Fan the Fire

    Alpha and OCDC                             Ottawa, Ontario

There’s a Holy-Spirit fire burning at the 550-inmate Maximum Security Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre (OCDC) in Ottawa.

In 1998, the Anglican Church Army introduced Alpha into the facility. Since 2002, Dave Atkins, Prison Alpha Ministry Advisor, has been coordinating teams to go in every Saturday and share Christ with the inmates of the 180-bed Minimum Security Male unit. With Alpha teams of eight to ten people, the members and other volunteers alternate going in to offer the rotating fifteen-week program.

Studies provided by Alpha and fellow volunteer programs are offered in each of the maximum and minimum-security areas of the prison in both the men’s and women’s units, each led by different teams.

These dedicated people are helping to make a difference in the hearts, minds, and actions of the men and women who have fallen into a lifestyle that results in their needing to spend time in the facility. The

volunteers are sharing the light of the gospel and igniting the fire of God with its power to transform lives.

            The Minimum Security Alpha Male Course meetings start with general information followed by the inmates enthusiastically singing music led by the team, jokes, and a video teaching segment. Then, they break into smaller groups, each with an experienced leader, to discuss issues of deep concern to the inmate guests and to answer their questions. Bibles, study materials, and testimonies of former offenders, like Ernie Holland, of Hebron Ministries, are shared and discussed.

With the emphasis on non-judgmental love and caring, and personal accountability, the volunteers interact with the inmates on many levels. Besides the voluntary attendance at the meetings, the dedicated volunteers and ministry partners offer a welcome visit for some who never have any other visitors, a reliable and compassionate person to talk to and trust, and a source of teaching not otherwise available at the facility.

These include conflict resolution, anger management, fathering, relationship building and value-based training.

Additional services offered to the residents include: ex-offender aftercare, drug and alcohol treatment, community reintegration, reconciliation with loved ones, and help finding a place to live, work, and attend church when they are released.

“Restorative Justice” is another way volunteers are helping the inmates to resolve issues and change their lives for the better. This involves forgiveness, acceptance of wrongdoing, accountability for their own actions, reparation for the harm they’ve done, and healing for themselves and the victims they’ve acted against.

The Ottawa Chief of Police has spoken on two occasions in the meetings about Restorative Justice and has been at the door, shaking hands and greeting the men.

He shares how he grew up in an economically challenged area of Cape Breton with a single mother and how so many of his boyhood friends are either dead or in jail today because of the destructive lifestyle they adopted due to their rough upbringing. He tells the inmates that it was only because of the positive influence of his mother, coupled with an RCMP officer who took him under his wing to mentor and help him, that he was able to escape the same fate himself.

 In a place where the conditions of uncertainty, overcrowding, and despair are the over-riding keynotes, inmates participate in the program out of a whole spectrum of reasons, from curiosity to expressing that they need the program as a lifeline for their very existence. Those inmates in the most dire straits are the very ones who show the most intense interest. Survival is often the only focus of the day and the light offered by the visits, the opportunity to receive love, forgiveness, and a brand new way of thinking and living is an offer that many inmates are taking God up on.

 When the twenty, or so, Minimum Security Male Alpha participants return to their dorms, they always do so with plenty of literature, hope, and challenging thoughts to share with their roommates. In this way, up to 180 men (in six dorms of thirty beds) are hearing about Christ and his power to change lives every week. The flame of Christ is spreading and fanning out in an ever-widening circle.

One young fellow told them the story of how he had read a testimony book brought back to his dorm by a peer and how he felt he just had to ask Jesus into his heart afterwards. The only place he could think of to find privacy was in the empty shower room, so he went into a stall, knelt down, and prayed “the sinner’s prayer,” written in the book. He said, “The pain left me.”

Another inmate, who is in the Detention Center on an Immigration Order, holds a Bible study in his dorm every day, which twelve of the twenty-five men staying in his dorm attend.

One older fellow was so bitter and angry but just a short time after receiving Christ he became peaceful and calm. (His testimony appears at the end of this article.)

The residents are usually very transient because they are awaiting bail, hearings, sentencing, appeals, or transfers to long-term facilities. Because many of the residents are unable to attend more than one or two sessions, the volunteers try to give a salvation message every week. They also urge the participants to continue with the Alpha program at one of the forty-four other prisons that offer the program or at one of the twenty-five hundred different locations across Canada that run the program through a church when they’re released. In this way, the flames are being spread throughout the country.

