Our guest speaker this week is Yolande Parsons.
Yolande is delighted to be back at St Mark’s to celebrate Black History Month. St Mark’s is like a second home for her as she has nurtured some dear friendships over the last few years.
Yolande is originally from St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and immigrated to Canada over forty years ago, initially settling in Winnipeg, Manitoba which has a very vibrant Black community. It was there that she honed her passion for community work, becoming involved in Winnipeg’s various community initiatives, such as Black History Month, the MLK Committee, the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Association, and co-hosting a community television show, In Touch With The Caribbean. After marrying and moving east, she and her late husband continued serving the Black community in Montreal and then Ottawa.
Yolande is very active in her local church, Arlington Woods Free Methodist Church, where she serves as a Lay Minister and leads Women’s Ministry. She is a graduate of Heritage College and Seminary and is tracking for credentialing within the Free Methodist Church in Canada.
Yolande is the proud mother of an adult daughter, Yelena. She works with the Algonquin Students’ Association and teaches part-time at Algonquin College.
Link to service: https://youtube.com/live/w1Qm0o5uRnk?feature=share
Link to text of message: https://stmarksottawa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Honouring-the-Past-Empowering-the-Present-Inspiring-the-Future.pdf
Background Image:
JESUS MAFA. Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48307 [retrieved February 12, 2026]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).