 Who
is Dan Haley?
When I look back over my 47 years it’s just amazing what God has done
in my life, because I got off to a really bad start.
I was abused as a child, became an alcoholic at the age of 13 and I
stayed that way until I was 30. I
married when I was 19 years old, but I abused my wife and children and they
ended up at Crossroads, the Peterborough refuge for battered women and kids.
So, here I was at the age of 30 abusing my wife and physically and
verbally abusing my children. I turned to Alcoholics Anonymous for help and
after 6 years of sobriety my marriage
 improved,
but then I hit another wall. I felt utterly bankrupt spiritually, to the point I
began to ask myself, “Is this all there is to life?”
My AA group met on Sunday mornings but one Sunday morning I didn’t feel
like I even belonged there anymore, either. It was like a voice in the back of
my mind telling me, “Your work here is done and it’s time for you to leave
right now.” Which was a bit awkward because the meeting had only just started,
so I sat there for a few minutes not quite sure what to do.
That same feeling to get up and get out came over me again, though, so I
stood up and with tears in my eyes, wondering what on earth was happening to me,
I left. I contacted Derek Brown, a born-again Christian and he took me to church
that night. At the end of the service I ended up flat on my face crying out to
God for help and that’s when the remarkable change in me began.
It was like a complete overhaul from the inside out, and it began right
then and there because there was a total change in my vocabulary. It was like
God was cleaning my mouth out and putting new words into my mouth instead. When
I left the church that night I felt like a new creation. And once God came into
my life I just took off.
I had a hunger for education and a deep desire to know more about God.
But I didn’t know how to read or write, so at the ripe old age of 30 I took it
upon myself to learn to read. I went back to school and with help from a tutor
at the Trent Valley Literacy Association I got my grade 12 equivalent. I applied
for a course in social work at Sir Sanford Fleming College and scary though it
was, I graduated, thanks to God’s obvious help.
Some time before I graduated, and even before becoming a Christian, I was
putting on AA meetings in prison and helping inmates with one-on-one
reintegration back into the community after they were released. But soon after
graduating from Sir Sanford, and as a Christian now, I was offered a contract as
a community chaplain, having had at least 10 years experience volunteering in
the prison system.
I was well-known to those in chaplaincy with Corrections Services of
Canada because of a high profile release of an inmate from Kingston Penitentiary
in which I snuck the man out in the trunk of my car! CSC soon became aware of
the work I was doing and were so pleased with it that they offered to support my
efforts in the community.
For 8 years now I’ve been working as a community chaplain in
Peterborough, and I’ve seen my ministry grow by leaps and bounds. What is now
officially called the Peterborough Community Chaplaincy now includes at least 65
volunteers who are willing to walk alongside ex-offenders who are returning to
our community.
There’s a great need because most of these ex-offenders leave prison
with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They don’t have any money and
most of them have no friends. They don’t have any food or a place to live, and
even if they did have a place to stay they don’t have any basic furniture like
a bed, dresser or kitchen table and chairs.
Imagine yourself starting out all over again with nothing. Well, that’s
exactly what it’s like for them.
Ontario Works, meanwhile, gives them $520 a month for rent, food and
utilities. Add the cost of a telephone to that and there’s precious little
left, perhaps not even enough in their pockets for coffee with a friend.
This is where the Peterborough Community Chaplaincy kicks in, to fill
these gaps and also try to help these men find employment, or volunteer work if
they’re on a pension. Many of these men want to earn a living and pay their
way, and if possible give something back to the community as well, but
employment is hard to find when you have a criminal record. To admit to having a
criminal record on an application form for a job is usually a guarantee of
rejection. So, there’s a great need and I feel a deep calling to help meet the
need.
I’ve often been asked how I became a chaplain. Well, I didn’t plan
any of the steps that lead me into this kind of work. It all just seemed to
happen to me. It looks like someone else was controlling my life, the same God
who has been with me all through my life. I wasn’t aware of how He was leading
me but I can look back now and see how He prepared me just perfectly for the
work I’m doing today.
I had plans for my life, like going to college and taking courses at
Queens University on restorative justice but it seems God eclipsed all that and
took me into areas of life I would never have dreamed possible. And now I’m on
the edge of another new challenge as we go public with the Peterborough
Community Chaplaincy and seek help from those who see great value in helping
reintegrate ex-offenders into the community.
If you’d like to know more about me and my checkered past and how God
ripped me out of my darkness I co-authored a book entitled, “A Brutal Way of
Learning,” which fills in the details.
You can contact me at
danhaley@nexicom.net or if you like I can come and speak at your church, perhaps at a breakfast
meeting, where I would love to share with you what God has done in my life, and
explain the dreams and work being done by the Peterborough Community Chaplaincy.
Dan
Haley
Peterborough Community Chaplaincy
Main
office P.O. Box 235
Peterborough ON
K9J 6Y8
705-741-4172 (Office)
705-741-4833 (Fax)
Office
E-mail
ptbochaplaincy@nexicom.net
Dan's personal e-mail danhaley@nexicom.net
Web site
www.ptbochaplaincy.org
New
Beginnings (transition house)
953
Clonsilla Ave
K9J 5Y2
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