For those who missed the funeral you are able to watch the whole thing by following the link below. Everyone I speak to tell me that they were blessed on Friday and felt it was as good as a funeral could be. I know Rob would have loved it and been proud that he was honoured and spoken of as a man of God.
http://livestream.com/accounts/16817211/events/4665688/videos/108814092
My words at the funeral.
Rob had many roles and was important to many people,
He was a husband, a dad, a son, a brother, a friend, a teammate, a teacher, a
mentor, and so many other things. For the last 10 years he has been my
best friend and soulmate. I am truly a better person because of
Rob. He was the most gentle, caring soul I know and I am heartbroken but
also so happy that Rob is in heaven and is no longer in pain.
Rob and I met through youth for christ and knew very
quickly we were the perfect match for each other. I always wanted someone
to come and sweep me off my feet and treat me like a princess and Rob truly did
that for me. Rob left a beautiful letter for me and it reminded what an
incredible man of God he was and the amazing example he has set for our son.
Isaac will surely grow up hearing about his dad’s love
for the Lord but more than that I will make sure that Isaac knows how deeply
Rob wanted him to know the Lord. Rob adored his son and was most sad to
miss all of the important events in Isaac’s life. I know that as a mother
I can never filled the void that Rob has left but I believe that my Jesus has a
plan and I am choosing to trust him.
Throughout Rob’s entire battle with cancer he still
never questioned why it was him but rather found it an honour to suffer like
Jesus did. I know that if there is one thing he would have wanted today
it would be for everyone here to know how much they are loved by Jesus.
Rob lived a life loving Jesus even though it did not promise the easy road.
He deeply desired to live a life that was pleasing to God.
Over the last year we have be able to make some
amazing memories with our little family and I am beyond grateful for
that. Our trip to BC in June was by far the highlight and will be a trip
Isaac and I will always talk about. Another highlight for me was going to
the Grey Cup with Rob. He was so excited to be there and we were able to
have such a great time. I love taking pictures and has thousands of them
from the last 10 years. I am sure Isaac and I will spend hours together
reminiscing and talking about our times with Rob.
I told Rob every chance I got how much I loved him and
I know he felt the same. Even though he is no longer physically with me
we are connected so deeply that he will always be here with me. I miss
you already Rob, and I love you to the moon and back and can’t wait to be
together again in heaven one day.
Katherina's tribute to Rob.
My name is Katherina Caby and I am Rob’s younger and
only sister.
Robert William Scott was born on January 24th
1983 and was one of the last babies born at Concordia Hospital. Rob came into
the world with his mother singing Jesus
loves me, and shortly after he took his final breath on Monday, was also
held by his mother singing Jesus loves me.
He was known to all as Robbie, and would be the center
of the universe for Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, Papa, and Aunty Sarah.
That is, until I was born two and half years later. Whereas Robbie cried lots
as a baby, I slept peacefully. Mom and Dad figured they finally got it right
and they had the perfect family they were praying for; a boy and a girl, in
that order.
Summers with Robbie always included staying at our
trailer at Stonewall Quarry Park. We started camping there the summer I was in Mom’s
belly, and continued all the way until we were adults. Robbie would pack up his
ropes and toy hunting knives (he started his knife collection very early) and
head out adventuring with his best bud Danny and some other friends. Little
sisters were only sometimes allowed to tag along.
Robbie attended Lord Wolsely and John Henderson Junior
High. Then he went on to Kildonan East and the University of Manitoba. At
school Robbie quickly made new friends. He was easy to like (especially by some
of my girlfriends). He was compassionate by nature and was quick to stand up
against bullies, to be a defender and a buddy to kids who had few friends. Robbie
was also really good at school and achieved high grades, which I then had to
follow in his footsteps.
Robbie was a competitive guy. Sports was a huge part
of Robbie’s childhood. He started like most kids by playing soccer. He had a
massive, soaring kick that soon put an end to backyard practises because more
time was spent in our neighbours’ yards retrieving the ball than actually
playing.
Rob would go on to wrestle with Olympian Bob Molle, be
on the track and field team, spend all nighters playing video games with
friends, play competitive darts with Dad for over 10 years, and then with Tony.
