Easter Miracle for elderly Chilliwack couple

 

Chilliwack couple looks back at 'miracle' survival of Easter Sunday car crash

Diane and Norm Melanson were saved in multiple ways after their accident

Jessica Peters
Apr 18, 2025 5:30 AM

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1 / 6 Norm and Diane Melanson are pictured in their Chilliwack home on April 10, 2025.(Jenna Hauck/ Chilliwack Progress)

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Norm and Diane Melanson know they've lived to see a miracle — or perhaps a series of miracles — and it happened last Easter Sunday. 

The Chilliwack couple was coming back from church. It had been a beautiful service, and they were on their way to meet family for dinner. Norm was at the wheel as they drove over the Yale Road overpass, when he suffered a major medical emergency. 

His heart rate sped up incredibly high, so his pacemaker stopped and he seemed to pass out.  

Diane was texting their daughter about Easter dinner and realized that Norm, a very cautious driver, was accelerating over the overpass. 

"I said 'Norm, slow down,' and I looked at him and he wasn't with me," Diane says, sitting with Norm one year later at the kitchen table in their Sardis condo. "He went to 55 to 125 in seconds. We hit the curb and then I saw where we were going." 

She "turtled" to protect herself, and the vehicle hit the curb, then a pole. That sent their car about 25 feet into the air, and when they landed, they rolled three times before stopping upside down.

READ MORE: Driver still in hospital days after rollover crash in Chilliwack

It was a terrible, violent crash, but didn't involve any other vehicles. And that was perhaps the first miracle of this story. 

The second miracle was that one of the men travelling behind them happened to be an off-duty firefighter. 

"He said to dispatch: 'Send everybody. Now.'" 

This meant the Melansons were afforded as quick a medical response as one could hope for, with five ambulances, three fire trucks and 22 paramedics.

It had been a shift change at the nearby firehall, and everyone showed up. Another miracle.

Norm's life was truly on the line, and they later learned he had died at the wheel. The firefighter could not find a pulse through the window of the crashed car, and declared him dead on the scene. But there was a valiant life-saving effort by everyone involved, with paramedics taking turns at chest compressions, several Epi-pens and three uses of an AED machine. Twenty minutes later, Norm was finally showing signs of life. 

"The doctor told our daughter that if I survived, I would never walk again and to be prepared for the worst," he says. "Well, the worst didn't happen. God made sure that everyone knew He was in charge." 

The Melansons were already a devout couple, and one year later it's still not lost on them that the crash happened right in front of the Chilliwack Salvation Army. Upon hearing the crash, the people inside ran out, and many of them prayed for the couple while they watched the first responders work. One of them called the couple's daughter, Robyn Marshall, who by chance had just finished training to be an EMT. 

That was March 31, 2024. 

This Easter, they wanted to tell their story and use it as a way to thank everyone who was there for them on the scene, and in the days and months that would follow. It's a long list, and they know they can't thank everyone. There are anonymous donors from the GoFundMe, and those would never want to be publicly acknowledged. There were former customers from when they owned Jim's Pizza, who reached out and donated to them, and their adult children's friends, and so many more. 

The Melansons want to say thank you to them all. From the passerby who pulled Diane from the car and the firefighter who reacted so quickly, to those who fed and comforted them even in the last while as they continue to recover. There are the first responders out there that came to the call, and the staff and doctors at Royal Columbian, and physical therapists and counsellors who have turned the entire ordeal from a potential tragedy into a blessing of sorts. Even the ICBC adjuster they were assigned was a kindred spirit, and they're thankful for her. 

They also want everyone to know what life is like today for them.

Norm came home in June 2024. He now walks so much, every day, that Diane can't even keep up. He uses a cane, and has a care aide who walks two to three kilometres a day with him, close to the Melanson's home. He is regaining skills as time goes by, including playing pool in their building's recreation area. But he cannot be left alone, even for five minutes, due to the effects of having a traumatic brain injury. 

In bad weather, he walks the hallways. He will never get back the time from the crash until he woke up again at the end of May. Everything he knows about that time is what's been told to him by others. 

"I having trouble right now with the idea that I'll never be able to drive a car again," he says, along with coping with the vulnerability that comes along with needing people to look after him, all the time. 

He has also come to terms with the fact that he died that day, and was saved. He has one single memory from the event, and that is meeting his mother-in-law again. 

"Clear as a bell," he says to Diane. "Just as clear as you sitting there." 

