Sermon: Overcoming Adversity

This is the story of Louise Laflamme . She now heads up one of Hawaii’s largest insurance companies. She was first recruited into the industry as a junior aged 17 and quickly became a senior field agent looking after about 50 small personal clients. After a period of learning from a number of

Senior colleagues at age twenty she was moved to senior sales consultant and given a portfolio consisting of about 100 small corporate clients. Over the next 5 years Louise became the first female in the companies history to achieve induction into the world acclaimed MDRT ( Million dollar round table) For producing sales of at least ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

After a further five years and after reaching the position of Vice president she decided to leave and set up her own business in Hawaii . she was now 38 and a mother of two girls and served as a school governor and a local alderman.

I met louise Laflamme at a international MDRT meeting at the Royal Albert hall where she was presiding as international MDRT president. I was proud to be a new member and was thinking I had achieved quite a lot I was 34.

Know you might think that louises story up to now was not that inspiring But, In the middle 1950’s on a small farm in California the Laflamme family worked mainly wheat and corn . The family Consisted of mother and father and two children David 14 and Louise who was 4. On a sweltering summer day the family and the farm labourers had just finished for lunch, Mrs Laflamme served up a hearty meal on trestle tables in the farm yard. They had all taken their seats around the table when Mrs Laflamme noticed her daughter louise was missing. She asked David to go and see where she was after a few seconds david was heard to scream for help.

It was his sister louise she had fallen into a small threshing machine. Later in hospital it was revealed that Louise had lost an arm and both legs and the doctors thought she would not make it through the night. As we know she did live and overcame life changing disabilities to be a mom and a business leader of international renown .

We can learn from Louise Laflamme that whilst we may be challenged in many ways god will lay out a path that can be challenging but at the same time not insurmountable. I hope and pray that we can all mirror louises life and reach for the sky.

In Gods Name. Amen

Elder Philip. A Gill