In fact he would go away with Tony on Valentine’s day weekends for dart
tournaments, leaving Karen with Mom and I and no other option than to go on a
shopping trip to the States. More recently he discovered discgolf which would
soon become his passion. As a kid, Rob taught me how to throw a football; as a
teenager, how to lift weights; and as an adult how to play discgolf.
Somewhere between soccer and darts, Rob’s focus
changed to what he called the greatest sport known to man: Football. Rob always
played running back, the powerful fullback. He played and coached for years
with the East Side Eagles. Rob developed his strength, determination,
perseverance and leadership abilities on the football field. Always showing up,
always doing his best, always the team player, and always keeping his legs
pumping to keep driving forward. These are lessons Rob used his whole life
until the day he was called off the field, his final whistle blown, and he
could rest in his heavenly home.
As a young boy around Isaac’s age, Robbie prayed with
Mom to accept Jesus into his life. That day, Robbie said (as written in his
baby book): I can see my arm reaching out and opening up a door and Jesus
coming inside. When he does, I’m going to slam that door shut and lock it so he
can’t get out!
So many people influenced Rob’s life journey with
Jesus, starting with Mom. He was also mentored and guided by many at Talbot
Mission, Rowandale, AWANA, youth group, Camp Nutimik, and Youth for Christ. He
was baptised at Birds Hill Park in 2004.
As Rob volunteered at Samson’s Gym and then started
working at YFC, he was allowing himself to be transformed by Jesus, into the
man of God we knew him to be as an adult. A man that Karen would eventually
meet and fall for.
As Rob and I were born two years apart, we were
sometimes in the same youth group and I got to be that annoying little sister
around my teenage brother. We did grow up though and became friends; especially
when we both met our spouses around the same time in 2005. After meeting Karen
at a YFC conference, all of a sudden our conversations became a lot more
interesting! Right from the beginning, Rob just loved Karen’s smile,
personality and faith. I remember sitting in the basement of our parent’s home,
asking each other advice on the special person we had both just met, that both
happened to be thousands of miles away, as we shared the experience of long distance
relationships. Rob smiled whenever Karen would call; and the same was true
right to the day he died, Karen walked in the room with her ‘Hi babe’ and Rob’s
whole face brightened up.
After a surprise proposal in December 2005, Rob and
Karen were married in July 2006. Rob became a beloved member of the Farquharson
family, and Karen a cherished member of the Scott family.
Rob was an amazing father. From the moment he was
born, Rob was so proud of Isaac. I personally learnt a lot for my own family
from watching his interactions with his son and his vision for family.
As a younger sister, sometimes it felt like Rob was
always one step ahead of me: going to university, getting married, buying a
house, having a child... At one family dinner a few years ago, Dad mentioned
that it was like I was walking in my brother’s footsteps, and I responded that
it would be an honour to do so.
Rob was always a good teacher. He may never have been
able to attain his goal of becoming a high school teacher, however he shared
his passion for teaching youth through his work with YFC, as an educational
assistant, as a coach, in various volunteer roles, and especially as a father
to Isaac.
Rob worked hard to provide for his family, sometimes
working several jobs and studying at the same time, such as when he was a
custodian at Rowandale.
I will always remember when Rob called me to say that
he was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. He’s
the one who comforted me. Through
several surgeries and seemingly unending treatments, Rob stayed strong. Even as
his body failed him, his faith and outlook on life remained an anchor for him,
and for others. Rob and Karen’s shared faith and their willingness to share it
so publicly through the blog has allowed his journey to be an inspiration to
thousands. Last summer, Rob, Karen and Isaac were able to take an incredible
trip to B.C and Alberta, and somehow, that seemed to be a climax of the cancer
journey.
On December 5th, Rob was able to reconnect
with friends, family, colleagues, team mates, church members, and so many
others at the celebration in his honour.
Rob’s last days were peaceful; spent with Karen, Isaac,
our parents, and his closest family and friends.
The night before Rob passed away, Joël and I took our
one year old son Jonathan to see Uncle Rob. Jonathan has been learning how to
blow kisses. Rob called for Jonathan by name and then they blew each other
kisses. It was a very special moment.
So now, I raise my hand to my mouth and I, too, blow
you kisses, Rob.
