The Early Years

I was born in January of 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My older brother was two years old at that time. A few years later we moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, with a short stop in Frobisher, Saskatchewan, Canada. My younger brother was born in Regina just before my second birthday. My first memories were of my two friends in Regina and then being in kindergarten there. My sister was also born while we lived in Regina. Halfway through kindergarten my family moved to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. When we had been in Calgary for less than two years, we moved to New Plymouth, New Zealand. I remember having a few friends there and going to school there. I also remember enjoying walking in Pukakira Park. It was a beautiful forest as I remember. After being there for about nine months we moved back to Calgary.

The School Years

My family returned to Calgary in Spring 1969 and I started grade three the following September. Although my father purchased a house in Calgary, his work called him to Norway and Morroco. Over the next few years my mother and father were divorced which allowed them to both remarry. I lived with my mother and her second husband until I graduated from high school. I remember visiting my dad and stepmother for weekends while they lived in Edmonton, while I was still in elementary school. It was not until they moved to Japan and my older brother and I visited them for a month during the summer that I remember really getting to know and appreciate my stepmother. I was in junior high at the time. From there they moved to Singapore where Brian and I visited them a couple of times.

Although I did well in junior high school, I had started souring to school by the time I got to grade 10, high school. I let my grades slip because I thought that I would be able to make friends more easily if I did. It did not work and I was as lonely in high school as I was in junior high school. I had one friend during these years but he and his family moved back to the United Kingdom for a few years about halfway through my high school years. I graduated in June of 1979 and was happy to be finished with school. I would later regret having allowed my grades to decrease so much by the time I finished school.

  The Empty Years

During my last year of high school I met the owner of the Chinook Coin Shop and because I had enjoyed collecting coins since I was very young, we got along very well. He hired me on a part time basis while I was in grade 12 and then hired me full time after I graduated. I enjoyed working with him and his coins and started a short-lived coin company with a friend of mine. Although this business turned out to be a bad thing in my life for a few reasons, it allowed me to be involved in a coin show in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada where my dad's sister's family lived. I got together with them and met a visiting preacher from Ontario, Canada. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and started on my Christian walk. Although I believed in God, my walk with Him varied over the years until much later.

The owner of the coin shop had me work for him a few times over the next decade and I also worked in other fields including security, computer operating and process serving. I felt unfulfilled and decided to investigate attending university. I found out that my high school grades were not high enough so I attended Mount Royal College for a few terms. While I was in college I took a range of courses and thought that I would like to obtain a degree in the sciences. The University of Calgary then allowed me to enrol and register for courses. I registered for mainly science courses and was doing fairly well. My financial situation became grim and so I withdrew from all of my university courses and again became employed again.

The University Years

I returned to the University of Calgary in January of 1986 and after working with children at the church I attended, I decided to pursue a degree in education. That semester I took one education course in the development of childhood language and found that I really enjoyed it. I finished my education degree while working during the summers. During the summer of 1988 while working in Jasper, I met my future wife. When I finished my education degree, I moved to Ontario to marry her.

The Marriage and Early Teaching Years

My wife and I were married in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada where she lived and after a short trip by car to Alberta, for our honeymoon, I found a teaching position in a school in Oshawa. Our marriage had problems since the beginning.. It seems that it was meant for failure since we had entered it for the wrong reasons and had not known each other.L

My wife and I did have some good times. I recall going with her and a few of her friends to Harbour Light in Toronto to share our testimonies and sing for the people who had come to be fed both earthly and heavenly food.

My teaching position only lasted until the end of the first year and I was advised to leave my position even before the year was over. This was very difficult and I visited a psychiatrist for the first time. That experience really scared me because the psychiatrist told me that my life was in a mess with my career in jeopardy and my marriage problems. I decided at that point to never see a psychiatrist again. I later learned that he was correct about my life but it was not something he could have helped me with but something that required God's work.

After supply (substitute) teaching in Ontario for a few months my wife and I agreed that our marriage was over. We decided that I would leave her when my Teaching English as a Second Language course ended a few months later.