Diane was more injured than first believed, and still is in regular physiotherapy care. With the medical shock she suffered in the crash, that day was long and arduous. So stressful, she says, that nobody realized as they watched and waited for Norm's prognosis, that she had multiple injuries. They didn't even think to go across Royal Columbian to the ER for her care, until prompted by someone else. 

The day he woke up, the two prayed together. Someone snapped a photo of them, cheek to forehead, and it's a treasured moment in a sea of traumatic ones. The fact he woke up, and was still himself, was the biggest miracle of them all. 

They have told their story to the congregation at their church, highlighting even more of the ways they feel God has stepped in along the way. 

But more than anything, together, they care for each other as much as possible.

Matthew Perry's Encounter with God

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Matthew Perry recounted encounter with the ‘presence of God’

in his book before death

By Jeannie Ortega Law, Christian Post Reporter

Matthew Perry | YouTube/Q with Tom Power

Actor Matthew Perry, famously known for his role as Chandler Bing in the hit NBC sitcom "Friends," died in his Los Angeles-area home at the age of 54 on Saturday, and since the news of his death, the actor's comments about God and the afterlife have resurfaced. 

In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir, Perry is very candid about his past addiction issues and a near-death experience following a burst colon due to opioid abuse. Perry had undergone 14 stints in rehab, 15 stomach surgeries and dozens of attempts at detox. 

In his autobiography, Perry revealed that at his lowest point, he turned to God in desperation.

"God, please help me, show me that you are here," he recalled praying.  

Following the prayer, he described having an encounter with the presence of God, which caused him to weep uncontrollably. 

"I wasn't crying because I was sad — I was crying because for the first time in my life, I felt OK," he noted. "I felt safe, taken care of."

"He saved me that day, and for all days, no matter what," Perry testified. 

I believe uncontrollable weeping as described here is a sign of God's grace - the forgiveness of sins.

The comedic performer revealed that up until that point he spent years struggling with faith, but that encounter changed everything for him. 

"I had been in the presence of God. I was certain of it," he declared

As previously reported, in a 2022 interview with ABC News's Diane Sawyer, Perry recounted the first time he prayed to God, but it was a shallow prayer that he was not proud of. 

During his first prayer to God, Perry said anything could be done to him so long as he became famous.

"That was the first time I ever prayed. And I look back at it as a dumb prayer, like a prayer of a really young person," he told Sawyer.

The entertainer believed at the time that fame would cure his addiction but later realized it worsened it.

In his book, Perry said that his first prayer did not compare to the divine encounter he had with God. 

"This time I had prayed for the right thing: help. God had shown me a sliver of what life could be," he shared. "He saved me that day, and for all days, no matter what. He had turned me into a seeker, not only of sobriety, and truth, but also of Him."

His autobiography was released on Nov. 1, 2022, almost a year before his death. He chillingly opens up the book with the line: "Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead."

Last year, Perry also opened up to popular atheist Bill Maher about his faith in God on HBO's "Real Time."

"I was given a 2% chance to survive the night," Perry told Maher. "They didn't tell me that, obviously, because I wasn't really there, but they told my family. And I was put on a thing called an ECMO [Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation] machine. … They call that a Hail Mary. … Five people were on ECMO that night, and the other four died, and I somehow made it."

Maher joked that God "must be a fan" of Perry's, to which the actor replied that he knows Maher's belief about the Creator, but he does, in fact, believe in a "higher power."

"I believe there is a higher power," Perry testified. "I have a very close relationship with Him that's helped me a lot."

Authorities discovered Perry unresponsive after reports of a cardiac arrest, TMZ reported, saying the death was due to an "apparent drowning." Later, the media outlet said he actually died at his own house after some physical activity Saturday morning.

Los Angeles Times reported that Perry was found unresponsive in a hot tub, although no foul play is suspected, adding that no drugs were found at the scene.

Nor, apparently, were any drugs found in his autopsy.

According to media reports, Perry returned home in the early morning after a two-hour pickleball session. Shortly after arriving, he sent his assistant out for an errand. When the assistant came back about two hours later, he found the actor unresponsive and immediately called 911.

Perry was 54 years old and survived by his parents and five siblings.

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Child's Amazing Testimony of Jesus

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Boy Says Jesus Held Him in a Pool Drowning Accident,

Asks Why Jesus Has ‘Scratches on His Hands?’

'We had never spoken to him about God's hands, ever, 

and the way he described Jesus was just chilling,' the mom says.

BY LOUISE CHAMBERS TIME

JUNE 13, 2023

Max McKee in the arms of Jesus

A Louisiana toddler who nearly drowned in his grandmother’s pool awoke the following day in the hospital with a miraculous memory: being held in the arms of Jesus after falling in the water. He later asked his parents why Jesus has “scratches on his hands?”