Aaron's tribute to Rob.
For those of you that do not know me, my name is Aaron
Pauls and Rob and I had been friends for over 25 years. I have many awesome
memories of Rob which will give you a glimpse of the outstanding friend and man
of God that Rob was, some of which I would like to share with you today.
I was first introduced to Rob in early elementary
school when my family and his family started attending Rowandale Baptist Church
around the same time. Growing up in those early years we attended Awana and Sunday
school together and spent time in the summer at Camp Nutimik. From an early age
we were able to exercise our very competitive spirits by racing around the
circle at weekly Awana events. Eventually we graduated from elementary school
and entered an amazing youth group program at Rowandale. Competitive juices
kept flowing as we would often play touch football after church with the boys or
even for youth group events. As I spent the past couple weeks reminiscing and
thinking back, it was very hard to remember specific memories from the earlier
years. I realized that the reason for this was that the two of us weren’t that close
until high school.
Up until then Rob and I had never attended school
together. What you have to understand is that I was extremely shy and scared about
attending a high school without knowing many kids. I remember Rob being so
caring and considerate looking out for me, introducing me to his friends and
spending significant time with me. Our relationship really started to take off
and we ended up spending almost every lunch hour during those 3 years at Rob’s
house, close by the school eating lunch and watching sports centre. During the
flood in Winnipeg in 1997 our church had the pleasure of hosting some Canadian forces
that were sandbagging in the area. After their stay at our church they ended up
leaving a parting gift of cases of their leftover army rations. Somehow a
number of leftover cases ended up in our family’s barn and so we started eating
them on a regular basis (yes if you do the math this was now two years later –
but everything was freeze dried and still tasted pretty fabulous – at least for
two starving high school boys). We loved opening these packages of various
meals, and chasing them down with some banana – instant coffee - vanilla ice
cream milkshakes. In fact, Rob’s mom told me last week that at Christmas this
year she made some milkshakes and Rob made a point of saying “these are not
like the milkshakes that Aaron and I made”. Now whether this was good or bad, I
guess I’ll never know.
After high school we drifted apart a little as he and
I took different routes at University, him pursuing engineering and me entering
commerce. That being said we still stayed friends, attending church and a
College and Career group at Rowandale. At some point God pushed Rob in a
different direction after he started volunteering at Youth for Christ. It was
not long before he started working at Youth for Christ as an employee, first
helping run the gym but eventually starting a flag football program. When he
started that program, he asked me along with 3 other fine men to volunteer
running it. I of course agreed and I must say that it was such a blast to play
football with him, expend some serious competitiveness (of course only when we
ended up being matched up one on one) while sharing our love for Jesus with
some kids that were from challenging backgrounds. It was so awesome to see
Rob’s love and passion for Jesus and how he shared it with such ease every week
with the kids during the “God talk”. It was easy to see that he would have a
lasting impact on some of these boys.
Somewhere during those University and Youth for Christ
days Rob and I both grew up and got married. This started a slew of bachelor
parties that were spent in God’s creation on some remote canoe routes through
the Whiteshell and Nopiming with a number of really awesome young men, many of
which are here today. I distinctly remember us coming up with the idea to try
and find one of the biggest boulders perched on some Canadian shield where we
could push it into the water and get the biggest splash possible on video.
Well, what I can tell you is that with each canoe trip the boulders got bigger.
On one of the trips we ended up picking the impossible one that took several
hours to get off the cliff. What I remember most about that one was not being
able to do it without Rob’s seriously big “Mac Truck” legs. He got in behind
that bolder and pushed like you would not believe with his unbelievable
strength and we ended up getting it going and into the water. Pretty much
swamped our canoes at the edge of the lake.
After we were both married our friendship had the
benefit of two amazing women, my wife Laura and of course Karen. Between the
four of us we quickly got into playing board games. We would get together with
Rob and Karen on almost a weekly basis playing board games into the early hours
of the morning. This again would continue Rob and my competitiveness to the
point where we had to make a new rule that all feelings got sealed up in the
game box as the night ended. This new rule had to be made after an intense
night of Killer Bunnies where Rob and I feverishly disagreed on the
interpretation of a card that ended up having a significant impact on the
ending of the game. That night I called Rob after they had left and had to
apologize for our heated disagreement. What I really loved about our game
nights was the ability to chat and grow our relationship with each other.