Upon returning to Alberta, I was hired as a substitute teacher by a local school district and worked there for a few years, as I recall. I also met my friend Roger on news groups on the Internet. Roger would become one of my best friends and supporters over the coming years. I then had short term contracts and failed longer term contracts. In 1992 I was hired by an ACE Christian school to operate a very small workbook based school program. That was very unfulfilling and when I received an offer of employment from a school in Bursa, Turkiye (Turkey) I jumped on it. I had sent out resumes to over 100 schools all over the world seeking employment, prior to starting with the ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) school.

The Introduction to Turkiye Year

I enjoyed my teaching position at Ihsan Cizakca Lisesi in Bursa and befriended a Turkish English teacher . I was not happy with the dry program that the school had been using but was required to continue with the books they were using. Adding English word games to the curriculum helped the students and I to more fully enjoy our time together. I do not believe that the administration approved of my changes as they did not renew my contract for the following year. I had adapted quite well to life in Turkiye even though I missed the church involvement that I had had while living in Canada. I had assisted with worship prior to leaving Canada and led myself in worship while in Turkiye. The missionaries, who I spent time with while there, also added good experiences to my life. I returned to Calgary in June of 1993 and returned to university to take further courses. Over the 1990's I returned to Turkiye several times to try out different teaching positions but nothing worked as well as the year in Bursa.

The Post Turkiye Years

Upon returning to Calgary, after teaching in Bursa in 1993, I found a teaching position in Fort Rae, Northwest Territories. I moved up north in August and began teaching there. It was a very isolated community but I satisfied my need for fellowship by attending church in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories on the weekends. I became a worship leader at the Glad Tidings Church in Yellowknife and really enjoyed doing that. Unfortunately while teaching grade four in Fort Rae, Northwest Territories, I found that I was becoming very tired and had difficulty coping with daily life activities. I therefore decided to leave that teaching position and returned to Calgary. Upon returning to Calgary I attempted to get help with the difficulties that I was having with life and eventually after several days took my first overdose of drugs.

The Valley Years

As I recall I ended up calling emergency services and telling them what I had done and they sent an ambulance. This was the beginning of my 16 years in the wilderness. Even though I was having difficulties with my own life, I attended church and decided to take a mission into the Mormon Church to share the truth, as I knew it. Although I did make a few friends in the church, I did not manage to convince anybody that the evangelical churches had the full truth. After being to the temple and going through the temple experience, more stress was put upon me to follow new rules. I therefore stopped my involvement with that church and all churches when I moved to a different home in Calgary.

During the mid 1990's and most of the 2000 decade I was hospitalized after many overdoses and involved in several different programs. I returned to substitute teaching in 2002 and did that for several years but there too I found that my lack of understanding of my true identity interfered with my life and work.

In the mid 2000's I started building a collectible coin inventory and then started selling them at flea markets and on eBay. I did not find much fulfillment doing that either and so decided to stop operating my business at the end of 2008.

A few fantastic things happened in 2008, I met a Guatemalan lady who would become my girl friend and my fiancee and I started being involved in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT).Until the Spring of 2009, I continued being suicidal and ended up in the hospital many times. In February of 2009 I was told by my DBT therapist that I had to make every appointment for a month which meant that I could not be hospitalized during that time. I thought that was an impossible task but somehow managed to do it.

The Mountain Meadow and Providence Year

In the spring of 2009, I attended The Journey for the second time and was part of the operation as a trainer. That did not mean that I was teaching but just that I was involved with the smooth running of the conference. That weekend was very healing! :-)

I was feeling more at home with my involvement at Centre Street Church as well, having started there during the summer of 2007. A few of the pastors there, Pastor Greg Grunau and Paster Kevin Trick were very supportive and had visited me while I was in the hospital.

In June of 2009 my old car caught on fire on Deerfoot Trail in Calgary and I was saved from that tragedy. My stepmother Ellie came and picked me up from the service station where I had managed to get the car to. The following day my dad called me and said that he had a car for us to go and look at. It was a wonderful car and he helped me purchase it. I had had a growing relationship with both of them since they returned to live in Calgary in about 1986 but did not fully understand their love for me until that weekend.