The grateful parents credit the power of prayer for their son’s recovery.

Registered nurse Courtney McKee lives in Louisiana with her husband, Brandon, and sons Brody and Max. Max, now 6, was just 2 years and 10 months old when he suffered a near-fatal drowning accident on July 11, 2019.

“It happened here in Louisiana at my mother’s house,” Courtney told The Epoch Times. “It was a beautiful sunny day. [Max] was with my mother and my sister-in-law, with Brody, his older brother, and then another cousin that was playing. I was at work at the hospital. He got out of the pool and wanted to play, so my mom was letting him play a few feet away from her. Then they realized he wasn’t playing anymore.”

Courtney McKee with her husband, Brandon, and sons, Brody and Max. (Courtesy of Courtney McKee)

The Drowning

Max had been wearing floats in the pool as he did not know how to swim at the time. Leaving the pool, his grandma had helped him remove the floats.

“I think he returned to the pool to get some water and a small bucket to play with, they’re not really sure. When he leaned over to get the water, that’s when he might have fell in,” Courtney said.

Courtney’s sister-in-law found Max at the bottom of the pool, unconscious. No one knows exactly how long he was under. Courtney received a panicked call at work and quickly knew something was wrong when she heard sirens in the background.

“I started crying and I remember my coworkers, fellow nurses and doctors alike, surrounded me,” she said. “One of them took my phone and started talking for me. … I was so numb, I couldn’t even speak.”

Max was admitted to Rapides Regional Medical Center in Louisiana with his lungs swollen and full of fluid.

Epoch Times Photo

(Courtesy of Courtney McKee)

“He was in severe respiratory distress,” Courtney said. “I was standing in the ER when they brought him in, and they surrounded him and began to work on him. I just remember, being a nurse myself, it was terrifying to watch it happen to my own child.”

Max was resuscitated and taken to the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit on high-flow oxygen. His parents and care team waited with bated breath to see if their efforts had been quick enough to prevent brain damage.

The ‘Ultimate Physician’

As Courtney wept with her still-sleeping toddler in her arms, her community caught wind of the accident and prayed for Max’s recovery. Loved ones came to Max’s hospital bedside to pray in person.

Courtney and Brandon have always taken their sons to church. They pray together and read Bible stories every night. When Max drowned, the first thing that big brother Brody did was kneel by the pool and pray. The day before Max’s accident, Courtney felt an urgent need to pray for their children, pleading with Jesus to save her babies.

In the hospital, Courtney had to separate herself from her nurse’s knowledge and place her faith in “the ultimate physician,” Jesus. She felt blessed for the “God-ordained” care team that watched over her son. The next morning, Max came to and showed signs that he was his usual self despite his massive ordeal.

“He was a little agitated because he wanted the cords and wires off of him. But he was talking and communicating with us, and we knew at that point he was going to be okay. He was aware of what happened,” Courtney said. “He was in the ICU for a few days. … We had to see the pediatrician regularly after that: no deficits, nothing wrong with him after the drowning.”

‘Jesus Held Me’

Days after returning home from hospital, Max had another massive shock for his parents.

Courtney said: “He just looked at his father and I and he said, ‘When I was in the pool, I wasn’t scared.’ I told him, ‘That’s really good, buddy, I’m proud you weren’t scared,’ and he said, ‘When I was in the pool, Jesus held me.’

“Then he asked us, ‘Why does He have bobos and scratches on His hands?’ I was completely stunned. I just asked him to repeat himself to make sure I was hearing it right. We had never spoken to him about God’s hands, ever, and the way he described Jesus was just chilling.”

Courtney knew that her baby had been held that day and was joyful; she has since heard from several parents who have lost a child that Max’s testimony has given them comfort. “I think it’s something I want people to take away, miracles still happen today. God is real,” Courtney said.

In 2021, a little over a year after his accident, Max went to an art camp with his brother and asked to draw a special picture in collaboration with artist Anna Dieter Rachal. He wanted to draw himself in Jesus’s arms, in the water. Max later told his mom as she hung the drawing on the fridge, “Mommy, he holds ALL the kids that fall in the water.”

The Power of Prayer

Drowning is among the leading causes of death in children aged 5 and under in the United States, and it can take as little as 30 seconds for a child to drown. Courtney, who has counseled her eldest, Brody, after he witnessed Max’s ordeal, knows that the siblings of children who drown are also affected.