Around this time in our lives Laura and I were blessed
with our first two boys and it was amazing how Rob became an instant uncle to them.
He was so loving and the boys instantly attached to Uncle Rob and it was easy
to see that he was going to be an awesome dad to his eventual son Isaac.
Another memory that I will always cherish is the
countless rounds of Disc Golf Rob and I played together. Rob ended up sharing
his love for the sport with a lot of other people, but it all started with
Karen and Laura starting a jewelry “business”. Rob and I obviously eventually
got bored listening to the endless conversations of the new beads and styles of
jewelry that were out and so we started playing disc golf on the PlayStation at
our house, or on the Wii at his house. What we didn’t know was that the sport
existed in real life. But once we found out we picked up the sport together in
a hurry. We always said that it was so fun to be outside enjoying God’s
creation, enjoying conversation while being fiercely competitive together. The
other memory I had about disc golf is how Rob was always so inclusive, being ok
with my older two boys coming along even if it took longer. Yet he would spend
the time encouraging them how to throw better.
All these memories of our relationship, the friendship
we had built, first the two of us, but eventually with our families is awesome
and I will cherish them forever. But I what I will really remember about Rob is
how he lived out his faith and the servant of God that he was. In hindsight,
God called him away from a financially lucrative engineering career to serve
God with his talents at Youth for Christ and eventually other areas of his life
for the relatively short amount of time he had left here on earth. What we
should take away from this is that he was listening to God and was in tune with
Him ready to follow his calling. He will forever be an example to me and a
reminder of how we should be living our life here on earth. While he was
suffering so much, his focus was always ensuring that everyone he was in
contact with would know how important his relationship with Jesus was and that
he was 100% confident in his relationship in Him. He had no shame in his
illness and had no shame to tell those that would listen about his walk with
Jesus.
In closing I want to leave you with some words from
Stephen Carleton, our youth pastor growing up: Rob journeyed through life as a
child, as boy, as a young man, as mentor, as a friend, a father, as a husband
and as a man of God. He rose to the challenges he faced. He shared his journey of
life with so many. His strength, his fear, his love of God will always be here
in our lives. Rob will be living forever on every face and in every heart he
has touched. I’m gonna miss him.
Stewart's (my dad) tribute to Rob.
Someone
once asked the question, “Where is God when it hurts?”
The
answer has eluded many wise people but I would suggest that He is closer than
you may think.
Consider
Rob, a strong young man in the prime
of life who was diagnosed with cancer.
Since
his health took a downturn, he did not waiver in his faith. He has not complained although he had
reason to, always looking on the bright side.
Rob had
the opportunity to speak to a crowd of his friends at Rowandale church a few
weeks ago and he spoke of his future home in heaven. It is now his present
home.
Rob
has always been kind, gentle,
and had a heart for people as shown in their work at Youth for Christ, trustworthy. Always
positive, the wish of Karen and his hearts were long happy lives together
Where
is God? God
is in Rob.
Consider
Karen, a strong woman holding up in the face of
difficulty and hardship.
She
is being the example that Isaac needs.
She writes her blog so that we can follow
alongside in support and others can see a testament of their faith and their
love for each other.
Where
is God? God is in Karen.
Consider
the dear friends at Rowandale who surrounded Rob & Karen with love over the
past years. Their generosity has
been overwhelming, the meals provided, financial support, time
given, personal sacrifices to a young family who are
loved, given over almost 2 years, never wavering or letting up, such a beautiful
testimony to the faithfulness of God displayed in his redeemed people.
Where
is God? God is in his people.
Karen
and Rob have friends who they have known for many years, even since childhood. These friendships are precious and have
shown immeasurable support for them both.
Where
is God? God is in their friends.
God’s
love can be seen through us.
So Where is God?
God
is in us.
My prayer and I know it was Rob's prayer is that you are blessed by these words and that if you don't know Jesus that you are drawn into a relationship with him so that no matter what life throws at you that you can have to peace that Rob had. Even through the tough times and when we don't understand the purpose of what is happening God is still good.
Love Karen