Over 1,500 inmates have participated in the Alpha program since its introduction. Since June of 2007, when the first big breakthrough for God occurred and the first inmates requested baptism, 101 inmates have been baptized in the large, wheeled laundry carts in use at the prison. That is not accounting for the many others who have made decisions for Christ but have not had the opportunity to be baptized as well.

 “Yes, my prison is in revival!” says Rev. Carl Wake, the Coordinating Chaplain at the facility.

Dave Atkins was also excited to share all that God is doing in the lives of these people that he has such a heart for.

With an average of thirty to forty property crimes committed by each person with drug addictions before they are caught and returned to the facility, it is estimated that 95% of property crimes are done by 5% of the prison population.

With such a large response to the life-changing power of God in their lives, property crime in the Ottawa area has dropped 6%-7% in the last two years. There has been no other obvious factor that would be able to explain this figure, as nothing else discernable has changed, except for the incredible increase in the number of released offenders who no longer follow a path of stealing and dealing to support their previously destructive lifestyle.

Dave Atkins writes, “The combination of Alpha and other volunteer prison ministries on the ‘inside,’ together with MAP and other aftercare ministries on the ‘outside,’ seem to be one way God is starting to reverse the tragic 60% to 80% recividism rate (rate of offenders that will return to prison on same charges within a year).”

 At present, many ministries work together to reduce this high percentage by supporting and helping the ex-offenders cope upon their release.

 Together, this cooperation has resulted in an approximate 80% success rate at keeping these newborn-Christian ex-offenders from returning to a life of crime and prison.

 As a result, these orange flickers of God’s fire and love, lit by the Holy Spirit and his many helpers, are igniting this part of the country and are impacting and changing a nation for Christ.

If you would like to know more about how you can be involved in the highly rewarding area of Prison Ministry, please feel free to contact David Atkins, Alpha Prison Advisor for Ottawa at em738@ncf.ca, or his fellow Prison Advisor, Tony Copple at tonyc@ncf.ca.

The condensed testimony that follows was given by a man in his fifties to the Alpha volunteers and his fellow prisoners on the last day of his Alpha program before his transfer to a long-term facility.

By AJ K (December 19, 2009)

I would like you all to know that you (Alpha volunteers) sure made me feel human and loved and you all have been a very vital part of my new life.

The words I share are also about hope, contentment, and more importantly, about feeling free like I have never imagined or ever experienced. My whole and entire life I felt unloved, unwanted, and empty. I felt I never had a purpose, meaning, or any faith. As far as I can remember, I was always in trouble. I lied, cheated, and was so full of denial. I was given chances and I blew them all. I couldn’t tell a lie from the truth.

 At about thirteen or fourteen, I was thrown out of the house because I got into so much trouble. I just felt and believed the world owed me a living. Reform school, psychiatric wards, and incarceration were quite common for me. No one knew what to do with me. I was so self-centred, selfish, stubborn, and full of self-pity. Yes, I was physically, sexually, and mentally abused.

I must say, there were those who did try to reach out and love me, all to no avail. I firmly believed God was out to punish me. In my many periods of incarceration, I felt I came to a dead end. I was so insecure, lonely, afraid, and felt like a total failure. Many times I just wanted to die, but I never had what it took to end it.

Then, to my surprise, an immense thought occurred to me. I realized I had fallen far enough. I wanted to lift myself up but I didn’t know how, and knowing I didn’t have the courage to end it, why not sincerely ask God for help? I had nowhere left to turn. I was totally broken in all areas–mentally, spiritually, and emotionally bankrupt.

I started with daily devotional readings. Somehow, I began to realize and see it was me who had failed and not God. God was there all the time carrying me through every trial and tribulation simply waiting for me to surrender.

I simply can’t begin to tell you what I feel like inside. I know some of you may never believe or understand what a relationship with God, through his son, Jesus, has done for me, but I can’t help wondering where I have been all this time. What took me so long? I owe God everything!

I feel so free and content, like never before!

For me, where I have been is no longer as important as where I am going. For those who may feel lost, open your heart and let God in. For those who have not yet surrendered to God, give God a chance. You won’t be sorry. My prayers will surely be with you all. I mean it!