It took around a year for Max to regain the courage to go near water. He has since had swimming lessons and knows how to rescue himself if he falls in. “It was a lengthy process because he was scared, so the instructor was very sensitive to what he had went through,” Courtney said, describing now-6-year-old Max as “full of energy, happy, joyful, and curious.”

The family has shared Max’s testimony with their church and the world through international media, and Max is willing to talk about it with anybody who asks questions.

“More than anything, I think I want people to know that there’s power in prayer,” Courtney said. “Also something I want people to take away from this is that drownings in children are common, and even in a small lapse in supervision, a child can return to the pool. Never take your eyes off the water and never think it can’t happen to you.”

But if it does, remember, Jesus is there.

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This Week in Christian History > Crusaders take Antioch; Baptism of Kievan Rus; The First Sign of Deep State in America?

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This week in Christian history: Crusaders take Antioch, 

Baptism of Kievan Rus, Deep State in America?

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor

The Christian Post

Please go to Christian Post for all three stories

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Ozzone 8-6 > Have you reached the intimacy of the Cross in Christ?

 

The first sentence in this devotional makes it clear that “The Cross” meant something different a hundred years ago from what most of us Christians understand today. Most of us think of the Cross as that instrument of Jesus Christ’s death and the great shame of mankind. But for the first 1900 years or so of Christianity, The Cross was also applied individually to every believer. It represented the burdens we had to bear as well as the intimacy we were privileged to have with our Lord. 

Jesus was unable to carry the Cross up the Via Dolorosa, and so another was given that phenomenal privilege. We Christians can all identify with our Lord in carrying whatever burden He allows us. That’s our Cross and we need to carry it every day and be thankful for the privilege.

Atheist Oncologist Returns to Faith While Treating Cancer Patients

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Atheist Oncologist Returns to Faith While Treating Cancer Patients:

Science Proves the Existence of Higher Power

BY MARINA ZHANG TIME

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 

Dr. Stephen Iacoboni is part of the baby boomer generation. Born in 1952, he came of age during the 1960s when the country was living in the bubble of the ideal American Dream.

“I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and I was very faithful,” said Iacoboni, “but there are some inherent contradictions with Christianity, and when you’re young and idealistic, you don’t understand that humans are imperfect, and so you blame them for things that are just part of being a frail human with faults.”

Iacoboni’s disillusionment came in the early 70s, when the societal problems festering in America’s inner cities rose to the surface with civil rights protests and anti-war movements against the Vietnam War.

Anti-war demonstrators, wearing black armbands, fill the steps of the United States Capitol Building

and hold hands on the day of the National Moratorium in Washington D.C., to protest against the

continuing war in Vietnam, on Oct. 15, 1969. (AFP/Getty Images)

“I was raised to be patriotic and believed that everyone was equal; I became a young adult and [realized that] people of color don’t have the same rights and [we have been] slaughtering innocent people in Southeast Asia [in the Vietnam War],” Iacoboni told The Epoch Times during a phone call.

The United States withdrew from Vietnam once the casualties were too much for the country to bear.

In the aftermath of the lost war, Christians, who mostly held conservative views were blamed for the anti-communist policies that led to the United States’s eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War. This included the mounting casualties, traumatized veterans, and stories of brutal killings by the U.S. military upon the Vietnamese civilians.

Republicans are very good at associating their policies with Christian ideals, as if God wanted America to go to war in Viet Nam. Only the weapons manufacturers and their investors really wanted to go to war. This association is what has allowed Democrats to come out full force against anything Christian.

While Christians faced attack in the public forum for pushing the war agenda, modern science was spouting exciting new discoveries, framed in narratives that denied the existence of a higher being.

There is much more on this article in the Epoch Times. It is well worth the read.

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Christian Witness > Convoys, Convulsions in Canada - A Christian Perspective

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Convoys, Convulsions and the Future of Canada

By Bob Jones 

REVwords.com

February 20, 2022 

What says Canada more than someone wearing a snowmobile jacket in a snowstorm holding a maple leaf flag tied to the end of a hockey stick, eh? Except when the Canadian holding the stick is facing off against a line of police in riot gear brandishing batons and weapons.

Convulsions in the Fabric of Canada

The level of conflict that we are witnessing is, in many ways, inconceivable for Canadians. Images out of Ottawa at the end of the recent occupation will be seared into our collective memories. Anti-mandate convoys and rallies of flag-waving citizens are the new thing to do on weekends. The cumulative effects of the two-year pandemic have released cultural toxins into the bloodstream of our society, infecting politics, churches, civility, and in Michael Coren’s opinion, “likely causing lasting and even irreparable damage.”

