EDWARDSBURG — Everyone has a purpose or a calling in life. For some, it’s to be a parent or a grandparent, and for others, it’s to be a businessman or a titan of industry. But for one Edwardsburg leader, his calling was to shape his community.

On Thursday, March 8, the long-time pastor at the United Methodist Church in Edwardsburg, Jeff Reese, 64, passed away after a battle with cancer that lasted for more than a year.

“[Jeff engaged people] with a great heart, attentive discernment, good humor and keen insight,” said Rev. Jerry Toshalis, a close colleague of Reese’s. “I was consistently graced by an abiding trust in his thoughts, feelings, words and actions.”

As a pastor in Edwardsburg, Reese oversaw the construction of Hope’s current church, was the leader and spiritual advisor to a large congregation and started a contemporary service, while also helping to develop Project Hope, a new way of doing church.

Reese was also a strong family man, and he is survived by his wife, Carin and his daughters, Caitlin Eyestone and Casey Strong. Also surviving are his parents, Charles and Martha, who Carin says played an important role in helping Jeff become the courageous and compassionate man the Edwardsburg community knew and loved.

“Carin and Jeff were a wonderful complement to each other,” said Brian Burks, a longtime friend of Reese’s, who is also a member of Hope UMC.

Less than two years ago, Reese retired from Hope. However, even in retirement and while he battled cancer, he never stopped serving the church and his community.

“As he’s been dealing with cancer, he’s been monitoring other churches,” Burks said. “All the physical challenges that man has faced over the last several years, he still found the time and the strength to go to these other churches.”

Reese had been part of the community on and off since the mid-1970s, but at first he was a business owner and engineer.

He grew up in New Castle, Pennsylvania and graduated high school in 1971. He attended General Motors Institute, which is now Kettering University in Flint. For years, he worked as an engineer with GM and owned several businesses.

He met his wife Carin while she worked at an area diner.

“I was a waitress at a little diner that he would come into, so I tease that I was serving him breakfast and lunch long before we were dating,” she said.

They were married in 1986 and moved to East Lansing, where Carin Reese attended college at Michigan State University.

The Reeses joined the Christ United Methodist Church in Lansing, where Jeff Reese became good friends the assistant pastor, Jim Walker, who recommended that Reese become a pastor. At the time, he owned three businesses, so he told his friend that he didn’t have the time, but if he ever did he would consider it.

“Within six months he no longer owned any of them,” Carin Reese said.

Soon thereafter the couple moved to Red Bird Mission near Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. Jeff worked there as the camp director for the mission, while Carin was the dorm parent at the girls’ dormitory for the private Christian high school on the mission.

One night, while at a local concert with the girls from Carin’s dormitory, a local man began to bother one of the girls, so Jeff confronted him and it didn’t take too long for the man to hit Jeff.

“I looked up and Jeff’s glasses went flying by my face,” Carin said. “This guy had punched him.”

Rather than get angry or fight back, Jeff began escorting the man out of the area to keep his wife and the girls safe. Soon he learned that the man who hit him was the brother of one of his friends, Sylvester Nolan. Instead of holding a grudge against Nolan or his brother, Reese did everything he could to reach out to both of them and do everything he could to look after the brother.

“Not many guys when you punch them in the face are going to have that kind of reaction,” Nolan said. “It’s those encounters that we have with people like that that can change us. It’s not always sudden dramatic change, but over time. We get worn down with kindness.”

Soon, Nolan’s brother turned his life around, no longer got in fights, and became a deacon at his church. If Jeff had the courage to step up to him, but also the compassion to not fight back, who knows if he would have been able to have such an impact on that man’s life.

“The thing with Jeff, no matter who it is, he always does the thing he thinks is right,” Carin said. “That story really explains that well. Exemplifies how he thought and how he operated.”

A gathering of friends and family be from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, March 23, and from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, March 24  at Hope United Methodist Christian. The family has asked that memorial donations, go to the Edwardsburg Food Pantry and Red Bird Mission.