Again, thank you to everyone on the Alpha team. You do make a difference!

         In closing, I sincerely thank you, as this is my last day at Alpha (at OCDC). I have made an agreement for a four-year sentence. I would very much like to thank you for being there for me and my fellow inmates.

If we, who are in prison, feel like we are walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, our despair need not conquer us. When we trust in God, our lives can become joyful despite our circumstances. God is all-powerful. He will comfort and care for us.

Stewart Maxwell                       Arnprior, On

       On Jan. 19, 2010 while Stewart was in the Toronto Airport Church at a Pastor’s and Leader’s Conference he experienced a gift from God.

       The speaker was Bill Johnson. He was mentioning that they’ve been noticing in their church that God has been dissolving metal in people’s bodies; so he said, “If you have metal in your body and you want all things made new, stand up and receive it.”

       Stewart stood up. The people near him gathered around, laid hands on him, and prayed in agreement with the word of the Lord.

       He’d had facial surgery twenty-one years earlier and the doctors had rebuilt his jaw, and there were “pins and all kinds of wonderful things” in his mouth

      During the prayer, Stewart’s face got really, really hot. It was getting so hot, that it felt like it was burning up. Because it felt so hot, he reached up to touch it, and that’s when he realized something; he had feeling in his face!

            “I can feel my face,” he realized. “It wasn’t my fingers telling me that I was touching my face, but it was my face telling my fingers that they were touching my face,” he explained. For twenty-one years Stewart had had no feeling from below his eyes to below his chin.

       The next morning the Lord said to him,  “What did I say to you?”

       He replied, “All things are new.”

      “That’s right,” God answered. “All things are new, all things.”

      Sure, there was a miracle. “The real testimony though,” Stewart says, “is that a person can come into a place of such saturation in the love of God that they are forever changed. God restored the feeling in my face, so I could feel his love. So it was all about feeling. That was kind of cool. I don’t want people to only be excited about the miracle and to fall in love with the miracle. We need to fall in love with Jesus.”

      God said, “Healing bones is nothing for me; that’s easy. I can do that for anybody. What I really want is your heart, and if I’m going to have your heart, you’re going to have to cooperate with me, because that’s a little more difficult and it going to hurt a little bit more.”

        “We have to get beyond seeking for miracles for the sake of the miracle alone and go for God himself. Yes, I’m glad he healed my face and removed the metal and restored feeling to my face, but the deeper miracle is that God touched my heart and I’ll never be the same.”

Carolee Herbert                                                           Arnprior, On

       Carolee was only four years old when her mother left her, a younger brother, and a heart-broken father.
      Her father met, and later remarried, a woman who had a son, and together, they had another child. Growing up in a blended family was very difficult. Leaving home at a young age seemed better to her than living in an angry home. Looking for love in all the wrong places seemed to be the pattern of her life until she married a kind-hearted man in 2006. Still, something was missing….
      In the winter of 2008, Carolee was invited to a Bible study on “The Power of Blessing.” It sounded interesting, so she attended. It was a long eight weeks, filled with the emotions of sadness, anger, and happiness. It also resulted in a tug on her heart to seek the Lord. She started to attend church, sitting in the back listening, crying, praying, and crying some more throughout worship music and sermons. So much emotion needed to come out.
      In September 2009, Carolee decided to attend a women’s conference entitled, “The Bride of Christ” in Oshawa. She found it incredible that Almighty God wanted to woo her and love her as His bride. She had never really felt accepted and valued as a person, and just having someone pray over her and wanting good things to happen to her, was almost more than she could fathom. The last evening, there was a dramatic presentation, depicting the church as a Warrior Bride. Carolee found it, and the whole weekend, overwhelming and emotional.
      On Saturday evening, as she lay down to sleep, exhausted from all the emotional struggles in her heart and mind, she said, “God, I’m just SO tired. Please, just help me go to sleep.” God had other plans however.
     Just as she was drifting off to sleep, there appeared a gigantic light in front of her. She opened her eyes, and all she could see were little stars, so she closed her eyes again. Then a voice spoke to her. “Carolee, I am right here. I have always been here.”
     Wow! Carolee sat up. Was she dreaming? She looked over at her roommates to see if they had heard it. They were sleeping soundly. She started to weep, but said, “God, I need to get to sleep!” She fell into peaceful sleep and the next morning when she awoke, she wondered if it had been real.
      When she told her roommates about it, one of them, who was a pastor, advised her to not downplay what she had seen. “Very few people ever get an experience like that,” she was told.
      The next morning she re-dedicated her life to God. It seemed to have more meaning than ever before.
      Once she got home, she made the conscious decision to follow God completely. She took every opportunity to learn and have fellowship with other believers. She developed a sense of peace in her work, family, and everyday life, that she had never had before. She had always been terrified of death and things she could not control, but that subsided and she felt like she could trust God about them.
     Carolee has also been able to forgive her mother and step-mother for things that happened in her childhood.
     She has remained close to her Dad, and prayer and bible reading have given her the understanding that God does not give anyone more than they can handle. She believes that everything she has been through has made her the person she is today.
     She believes God has a job for her to do, and she has talents she is to use for Him. She is looking and listening for the calling that God is going to direct her to. People who have prayed over her, have told her that she is going to be the “light to her family.”
      Just as God was always been there for her, she wants to always be there for her daughter and available to God for whatever jobs he has for her to do.

