World Vision Canada’s president reflects on his legacy
“Your burden for ministry should never be greater than your joy in the Lord. You have to have both to do this well.”
MISSISSAUGA, ON—Dave Toycen is retiring. After 18 years as president of World Vision Canada and a 41 year career across four different World Vision organizations, Toycen believes it’s time to make room for the next generation of leadership.
“The hardest part is the emotional side,” says Toycen. “ These are people I love working with. I’ll bleed orange [World Vision’s colour] until the day I die, but I felt it was time for a change and time for me to focus more on my family.”
Toycen started with World Vision in 1973, doing radio promotions in the U.S. A seminary student at the time, he had been involved in social justice activism, so when the opportunity came, he thought it was a good fit.
“Working at World Vision was a next step in getting involved at the grass-roots level overseas. I saw it as an expression of my belief in a holistic Christianity, a Christianity that embraces the spiritual needs of people as well as their social and physical needs.”
In 1988, Toycen joined World Vision Canada and became president in 1996. By then, he says he was deeply touched by the plight of children around the world, which drove his passion for expanding the organization.
“My biggest highlight is the fact that we are helping so many more children now,” says Toycen. “When I first came to Canada, we were sponsoring 92,000 [children], now we are sponsoring five times that. Canada has one of the highest rates of World Vision children sponsored per capita.”
Toycen’s favourite memory is a story of hope rising from the tragedy of the Rwanda genocide.
“It was a disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people had fled Rwanda. I was in Zaire approaching a refugee camp and a boy was walking along the road. He was so skeletal, he looked like E.T. from the movie.”
The boy, who only knew his first name, Gasore, hadn’t had a drink in days. Toycen’s team gave him the only thing they had, a can of Coke, and drove him to the camp.
“We couldn’t find any relatives so we cooked him some beans and put him in a home for orphaned children. They were overrun during one of the civil war conflicts in the country. We lost contact, but that experience changed my life.”
The hopelessness was overwhelming, Toycen says, but rescuing Gasore was the other side of the story–that if you do something, there is hope. He says he has come to realize that no matter what the situation, God is always somewhere there.
“A quote that guides me is that your burden for ministry should never be greater than your joy in the Lord. You have to have both to do this well.”
Although Toycen will be retiring, once the board finds a replacement, he says he knows one thing for sure: he will not be retiring from the cause of children.
“My intention is to give my heart and soul to this organization, right to the last day,” Toycen says. “After that I am going to take some time to think and pray, probably go on a retreat and see where God wants me next. I’m pretty much back where I started when I got my job in 1973. It’s both scary and exhilarating.”
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