Climate change isn’t the only thing heating up the true north.

Canadian culture is convulsing.

“Shifts in the collective consciousness are no merry ride,” says David Brooks, a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a columnist for The New York Times. “They come amid fury and chaos, when the social order turns liquid and nobody has any idea where things will end. Afterward, people sit blinking, battered, and shocked: What kind of nation have we become?”

Tumultous

How did we get here? What’s on the horizon?

Anyone under 50 has no memory of the tumultuous 60s. On campuses and on city streets, the protest leaders of this decade favoured civil disobedience over the ballot box. Protest rallies, marches, sit-ins, and demonstrations were the tactics of choice.

The actions of members of the Students for a Democratic University are the epitome of those times. Using their newly acquired positions in the Simon Fraser Student Society, they passed a motion to change the name of the university to Louis Riel University. These activists argued that rather than being a “Loyalist, fur-trader and explorer,” Simon Fraser was actually a “member of the vanguard of pirates, thieves, and carpet baggers which dispossessed and usurped the native Indians of Canada from their rightful heritage.”

Sound eerily familiar?

We lived through the convulsions. And churches that chose the mission over their methods loved people and saw the birth of the Jesus People Revolution and revival.

A Cultural Pattern

Brooks suggests the moment we find ourselves in is a cultural pattern. “These moments share certain features. People feel disgusted by the state of society. Trust in institutions plummets. Moral indignation is widespread. Contempt for established power is intense.”

“A highly moralistic generation appears on the scene. It uses new modes of communication to seize control of the national conversation. Groups formerly outside of power rise up and take over the system. These are moments of agitation and excitement, frenzy and accusation, mobilization and passion.”

The Church in Canada

The church in Canada is not immune to upheaval or conflict. Fault lines and disunity existed over the last forty years of church life, but nothing as widespread as what the coronavirus exposed and the polarized response from Christians.

I don’t lead a local church but I talk with a lot of pastors and the level of division and anger they face has never been higher.

“We’re going into a season, “says Ed Stetzer, researcher, and missiologist, “where we’re going to have to build up, as leaders, greater reservoirs of resilience to face a higher level of conflict that’s going to be ongoing. And we’re going to have to grow accustomed to that level of conflict in our churches, our ministries, in our leadership positions, our businesses and more, and that’s not good news. I just think it’s factually true.”

Sobering words, but defining reality is the first job of leaders. The second is to offer hope.

There is a path forward.

Known for Obedience

Jesus never said his followers would be known for taking a stand, correcting one another, right doctrine, adherence to tradition, or for Sunday attendance. He said the world would know those in step with him as they obey him.

Obedience to Jesus is the north star for the church.

And the good news is that love is always the outcome of obeying Jesus. Love for those who are like us. Love for those of different political persuasions, social alignment, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Jesus calls us to a radical revolution of loving unconditionally, forgiving graciously, and giving no home to offence.

In the words of Jess Claire, Make Jesus known. Be passionate. Be strong. Defend who and what God puts on your heart. Let your voice be heard. But be kind and remember who you’re returning home to.

Home

As followers of Jesus our call is to exercise our “first” citizenship within God’s kingdom as well as our Canadian citizenship. We are commanded to live out our love for God and our love for others in such a way that those we live among may see our good deeds and glorify God.

We live among others as Jesus did, full of grace and truth.

Jesus, by Your Spirit, empower us to demonstrate your love, grace, and truth in the relationships where God has placed us. Amen.

Please go to the link at the top of this article to leave a comment.

Christian Witness > Satanist turns Christian; Jordan Peterson The Bible is the bedrock of civilization; Teen leads whole tribe of Muslims to Jesus

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'I Feel Completely Whole': Ex-Satanist Shares

How God Changed His Life

Milton Quintanilla | 

Contributor for ChristianHeadlines.com | 

Thursday, January 27, 2022

A testimony of a former Satanist went viral after he shared how God saved his life.

Carl Sartor, 35, explained how he came to Jesus Christ after years of running away from Him. He previously lived as an atheist for 15 years and a Satanist for five years.

"I've never been a spiritual person. I believed when you die, you was dead. That was it. I've been running from God since I was about five. I would argue you tooth and nail that he did not exist," Sartor wrote on Facebook Sunday.

"I was living in a vicious cycle of drugs and alcohol. I had a severe anger problem," he continued. "I blamed everyone and everything. I also blamed God."