Paul Carlson                                         Ottawa, Ontario

      Paul was busy building a deck for one of his customers in Barrhaven, near Ottawa, on August 14, 2009 when he started to feel a squeezing sensation in his chest, pains down his left arm, and to be faint and sweaty. Gasping for breath, he quickly grabbed his cell phone to call 911 and his wife because he knew he was having a heart attack. When the paramedics arrived, he had already collapsed. Three times in the next hour, once in the ambulance and two more times while he was being treated in the hospital, his heart stopped beating and he had to be revived. After one cardiac arrest, fifty percent of the people can be revived. After the second arrest, approximately ten percent will survive; but after a third arrest, almost no one lives to tell about it.
      Paul’s wife rallied the church to pray for Paul because things were looking so grim.
      After a week in the hospital Paul was stable enough to withstand surgery to replace four blocked arteries to his heart muscle. During the quadruple bypass surgery, things were not going well and it was “touch and go” as to whether he would to live until it was completed. His heart was only pumping at twenty-seven percent of capacity, but after special prayer by his church members, this figure jumped to sixty-seven percent and he began to miraculously improve. Paul fought his way through pneumonia, and still God would not let him go.
      After recovering from surgery, the Heart Institute recommended Paul not go back to work for three months, but seven weeks later, he was declared fit enough to do so. Paul says he “feels better after,” than he did before, his heart attack. His mind is clearer and he can actually work harder than he did before.
      All his life, Paul had battled with a “Spirit of Poverty.” There never was enough income to pay for everything. Since his heart attack, there is more than enough money to pay his bills, and even with losing two and a half months of work, he is in better financial shape now than he had been previously. Paul thought that one of the jobs that he had lined up to do would simply be cancelled, but the person who hired him, extended the time by six months to allow him to complete the job after he’d recovered.
      Paul has worked in eleven countries as an aid worker and missionary, in war zones and in Sarajevo, installing water purification systems. There were three separate times when he should have been dead. Rebels pointed machine guns at him, but God has spared him from all of this.
      Paul’s faith is stronger than it ever was before in his life, and he “doesn’t get upset and worried” and he “doesn’t have to be afraid of anything, anymore,” because he knows God is in control of his life. Even with all the things he has been through, Paul has never seen such a big miracle in his life as the one God did for him this time, when Paul states that God “literally” saved his life.
      If it weren’t for God intervening in his life, Paul knows he would not be alive today. He lives secure in the knowledge that his life is held safely in God’s hands.

My Aching Teeth

Sharon Smith                                                    Arnprior, On

        Sharon has had trouble with her teeth for ten years with pain, infections, and many root canals necessary to try to get some relief from the constant discomfort.

        October 16, 2009, she attended a conference at Dominion Outreach Center in Ottawa. In the middle of the service, a breeze could be felt inside the room, and Bill Prankard called people forward for prayer and specifically mentioned that someone had been having pain and mouth problems. Sharon believed he was talking about her and went forward for prayer. She immediately felt relief and experienced no more pain all that night and the next day. She believes that all the problems will continue to improve and that all her pain will be completely gone very soon.

Jimmy Fraser                 Arnprior, Ontario

     Jimmy Fraser was devastated.

