Church Planting Update - by Paul Bergmann
His name was Stuart*. I met him as he wandered into the church one morning after we discovered he had been sleeping on a bench in front of the church building one morning after we discovered he had been sleeping on a bench in front of the church building we are renting. I took him for coffee and struck up conversation with him desiring to get his story. What a story indeed!!. He had been living with his prostitute girlfriend and had been trying to get clean off drugs and having quite a time trying to find employment while on a disability. So began the relationship with Stu.
Over a period of a few months Stu found HarbourView quite to his liking as he befriended many and questioned numerous things about the Christian faith. I spent many an hour talking through the various books of scripture that he would devour and would have a host of questions ranging from understanding an environmental "Green" God (Typical west coast) to wondering why Jehovah instituted a special diet for His people. What fun and what a lot of patience was poured into this young man We began to pray for Stuart and though we were making some headway when he disappeared for a few months. Thinking he had fallen off the radar we continued to pray regularly having faith that he may show sooner or later as our community of faith had poured a lot of love into this young man.
After some time Stu showed up letting us know that his "girlfriend" had disappeared and if we could pray for her. Thus began his trust in a Saviour as Christ gained ground in this man's soul and a deep healing was taking place. The grip of God tightened on Stu as the word of God took root in his life displacing the kingdom of darkness with the light of Jesus Christ. Although he had an affinity with our church he was drawn to the orthodox tradition and began attending their services and quickly found place with the richness of liturgy in this ancient tradition.
I recently attended Stuart's baptism service and received great news that he has begun a street ministry in downtown Victoria and helps coordinate a food service multiple times a week. Just last week Stuart called me to thank HarbourView for helping him find his path to Christ and has extended an invitation to us to partner with their ministry in impacting our community for Jesus.
Here is a snippet of an email I recently received from Stuart...
I just wanted to say thank you for holding my computer for me, it is nice to be able to get back to work. I need to head to bed, but I wanted to send the link of the monastery I am going to... I will go strait there after I get out of Detox. Anyway I hope you are well, you and your family are always in my thoughts and prayers, and I will forever be grateful that through you I found my own path to Christ.
This is but one of the experiences that we are enjoying as a community of HarbourView Alliance and one more where we are happy to say "to be continued".