It's amazing how many people don't believe in God but blame Him whenever something bad happens.

Last November, however, Sartor started attending Cross Church in Parkersburg, West Virginia, after hitting rock bottom in his life and almost committing suicide. He noted that Minister Rich Walters had invited him to the church over a year ago, but Sartor wanted nothing to do with God at the time.

"He said, 'I'd love to have you for service.' I said, 'I walk a different path, buddy," Sartor told CBN News. "You'd never catch me there. It will be a cold day in hell before you see me in church.'"

That invitation, however, would ultimately lead Sartor to Christ.

"We didn't even get to the preaching yet because we were still singing, praising, and worshipping. We didn't even make it 15 minutes in that service before he ran to that baptismal tank," Walters shared on Facebook.

"Today, he's a worshipper. Today, he's a believer. Today, he's my brother in Christ. It's like the old song says…'  There's just no telling what you're gonna do, in that moment Jesus gets a hold of you!!!!' Praise God!!!" the minister said.

Walter's post included two photos of Sartor taken just several weeks apart. The first photo shows him wearing a "Saved by Satan" shirt, and the latter shows him being baptized at church. The testimony went viral, and the Facebook post has 34,000 likes, 8,500 comments and 11,000 shares.

"I feel completely whole. I feel at peace with myself. There is no longer a void," Sartor told CBN News. "Everything has changed about me."

"I'm spiritually alive now, and that happened when He wrapped His arms around me...and I felt that love," he continued.

Now that Sartor's life has been transformed, he hopes that others will be able to experience the same kind of transformation he underwent.

"For the first time in life, I had a spiritual experience. God is real, and I will continue to walk this path with him beside me. By his grace, I'm by far the best version of me I have ever been. My God is an awesome God, and I pray that everyone gets to experience his love as I have," he concluded his Facebook post.

Jordan Peterson: 'The Bible is more than just true,'

it's the bedrock of civilization

By Ryan Foley, 

Christian Post Reporter| 

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson appears on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Jan. 25, 2022. | Screenshot: YouTube/PowerfulJRE

World-renowned Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson said the Bible is “way more than just true,” it's the bedrock of Western civilization. 

Peterson appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” Tuesday, where he lamented that “the culture is dissolving" as he detailed his experience touring the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., and his reflections on society. 

“Roughly speaking, we have a bedrock of agreement,” he said. “That’s the Bible, by the way.” 

Peterson elaborated on how he came across this realization as he walked through the museum, noting that one floor is dedicated to the “history of the book.” 

“For a while, literally, there was only one book and that book was the Bible,” he said. After a while, there were “all sorts of books that anybody could buy,” he added, stressing that “all those books in some sense emerged out of that underlying book [the Bible].” 

Later in the discussion, Peterson spoke more about Western civilization, characterizing “fundamental texts” as “the texts upon which most other texts depend.” He cited the work of William Shakespeare as one of several “texts that influenced more other texts” before identifying the Bible as the ultimate source of all “linguistic production.” 

“It isn’t that the Bible is true. It’s that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth, which makes it way more true than just true. It’s a whole different kind of truth. And I think this is not only literally the case. Factually, I think it can’t be any other way. It’s the only way we can solve the problem of perception.”

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Teenager Leads His Entire Tribe to Salvation in One of the World’s

Worst Countries for Christians

February 15, 2022

Martinmssp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pakistan is one of the world’s most antagonizing nations for Christians, and yet the witness of a single teenager reportedly turned an entire tribe to Christ in an incredible story of the power of the Gospel to save.

According to Mission Network News, a teenager referred to by the pseudonym Rehan was working at a restaurant when he met a Christian truck driver and missionary who shared the Gospel with him and gave him an audio Bible.

“Rehan said, ‘How is your attitude towards a waiter so gentle? Have you joined some other sect than Islam?’ Safdar gave him an audio Bible,” Nehemia, of Forgotten Ministries International, told the outlet. “Rehan took it home and began listening. Then Safdar suggested Rehan take off from his work and spend time together to answer his queries and questions at the FMI Discipleship center.”

The 17-year-old began to listen to the Bible and kept up a rapport with the truck driver and was eventually baptized as a Christian.

The story of salvation doesn’t end there, however.

The bold, young, newly-baptized Christian began to witness to members of his family, and then his whole tribe, in spite of the immense risk faced by Pakistanis who convert from Islam to Christianity.

Nehemia brought along fellow missionary workers with him to speak with the members of the tribe about Jesus.

“One evening, he gathered all the tribe’s members under one big tent. First, Rehan showed a movie about Jesus,” he explained.