     It was October of 2008, and the doctor had just told him that he was 100% sure that the growth on his tongue WAS cancer; and not only that, but it had likely spread to his tonsils, adenoids and lymph glands. Radical surgery was needed, which involved removing a large part of his tongue, plastic surgery to reconstruct it with a muscle from his leg, radiation and possibly even chemotherapy. His speech would be greatly affected and he would need months of speech therapy before people would be able to understand what he was saying. Life had just reached its lowest point for him. How would he ever get through this?

     Paul, a friend who heard about his diagnosis, stopped in at Jimmy’s garage, and invited him to some healing meetings. Jimmy just kept putting him off. After urging Jimmy many times to “come to the healing meetings on Friday night,” Jimmy finally told his wife, Linda, about it.

     “What have you got to lose?” she asked him.

     Upon arriving at the meetings, Jimmy looked around at the strange sight. People were waving flags, stomping on the floor, singing with their hands in the air, and one lady was lying on the floor at the front of the church.

     “These people are NUTS!” Jimmy thought to himself. He just wanted to leave, but something made him stay. The longer he and Linda sat there, the better they felt.

     When the time came for people to go up for prayer, Jimmy’s friend urged him forward.

     One of the leaders, Pastor Darren, asked if he could anoint Jimmy with oil and pray for him. Taking a little bottle, he rubbed oil onto his forehead. As Pastor Darren raised his hand and started to pray for him—BANG— down he fell to the floor, even though the person praying for him wasn’t even touching him.

     As he lay on the floor, he tried and tried to open his eyes, but just couldn’t. “They must have glued my eyes shut with that oil,” he thought to himself. Then a huge light, far brighter and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before, lit up his vision. “They are shining a spotlight on me now,” he thought. As he lay there he felt SO calm, SO peaceful. Somehow, he knew everything was going to be okay. He wasn’t worried anymore about his cancer or his treatments.

     When the light faded and he was able to do so, he sat up.

     Linda had been prayed for and she, too, was lying on the church floor. When she got up and came over to Jimmy, she was crying so hard that she soaked the front of Jimmy’s shirt with her tears. Neither Jimmy, nor his wife knew what was happening, or that it was the Spirit of God they felt, but they both remarked that they felt so light.

      When they got home, Jimmy felt compelled to find a Bible. After searching for quite some time, he located an old Bible that had been in a house fire several years previously. It still smelled of smoke and the edges of the pages were blackened, but readable. He started to read it every day with his wife and to pray with her, and he noticed that his fear of death and the upcoming surgery was completely gone.

     Jimmy went into his garage and tried to duplicate the light he’d seen. Even with a five-million-candlelight spotlight, he couldn’t reproduce the brilliance, colour, or texture of the light he’d seen; nothing could even come close.

     After his surgery, the doctor came into the recovery room to let him know how the surgery had gone, and Jimmy said, “Hi Doctor!” The doctor whipped around, astounded that Jimmy was talking at all, and was stunned that he was able to understand Jimmy so well.

     “I don’t understand it,” the doctor stated. “We had to take 40% of your tongue, and you shouldn’t even be able to talk, let alone be understood at this stage. Also, there is no evidence that the cancer has spread, so we think we got it all.”

      When the lab results came back, it showed that all the cancer had, indeed, been removed and following several tests, the doctor declared Jimmy “cancer-free.”

     Jimmy started to tell his family, friends, and anyone who would listen, what had happened to him. He and his wife started attending church immediately and brought all the family and friends with them, that would go.

     More than thirty of his acquaintances have given their lives to God so far, and others have been filled with the Spirit of God, baptized or healed.

     Now, everyone in town is talking about what had happened to Jimmy Fraser and he tells everyone how everything has changed SINCE HE SAW THE LIGHT.

Tom Elliot                                                       White Lake, On

      The night of August 20, 2009 is a night that Tom Elliott will never forget. Brewing outside was the worst storm to hit the Ottawa Valley in many years.
Inside, a storm of another sort was raging, as Tom was dealing with a personal crisis. The depression and anxiety that had plagued him all his life had dragged him into an all-time low.

      Tom, and Annie, his wife, had been married for thirty-three years but the depression, mood swings, and bipolar tendencies, along with other circumstances, had taken a toll on their marriage. They had recently separated, hoping for time to rebuild and restore their relationship.

