Blake's Testimony

My testimony of God’s Amazing Grace in my life.

I was born into typical Canadian family. My parents were not the church going sort but did believe that 'we children' should have some exposure to church. So each Sunday I went to an Anglican Church at the end of my street. I did this until I was about seven at which point my parents felt I was old enough to decide for myself about going to church. I went and played instead, what kid wouldn’t? It was the last I saw of church until I met Jesus.

Weird experiences that helped me to become bad company

At the age of twelve while tobogganing, I experienced something unexplainable which left me paralyzed for several hours. After arriving home, (being carried on a toboggan up a hill by two little boys), Mom rushed me off to the hospital. Having lost the ability to speak properly for that day, I was unable to explain what had happened. While in the hospital I chose not to make known what had happened but rather allowed the doctors to figure it out. They did come up with a reasonable conclusion as why it happened which satisfied my parents at the time. After getting out of the hospital I found that I was depressed more often.

Through my teen years I became increasingly involved with the occult. An advantage of living in the big city was the availability of all sorts of satanic materials. Witchcraft, tarot reading, pornography and sex; dabbling in such things led me on several occasions to attempt suicide but by God's grace I was saved from that conclusion.

Most would say my behavior was outwardly typical of a young teen but inwardly I was pretty messed up. I did bad things when no one was around to observe but played the somewhat 'obedient child' role when in the presence of adults. But I was not a good kid! Though I guess I never actually murdered anyone...stole from everyone, lied habitually, thought about killing some but never went that far. I was bad company for any who would befriend me!

Drugs, No Way!

For some reason I never got involved with taking drugs but by the age of thirteen I was in the bars in Calgary drinking it up with older teens that I hung around with. I came home drunk as a skunk more than once in those troubled days. The Bible says bad company corrupts good morals but when you are already messed up, the bad company is the only people that hang around.

Morality, A Word Never Heard.

I missed a lot of school during my teens but always seemed to pass the grade. In grade eleven I joined the Canadian Armed Forces military reserve this occupied my weekends and helped me to develop some discipline. Unfortunately it also provided more opportunities to get into trouble. I was dating regularly and drinking whenever. With little morals you can guess the outcome of that. Could life get lower? {you bet ya!} While in the Armed Forces I was posted to Mewata Armories as a recruit trainer. During that year I met Tamara. It was lust at first sight, teenage hormones working overtime. But she was different; she had a family that was intensely interested in her personal growth. They were New Ager's with a very utilitarian approach to life. As we dated they treated me with respect and as a member of the family. {I think I fell in love with her family.} Within about two years I married Tamara, as the need came up. The need was that we both wanted to go to college but neither of our parents wanted to support us so long as we were living together. And working full-time while schooling was tiring. So we got married to be able to get student loans without our parents' permission. Shortly thereafter her grandparents introduced us into a cult which we were actively involved with for the next five years.

A New Job, A New Town, Same Old Me!

After three years of college we moved away from Calgary to Fort St. John for a job that lasted three months. (That’s a long story). It was at this point that I started a small business, mostly because we had nothing in the house to eat and we were stranded in Fort. St. John. Our parents basically said 'you made your bed now lie in it'. (Looking back it was a good thing, but at the time it was scary). Though by some miracle, I can honestly say we only had one month where we had to rely on the food bank totally for our daily needs. This was accomplished in part by the cult training that taught us how to fast for twenty-one days at a time. (I was much slimmer then)

During the fall of 1984 I met Mike, a Christian who would later introduce me to the Lord. Through the spring of 1985 we met for Bible studies regularly. We were, of course, trying to convert Mike and the others at the study and they were trying to convert us. During this time I also got involved with the Masonic Lodge and pretty mixed up when it came to spiritual things. I was depressed often. Life seemed bearable but hardly worth the effort.

The Wake-up Call That Nearly Killed Me!

Just when things were starting to go good with the business and we started to make a few friends in the community life began to unravel. One day, Tamara decided to abandon me. I awoke one morning to a note on the foot of my bed and an empty house. Life was now at its lowest moment. I wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

It was at this low moment in my life that God stepped in to take control. Mike was the first person I turned to in my panic and grieving. He shared Christ with me in three ways during that week. First, he was there for me to lean on as I tried to find Tamara and reconcile. Second, when I felt that I needed to move back to Calgary to obtain reconciliation with Tamara, he offered to help me move and made all the arrangements. Third, on a trip back from Fort Nelson to pick up Mike's Dad's truck, Mike shared with me the steps of peace with God and I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.

Happily Ever After? You Bet YA!

I'd like to say that everything instantly turned out 'happily ever after'; this I know will have to wait until heaven. I saw Tamara just once after the day she left. Becoming a Christian seemed only to fuel her anger towards me and gave her more reason I suppose not to come back. Nevertheless, I wanted reconciliation. Yet try as I might, I met with no success. Within a year the divorce papers were through and the relationship was as if it never had happened, it was finished. Seven years of relationship gone overnight. But, this time instead of depression, there was new hope starting to form.

That summer, while learning to trust the Lord, a friend pointed out that I needed to follow Jesus in baptism. After trying to figure out just what he was talking about and reading about it in the Bible and attending Baptism and membership classes at Dalhousie Church, I was baptized. It was truly a high point of an otherwise depressing summer. Life truly was beginning to look up.

A New Life, A New Start, And A New Me!