“Then an FMI partner shared a 15-minute devotion about new hope in Christ. That day, a 17-year-old-boy led his whole tribe to the Lord Jesus Christ. They quit their regular practice of offering Muslim prayers.”

The roughly 60 tribe members all accepted Christ as a result of this one young man’s bold witness.

Nehemia urges Christians to pray for the tribe, as well as missionary workers among similar populations in Pakistan, which is ranked by Open Doors USA as the eighth most dangerous country in the world to follow Christ.

And much worse to convert from Islam to Christianity. This will not be the last we hear of this story, I'm afraid.

Jordan Peterson > Do You Believe in God?

Jordan Peterson is easily one of the most intelligent men in the world. In fact, I can't think of a single person who could come close to him. 

It's hard for an intelligent man to become a real Christian, but Jordan is in the process of doing just that, if not already a full-blown Christian.

The process of amalgamating his extraordinary learning of sociology with Christianity is powerful to watch. Please take 18 minutes out of your life and listen to this. 

I am confident that the wisdom Peterson has shown over the past several years comes, in part, from God. I do, however, have a concern that his 'faith' still has some considerable room to grow. Nevertheless, God will complete that good work that He has begun in him. Amen?

‘Feed my sheep’: Denzel Washington Reveals What God's Been Telling Him To Do

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By Jeannie Ortega Law,

Christian Post Reporter Twitter| 

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Actor Denzel Washington attends the premiere of "FENCES" in Manhattan, New York City,

December 19, 2016. | Reuters/Andrew Kelly

Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington recently revealed what the Lord has been telling him to do when he prays in this season. 

Washington was among the featured speakers at "The Better Man Event" hosted by First Baptist Orlando in Florida on Saturday, where he revealed to his spiritual mentor, Pastor A.R. Bernard, the senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York, the message he's consistently been hearing from God.  

“At 66, getting ready to be 67, having just buried my mother, I made a promise to her and to God, not just to do good the right way, but to honor my mother and my father by the way I live my life, the rest of my days on this Earth. I'm here to serve, to help, to provide,” Washington shared at the Christian men’s conference. 

During the nearly 30-minute sit-down discussion, Washington told Bernard what God has been telling him every time he prays.

"In every prayer, all I hear is: 'Feed my sheep.' That's what God wants me to do,” the “Fences” actor shared. 

Washington admitted that often his response is, “What's that mean?” But, he added, "What I found out in the last couple of years is there are all kinds of sheep. So that's why I talk to experienced shepherds to help guide me.”

“The world has changed. What is our role as a man? The John Wayne formula is not quite a fit right now. But strength, leadership, power, authority, guidance, patience are God's gift to us as men. We have to cherish that, not abuse it,” the actor advised. 

During the discussion, Washington wanted the audience to know that despite his redemptive characters on screen, he’s endured his own battles in choosing to live for God.

"What I played in the movies is not who I am, it's what I played," he stressed. "I'm not going to sit or stand on any pedestal and tell you about what I had in mind for you or your soul. Because the fact of the matter is, in the whole 40-year process, I was struggling for my own soul.

"It [the Bible] says in the last days we'll become lovers of ourselves. The number one photograph now is a selfie. So we all want to lead. We're willing to do anything — ladies and young men — to be influential. ... Fame is a monster and we all have these ladders and battles, roads we have to walk in our given lives. Be you famous or whoever's out there listening, we all have our individual challenges. It's cliché [but] money, don't make it better. It doesn't. Fame just magnifies the problems and the opportunities,” Washington continued. 

The New York native went on to share guidance for men who are looking for success. 

"Stay on your knees. Watch me, but listen to God,” he added. “I hope that the words in my mouth and the meditation of my heart are pleasing in God's sight, but I'm human. I'm just like you. What I have will not keep me on this Earth for one more day. Share what you know, inspire who you can, seek advice. If you want to talk to one someone, talk to the one that can do something about it. Constantly develop those habits.”

Throughout his discussion, Washington frequently quoted things he learned about God from Bernard.  

"Fear is nothing but contaminated faith,” Washington said, echoing an earlier comment by Bernard. He then added: “My chest is sagging right now because I haven't been lifting weights. I'm losing weight first. So you got to lift them faith weights. You got to do your curls and your squats daily. You may get injured; you may want to throw them down, you may want to give up, you may never be big ... you have to refill your bucket every night. You have to refill your bucket every morning.”

Washington concluded his faith-filled talk by noting that although he has money and stardom, what he’s discovered is that one always needs to leave “room to learn.”

