

“As someone who also comes from Blacklion, I want to record the high regard in which the Nixon family has been held for generations in our community,” stated Cllr Feeley. “I have no doubt all his family and friends present this evening, or not, are very proud of Reverend David’s achievements, and of his exceptional work in Ireland and abroad in the service of the Methodist Church.”

As a token of the occasion, Cllr Feeley presented Rev Nixon with a painting by Blacklion artist Rosemary McHugh. The painting was of the Church Tower located in the townland of Thornhill, where Rev Nixon was born and reared, and where his father is buried.

“When I became Cathaoirleach, I wanted to ensure that, when we as a council make presentations to people, that the item presented should be of the county and ideally of some significance to the person to whom it is being made.”

Rev Nixon responded by speaking of the esteem with which he continues to hold the small West Cavan border village he still calls home.

Growing up a Methodist on a small farm at Thornhill, Rev Nixon first attended Blacklion Church of Ireland School until its closure, then Barran National School, and after St Clare’s Comprehensive in Manorhamilton.

From his teenage years, he held strong ambitions of becoming a woodwork teacher. Following encouragement from his teacher Eugene Kelly, Rev Nixon applied to train at third level, but failed to attain the requisite points.

After a year spent working in Sligo, he applied a second time, but was again rebuffed.

However, as Proverb goes ‘the Lord works mysterious ways’, Rev Nixon soon took up an apprenticeship at Haslette’s, now known as Merenda, a global leader in wood veneer products.

During those five years, Rev Nixon entered the Skills Olympics for carpentry, winning the national competition in joinery, before representing Ireland in the European heats in France in 1988, and later earning silver in the World Skills Competition in Australia.

Third time lucky, Rev Nixon thought, as he prepared his application for woodwork teaching.

“I was again told ‘no’. They said ‘we’re not taking mature students’. It was the first year since the college opened.”

At a “crossroads”, nagging in the back of Rev Nixon’s mind was a feeling he needed “to do something more”.

At the same time, his own local minister approached, offering that God had wanted the young Rev Nixon to devote his life to ministering.

“Now I didn’t feel it, and I didn’t particularly want to feel it at the time. I was, at the time, shy, I was quiet. I was never part of the front of the Church. I would have been one keeping a low profile. I, as I thought about it, I realised ‘there is something here’,” he recalled.

After becoming a Lay Preacher, Rev Nixon’s new path convinced him to attend Cliff College, a Christian theological college in Derbyshire that teaches Biblical Theology at the undergraduate level.

“That was a big step because it meant drawing a line under carpentry and leaving that behind.”

He remembers leaving for Cliff College at Easter, carrying with him the “big question” of “Why had God given me such a love for woodwork, and why are you taking it away from me now? This doesn’t make sense. But I felt there was something there and I needed to move forward.”

After Cliff College, Rev Nixon returned to Ireland in 1990 where, with new wife, Enniskillen-born Rhoda, he began his ministry in Dungannon.

“I was testing and trying doors,” he remembers of his time there.

To the pair, Rev Nixon from Blacklion and Rhoda, who was brought up in Sligo, the Tyrone town appeared “alien” at times given their respective upbringings.

“Coming from Blacklion to a place where the kerbstones were a different colour to what they are here, namely red, white and blue, and where on a certain evening of the year you find your neighbours are burning your flag on top of a fire. That to me was very strange, and very alien. It was a huge learning experience.”

After two years and imbued with the confidence of those around him “to keep going”, Rev Nixon entered Edge Hill University in Lancashire, a non-denominational teacher training college.

It was beyond the academics that Rev Nixon excelled. Summers were spent working at an orphanage in Romania, and on another he travelled with Rhoda to work alongside and learn from the Methodist Church in Kenya. “That was a great learning experience,” he reflects.

After graduating, he began ministering in Moville in Donegal in the mid-90s, before answering a yearning building deep inside to travel overseas.

Answering that call saw he and wife Rhoda spend the next 13 years in Zambia, to bring to the people there the opportunity to hear the Christian message, and at the same time benefit from his immense practical skills as a gifted tradesman.

“When I got there I got the answer to my question ‘Why have you taken me away from woodwork?’”

The Church there had already received funding to establish a skills centre, but had no idea about what to do, or how to go about introducing this new initiative.

“I discovered that is why I was called to this particular place. That is why I got that experience in my past. It gave me the opportunity to live a bit of life, to experience a bit of life, and to develop a skill that God would later use.”

Addressing an attendance that included local politicians; Farren Glenfield, Bishop of Kilmore, Ardagh and Elphin; Martin Hayes, Bishop of Kilmore; and Rev Lorna Drenning, Methodist Minister for Blacklion; Oliver and Joan Haslette of Manorhamilton for whom he worked; and Thomas Cullen, his former principal at Barren NS, Rev Nixon described as “mind-boggling” how his life had built to that moment.

“For me, it’s just mind-boggling that he could take someone, shape you and mould you. Many of you were part of that. Then to later use all of that shaping and moulding in a particular place and at a particular time. It’s what you’d call in business terms, amazing Human Resource management.”

They returned with their two sons - Samuel and Christopher - in 2012 and continued their ministry in North Dublin.

In 2018, now based at Dún Laoghaire, Rev Nixon was elected to lead the Methodist Church in Ireland as president for a year.

Within months however he had to step down after wife Rhoda received the devastating news she had developed lung cancer.

A month after the initial diagnosis, Rhoda started developing a limp. She spoke with a doctor who made an immediate appointment to see her at the hospital.

A subsequent brain scan would soon show the cancer had sadly spread further than initially expected, to both her brain and spine.

Rev Nixon was with her when the doctor broke the terrible news. He had cycled there from the modest home the couple shared in nearby Dun Laoghaire.

Yet again, Rev Nixon feels it was like God knew “what was coming down the tracks”.

He told this story at the civic reception as a way of reminding those in attendance that, even in their darkest hour, they are never “alone”.

By divine intervention, Rev Nixon explained that just as the terrible news began to settle upon the couple’s shoulders, a close family friend arrived at the curtain the doctor had just pulled around to offer some additional privacy in that bleakest of moments.

He said the family friend was none-the-wiser as to the Nixon family’s predicament, but still shared how she had “felt” moved to make her way there and pray with them.

“Alison didn’t know the news we’d just received, but she felt the sense of God saying to her ‘go and pray with them’, and she did. We still weren’t able to tell her that morning, but she prayed with us, and just sitting in silence almost afterwards, I thought ‘how does God know?’ In the midst of this pain, and turmoil, and sadness, God is healing.”

Sadly, Rev Nixon’s wife of 30 years, Rhoda (nee Thorpe), passed away age 52 years, peacefully in her home, on September 19, 2020.

Rhoda’s funeral service was celebrated in Enniskillen Methodist Church, and she was buried at nearby Knockninny graveyard.

Rev Nixon is currently the Circuit Superintendent in South East Leinster and based in Dun Laoghaire.

He told the reception how his faith had always carried a certain innocence, having devoted himself to being a Christian aged 10 or 11 years.

“I can say it was when I, as a very small child at that time, decided to ask God to forgive me for whatever sin I had in my life at that time, and to be my friend and companion. That’s putting it very simply as the man would say. As theologians we would have many big words to put on top of that,” he laughed.

“But for me as a little child, it was as simple as that, and again, I think my faith has continued to be fairly simple in that Lord Jesus has continued to be a wonderful friend to me ever since, bringing me through difficult times, especially in the last couple of years.”