      That evening, they met at their home in Kanata to discuss their situation. Their time together that evening, seemed to confirm in Tom’s mind that the separation might turn out to be more permanent than he had first thought.

      Tom lay down to sleep on the couch, but for some reason he felt driven to return to the cottage on White Lake where he had been living since the previous month. Annie tried to stop him from going to the lake so late at night and in such poor weather conditions.

      Tom felt compelled to make the trip and left anyways. He cried for the entire trip from Kanata to the house of Bud and Margaret Lindsay, where his boat was moored.

      Upon arriving, being in no state to discuss the situation, and not wishing to disturb the Lindsays at such a late hour, he started to walk down to his boat. The darkness was so overwhelming that Tom had to feel his way along with his hands to prevent himself from bumping into the trees that lined the path to the dock.

      As he shuffled along, he heard Margaret call out to him, “Tom, you can’t go out on the lake in this storm!”

      Tom only replied, “I will be okay.”

      Again, she cried out for him to take refuge in their house until the storm had passed.

      He just repeated, “It will be alright.” He took nothing with him, not even a flashlight. It was the lowest and darkest hour in Tom’s life and he didn’t care about any of the consequences.

      As he sped along the water in his boat, almost involuntarily he called out, “God, if you’re real, show me; now is the time!”

      Immediately, lightning flashed from cloud to cloud and to his left side there appeared an intense, white light that completely lit up the shoreline of the lake. The light traveled like a wave and came close to him with a brilliance and intensity that he had never seen before or since. He felt it pass through his body and he lost his sight and hearing for a time. Tom also felt a pushing sensation from within his chest. When his senses returned, he found that he was still piloting the boat along the water.

      The darkness of the night made the navigating difficult, so he was relieved to see the neighbour’s solar, patio lights showing him where he was. In his mind, he charted the distance to his dock and when he saw the white rod that he usually tied his boat to, he nosed the boat up to it and reached far over to tie the boat up. To his utter amazement, the rod wasn’t there and he plunged into the chilly water. Tom grabbed onto the boat and drifted until he felt the shoreline under his feet. He realized then, that he had actually been quite far from away where he had thought he was.

      After securing his boat, Tom went inside the cottage, changed into dry pyjamas, and sat on the porch amazed, and completely overwhelmed, as he reflected on all the experiences of the evening. It was now 11:00 pm, and he continued to be lost in the thought that he had cried out to God in desperation, and the intense light of His presence had come immediately afterwards.

      So much happened during that encounter, that it would be quite a few days before he would gain even a glimmer of understanding, of all that God had done in those few moments in the brightness of His presence.

      All his fear was gone and he couldn’t cry another tear but could only sense overwhelming peace. He knew that everything was going to be all right.

      Around 4:00 am he decided that he must go and tell Annie what had happened, so he made a return trip to Ottawa, totally oblivious as to what the weather was doing. When he reached the city, he called his wife and asked if he could come and see her at her new apartment.

       Just a few blocks before he arrived, Tom stopped at a traffic light and saw a sign on a church lawn. The sign said, “It’s never too late to be the person you were always meant to be.” Author’s name: George Elliott.

       “It could only be another sign from God,” he thought.

       When Tom arrived at Annie’s place, he was visibly trembling as he told her all about it. Before he began, he said, “I am going to tell you something and you must promise me two things: one, you will never tell this to anyone and two, you will not send me to the loony bin.”

      As he was recounting the evening’s events, he shared that, at first, he thought he had been struck by lightning, died, and came back to life, but upon checking his body, they quickly surmised that it wasn’t lighting that had struck him, but the light of God! A phone call to Margaret Lindsay, later in the day, confirmed that there had been no chain-lightning the night before, so Tom shared his experiences with her and proclaimed, “It was God. There really is a God! He is real!”

      This was an incredible conclusion for Tom to reach, as he was a non-believer—not just a fencesitter but far beyond the fence, the field, and well into the bush. Many people had witnessed to him over the past thirty years, and his response had always been the same; the only way he would believe, was for God to personally show up. His request was granted that night.

      On Sunday, Tom was eager to attend church with Annie. In his mind, this would be a litmus test. His past attendance at any church service had resulted in him being very critical and disbelieving. The church where Annie attended was a very passionate and lively one, with many expressions of adoration to the Lord.       