In an interview with The Christian Post back in 2017, Washington shared part of his Christian testimony, saying that when he was 20 years old, "it was prophesied that I would travel the world and preach to millions of people. I thought it was through my work and it has been."

"My mother said to me, when I was 59, she said, 'Denzel, you do a lot of good. You have to do good the right way and you know what I'm talking about,'" Washington continued. "I don't drink anymore; I don't do any of those things. I'm all about the message, to the degree that I know it, and I'm unashamed and unafraid to share it!

"So you have to be unafraid and unashamed to share it in the way your millennial generation knows how," he told this CP reporter at the time. 

The Oscar winner now regularly uses his platform to inspire others.

Denzel Washington Implores Millennials to Be Unashamed of Their Faith in Social Media Age (Interview)

Denzel Washington recounts being filled with the Holy Ghost: 'It scared me'

Great Lesson from The Voice of the Martyrs

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"For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." – 2 Corinthians 12:10 ESV

A church occupied in Great Commission work will see growth when people discover the love of the Father through Jesus, His Son. Then, fuelled by the Holy Spirit's guidance, these new followers of Jesus mature in the faith through discipleship and the application of God’s Word. Thus, the church becomes a marvellous blending of young and old, immature and mature, growing together in awe and reverence of the one true God.

However, Christians will encounter hostility in this world because of their faith and witness of Christ. As the church increases through conversion, the world's pushback will be one of threats, intimidation and eventual attack. Regardless of where they live, every Christian will be hated by the world because of their allegiance to Jesus. This is just as true for Christians in Canada as it is for believers in North Korea. While hostility from the world may vary from location to location, suffering for righteousness is a normal aspect of the Christian life.

For example, in Sri Lanka, while mob intimidations and attacks incited by Buddhist monks are common, local authorities often turn a blind eye to these incidents. Such aggression is not what we in the West typically associate with Buddhism, as a "violent Buddhist" is an oxymoron. And yet, whoever rejects Christ, regardless of their religion or belief, the normal outcome will be expressed in opposition to His will and way.

I recall hearing a story of a Sri Lankan pastor who witnessed Buddhist leaders and police stand silently in the foreground as an angry mob stormed his church and set it on fire. When the fire eventually died out, the church was completely gutted, with everything destroyed by the flames. Yet, picking through the charred remains, the pastor found a small clay flowerpot – the only thing that survived the fire.

The next Sunday, the congregation gathered in the ruins of their church. The pastor stood to welcome the members and lifted the flowerpot. He then asked, "Why do you think this little pot survived while everything else burned?" After a moment of silence, the pastor stated, "The reason this little pot survived is because it had already been through the fire while being made and, therefore, was able to withstand the heat."

Drawing a lesson from this little pot, he further explained: "The same can be said about our lives. When we go through trials and challenges because of our faith, we become stronger, our faith becomes stronger, and we can stand firm. Remember Isaiah 43:2 which reads, ‘When you pass through the waters, I [God] will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’ You may be going through a challenge this very day in your own life. Whatever it may be, it is not a fire that will destroy you, but the Refiner's fire that will purge and purify your faith for His glory."

Christians are made of "stronger stuff," as God uses the difficulties and trials of life to shape us for His unique calling on our lives. The Apostle Paul tells us that all Christians are in the process of being transformed daily into the likeness of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). He also reminds us of the fact that all things work together for the good of those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). For all who desire to live the Godly life in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:12), the question we must ask ourselves is: How will we respond when trouble comes because of our faith in Him?

Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, the international founder of The Voice of the Martyrs, spent 14 years in a Communist prison. For much of that time, he was imprisoned underground in complete solitary confinement. He endured tortures and mistreatments that should have killed him. And yet, amid such miserable conditions, Rev. Wurmbrand said: "There's always a good reason to rejoice. There is a God in heaven and in the heart. I had a piece of bread this morning. It was so good! Look now, the sun is shining, and so many here love me! Every day you do not rejoice is a day lost!"

What amazing insights from a man who would not allow hate to rule his heart. Instead, Rev. Wurmbrand chose to live a life of worship, even in the darkest moments of his human experience. A characteristic of the Christian life is thankfulness – a thankfulness not influenced by outward circumstances, but one that resides in the recesses of the heart and offers right sacrifices to God. Hope is the "stronger stuff" in the life of a believer who finds peace in the flames of adversity and rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Grace and peace,

Floyd A. Brobbel

Chief Executive Officer

The Voice of the Martyrs Canada Inc.