I believe that the previous events together and God's continued work in my life were what got me to the mountain meadow during the summer of 2009. :-) Once I arrived at the mountain meadow I thought I was there to stay but I soon learned that I was just there for respite. God was not finished with me and I soon began to realize that He had wonderful plans for my life.

During the summer of 2009 I began hearing God's call to return to university and study Christian counseling. Desiring to follow God's leading but having challenges with Student Finance, God opened the door for me to audit two classes at Ambrose through Providence Seminary in Manitoba. Although there were challenges involved with the courses, God taught me through the two wonderful professors and the other students.

The Preparation Year

Late in 2009 I began hearing God's voice very clearly again. This time he was telling me that 2010 was going to be a year of preparation. I was not sure at the time exactly what that entailed but left it up to him to prepare me the way that he wanted to for the purpose he wanted to do so. I recall asking God about grace and what it really meant. I did not realize at the time how that was connected to the preparation that he was going to do in me. I asked God what his grace was all about. I asked him whether it was something that He wanted me to know about.L

Within a few months of this prayer, my walk towards God's Grace and out of the valley of the shadow of death, which had been my life, began. In the spring of 2010 the Mosaic group at Centre Street Church started viewing and discussing the Grace Walk video series by Steve McVey. Before we had completed the video series, Dr. McVey came and presented his Grace Walk conference at Centre Street Church. I was beginning to understand God's grace but had much to learn. Shortly after that conference I decided to stop attending Freedom Session, a Christian 12 step program offered at Centre Street Church. After learning what I had about grace, I found that Freedom Session was legalistic and found no place for it in my life. Dallas Bergen of Grace Life Canada came and spoke to Mosaic later that spring and increased my understanding of grace. He invited us to attend his conference in June. Realizing that I needed to learn more about the message of grace and decided to attend his conference.

I learned so much at the Grace Life Conference and had a chance to visit with Dallas several times during the conference. He agreed to meet with me a week or so after the conference. Our first meeting was delightful. We visited for about three hours but to me it seemed much shorter. Towards the end of our time together he asked me if I would like for him to disciple me. I was extremely pleased that he had offered and immediately agreed to his offer. I had a hard time waiting until I could see him again and our next meeting was equally a pleasure and learning experience.

In July of 2010 I graduated from Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) in which I had learned a number of good coping mechanisms. During the Grace Life Conference, Dallas referred to the coping mechanisms, that are taught in the secular programs, as being based on the flesh rather than on what God does in our lives. While accepting this I still believe that God uses many different people and programs to change us into His image. Even though I was in DBT for a couple of years and graduated with an agreement from the staff of the DBT program that I no longer met the criteria for a borderline personality diagnosis, it is God to whom I give the glory for healing me. I am now even more convinced that it is now no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.

My spiritual participation in Christ's death, burial, resurrection and seating in heaven has radically changed my life since as Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, it is no longer I that live but Christ lives in me.

God's grace has totally changed my life and my view on life. I no longer look to other people to meet my needs but I go directly to the source - our Heavenly Father. He meets all of my needs through His Son's death and resurrection and His riches in glory which are beyond measure. This, however, does not mean that everything is going to go well all the time. God brings and allows difficult things to come into our lives to make us more like Jesus, His son but he promises us in Romans 8:28 that all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Early in 2011, I learned an important lesson. I had gotten a bit cocky with Satan and believed wrongly about my victory over him. I had begun to believe that as a Christian I could do battle with Satan and his minions. I learned that that is a very dangerous place to be. It is then that we can and likely will be attacked. A ministry friend of mine went through Neil Anderson's “Seven Steps to Freedom” with me and I found my healing and victory through renouncing and praying about things in my life. It is only in the strength of Jesus and not in my own strength that I can stand. I posted a list of scriptures on my web site that should be helpful in reminding me that I am accepted, secure and significant in Jesus Christ. I pray that these scriptures bring the same understanding to you.

Praise Him!  :-)