      As they walked up to the church, they encountered a family with four small children. Annie knew the family well and began talking to them. Unexpectedly, Tom felt a squeezing sensation on his legs. Looking down, he saw their three-year-old son hugging him with all his might, with the most beautiful smile on his face. Later, Tom realized that this was his welcome to his new church. “It was the best welcome I could have ever received,” he said. “Since that time, I have seen him three times and he just hides his head and won’t look at me at all because he’s so shy.”

      As for what has changed in his life, Tom says “everything” has changed.

      “Our marriage is just the greatest now. I used to be so driven in my business that sometimes I’d stay up for two or three days to finish projects, but I now accomplish the same thing by working reasonable hours. I am so mellowed out. I have a peace and joy that I have never known. Instead of getting upset, I just say, ‘Whatever.’ The turmoil that tormented me all of my life is gone.”

      “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was an act of God. Eight medications, every day, for over twenty-five years, could not accomplish what this one encounter with God did. It was, as if I had spiritual surgery and the demon that had plagued me all my life has been removed. It’s beyond incredible!” 

      “I am truly amazed and still ask, ‘Why Me?’ Why did it take so long for God to intervene in my life? I can’t answer these and many other questions, but I know that my experience was real and there is a God.”

      “I was at the lowest point in my life. I asked and I received. I was saved, healed, delivered, and baptized in one act from God. Now, I am on the right side of the fence and can only hope that sharing this experience will encourage people to realize there is hope, to never give up, and more importantly, that there is a God.”

      “If you had told me a story like this on August 19, I would have laughed, been very critical and cynical. I would probably have suggested a one-way trip to the loony bin was in order and may have even given you the ticket.”

       “God has put a new song in my heart. Today, I sing over and over again the words of the beautiful hymn that I find so true of my life and experience with God.” 

                       Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found was blind but now I see.

                       My chains are gone! I’ve been set free! My God, my Saviour has ransomed me! And like a flood His mercy flows. Unending love, AMAZING GRACE!

          Tom once lived in darkness, but now he lives in glorious light!

The Awakening

Valerie Forsyth                                                    Arnprior, On                                                           

Val Forsyth was woken up in the night with a God-encounter. It was just after midnight, and as her husband slept soundly beside her, she felt God’s presence wash over her. Val praised the Lord for about half an hour,  feeling God was much more real than she ever had before. After the praise time, God spoke very clearly to her. God said that a Spirit called “Bindweed” had been in charge of the Ottawa Valley, and that its power had been broken through battle in the “heavenlies.” As a result of this victory, a move of God would begin. The evidence of it would be able to be discerned within weeks and would be the beginning of a Great Revival that was coming to Canada.

Over the next several months, God began to make prayer, intercession and a desire to know God, uppermost in Val’s heart and mind.  Truths that had lain dormant in her mind for decades sprang to life. A major health problem that had affected her moods was discovered and corrected. The relationship with her son, which had torn the family apart, started to be mended, and her son was reconciled to her and her husband; a situation which she had thought would take years to mend, happened in a matter of weeks.

God began to reveal jobs that He wanted her to do. Instead of wandering aimlessly through her Christian life, purpose, conviction, joy and a peaceful inner life began to emerge. As God revealed sins, and shortcomings, God began to convict and instruct her to humble herself, to the point where she thought it would do more harm than good, but God used this to heal, bring peace, and resolve longstanding barriers to His presence and His moving in her life.

One of the jobs God very clearly told her He wanted her to do, was to tell the stories of the people that were changed by the power of God in this Great Revival. These stories were to be told for the glory of God, for the encouragement of the believers, and for the drawing of non-believers to the truth of God’s reality.

And so, I am starting with my own story, and the ability of God to change a life; I, who have known God for forty-five years, and yet feel that after being asleep for years, I have just woken up.

THE PRAISE PAPERS are available for the purposes of bringing glory to God, to encourage believers to expect great things from God, and to draw non-believers to a place of investigating and/or becoming interested in learning more about the Mighty, Living God.

All stories presented in these papers are personally researched, verified and documented by the editor and describe real people and real situations, as described by the individual(s) involved, with their kind acceptance and permission.

If you have a story to share, or know someone who does, please contact Val Forsyth, by phone at 613-622-0472, or by email at val@valforsyth.com.

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