I remember as though it was yesterday, though it was just two weeks after becoming a Christian, sitting on a swing in the park out front of my parents place in Calgary thinking all was lost. At that point my mother came out to talk with me and asked what I felt I would likely do with the rest of my life. Right out of thin air, I said, that I thought that maybe someday I would be a pastor who helps people. Then I shared Christ with her as Mike had with me. In fact, I think everyone I came in contact with during those months in Calgary ended up hearing about Christ. (Sorry for the insensitivity -- I was truly excited and wanted everyone to know this God of grace.)

During that first year after moving back to Calgary and then back up to Fort St. John I settled into a long process of discovering what being a Christian meant. One day back in Fort St. John I shared with my pastor, Leo Siemens, some of my experiences of the summer. In time, we developed a good relationship, with him as mentor and me as a hungry student. I read the Bible daily and prayed often. As I learned to confess my sins and seek the Lord, He blessed me with fellowship and more. Still, the first couple of years were particularly rocky as I tried to change every thing about me, {it took a while for me to figure out that God would make the changes}. But God was patient and step by step he has delivered me from a terrible past into a future full of hope. Through growing in the Word and putting it into practice, God blessed my business and the once loner now had so many friends I had to make appointments.

A special gift God gave me....

In 1987 I met Lynda at a college and careers meeting in church. Our first non-date was to a Billy Graham film that our church sponsored. We sat with the bucket of popcorn on the seat between us. The first actual date came a month later after wrestling with the issues that I felt at the time. I sought out the advice of my mentor and those in the Bible study I was actively involved with. Then one date lead to another and another and six months later we were married by my mentor at North Peace MB Church. A little over a year later we were blessed with our first child, Karemi. Then seventeen months later came Lorna and in 1993 our son Nolan was born. God has blessed us with three healthy children.

Since getting married to Lynda I have had a lot of growing and learning to do. The church has in it many who see the sin of divorce as the ultimate sin and at times I was shunned by people for remarrying. I pretty well gave up the idea of becoming a Pastor, as I knew how divisive an issue this topic could be. God, on the other hand, continued to force the commitment I had made to Him on that swing in the park. Biblically the way was clear but relationally I felt it best to allow those with other interpretations to sway me for about seven years.

During those years, I had been involved with counseling and ministering to pastors and lay-people in Fort St. John on a regular basis. It was never initiated on my part but always seem to 'just happen'. As God opened doors, I got involved in many areas of ministry in my Church, including worship leading, Bible studies with the youth as well as peers, and I started a men's accountability group. I also spent a great deal of my time doing behind the scene sort of stuff like sound reinforcement, computer work, etc. On several occasions I was told I have a 'Pastoring gift', always looking after the sheep. It became my nature to be concerned about people as I have been through much hardship and seen the power of the grace of God. This background ministry led us to apply with YWAM Mission Builders in 1993.

Talk About God's Amazing Grace and Direction!

We were accepted and the Lord had everything else in order for us to be able to sell our business, rent our house out, and store our belongings and head off-to Hawaii within two months of making the decision. (I have many more stories of God's provision and timing, for another day.) During our time with YWAM I was primarily responsible for the computer infrastructure that runs the University of the Nations. Lynda took this time as full-time mom, which was difficult given the living conditions (1 bedroom, no windows -- only screens, no wheels -- lots of walking) (I lost a lot of weight...bonus!).

In 1994 we entered a staff training program which all YWAMer's are required to go through called Crossroads DTS. (I highly recommend it!) Then we went on outreach to Japan and the Philippines stopping briefly in China. During this outreach I preached several Sunday mornings and all throughout the week in bars and in parks where we as a group were busy telling the good news about Jesus. One Sunday in Japan we encouraged our sponsoring church to try something new – park ministry. They had a blast and many people learned more about Christ .

Burrrr!

This outreach stuff spurred, once again, that call in my life towards Pastoral ministry so we moved from warm, beautiful, fragrant Kona to the bald, cold, dusty, prairies of Three Hills, Alberta. I attended Prairie Bible College where I completed a four-year theological degree in two years (hoping that God would send us back to warm, beautiful, Kona). It was a time of accelerated growth both spiritually as well as for us as a family.

As I was finishing my degree, God, in His persistent way, reminded me of a call, on a swing, in the park, many years ago. So trying to be obedient to His leading and after much soul searching I decided to send out a few, (as few as possible), resume' and see if a church needed a man like me as Pastor. Sure enough, with each resume' came a response. I guess God still uses broken vessels and he mends and heals them too! That was over ten years ago. Life continues to be interesting and challenging everyday in the ministry.

God does take broken vessels and mend and use them but the vessel must be willing to be retooled by the potters hands and occasionally refired in the potter’s oven. Ministry has amazing highs where we see God in action changing lives and setting people free. But Ministry also has profound disappointments and tough times too! Yet looking back since coming to know Jesus not quite half a life ago I can say that the worse day of my life today is a thousand times better than my life before Christ. And though this vessel gets molded and reshaped in the potter’s hand daily I would want it no other way.

Perhaps you’re reading this and saying “ya, that’s easy for you to say, but you don’t know how bad my life is”. Believe me friend, I do ache with you! And I know that Jesus is standing awaiting your call, wanting to hold you in His arms and to breath into your soul the assurance that “everything will be all right” for He has prepared a place for you in His Father’s house. And He is willing to make you a part of His family forever.

Blessings!

Pastor Blake