James & Carolanne

Feb. Surgery Update

On Thursday of last week (Feb. 3) I received a call from the office of the specialist that we have been trying to see, telling me that they had an opening to operate on the following Tuesday (Feb. 8 ) and wondering if I could make it on short notice. Naturally I said yes and quickly arranged for a few days of sick leave from work. Though it wasn't ideal timing, I've waited for quite...

Raising $1000 per Month by June

Many of you may have heard about our recent push to raise $1000 by June, but for those of you who haven't, I thought I'd post an update on what this is all about. We have been asked by Power to Change to raise an additional $1000 in monthly support by June 2011. This is not because we're suddenly going to be paid more, but rather due to cut-backs in P2C's covering of our existing...

Quick Ministry Update

Dear Friends, As many of you know we have been delving more and more into the realm of producing and using evangelistic video content on the websites. To that end we have developed a number of video "channels" aimed at reaching a variety of demographics. As an example, one of the channels we're developing is a "Family" channel in which we show an assortment of videos designed to help families and marriages. The channel covers...

Prayer Requests

Please pray for the hurting people who we interact with on the sites. This last Monday our director shared how she had the opportunity to literally save a young man's life through the website over the weekend. The person was intending to drown himself in a lake, but searched the Internet one last time for the phrase “what happens when you commit suicide”. Our site came up as the first result in his search and...

2010 End of Year Update

We recently mailed out an end-of-year ministry update for 2010. We tried to get everyone we could think of who could possibly be interested in receiving an update about us, but if for some reason you were missed, we are putting it up here on the ministry site for you to read. You can download it in PDF format here. One of our big needs right now that we mentioned in the letter is for...

Crave: The Documentary

"What role do our deepest human cravings for intimacy, destiny, and meaning play in our search for God? Crave: The Documentary explores how regardless of race, background, or spirituality, we all have one thing in common: the cravings of our soul." A must-watch, Crave: The Documentary is a film where Erwin McManus demonstrates in grippingly real conversations that people right here in Vancouver are open to hear about Jesus. We're using this film as the...

Evangelism to 150,000 people

I recently received this update from our director and thought you also might benefit from reading it. This month, TruthMedia will give 150,000 people from over 200 countries the chance to know Jesus and grow deeper in their faith. Each of those people can then talk to someone personally. That is an incredible opportunity! In a culture where many Christians say they don’t know how to share their faith, we are seeing volunteers join our...

Suicide and Mentoring

The following exchange took place a few days ago on one of our articles related to suicide.  I am posting it here because I thought it was a really meaningful example of our ministry in action combined with the positive influence of mentoring on the site.  If you like, you can read the full article with comments here. Vandana Mittal: hi.. I love a guy who says he we cant be together because of commitments...

Ministry to Real People

I've often been amazed at some of the stories and comments we receive off the websites.  I have to admit, sometimes the stories seem so personal or heart breaking that my amazement turns to a little bit of scepticism.  I wonder if the situation is really legitimate or just another person trying make waves or get a reaction.  So how do we know that these people are telling the truth? One clue to this is...

Surgery and Ministry Update

Well it seems that God has other plans for my life than to be healed.  About a week after my surgery was cancelled, the problem reappeared.  Please continue to pray that things would improve and/or heal completely.  Please pray also for us as this process has been quite frustrating.  I'm stuck working from home again due to this and while I've been able to see the positive sides of things, it would still be better...

Not Just for Seekers

One of the aspects of our ministry that is often missed when presenting what we do is the "Christian" side of things.  Though we do work very hard to lead people to discover Christ, we ALSO develop a large number of resources intended to help existing believers grow in their faith, share their faith with others and teach them to inspire others to share their faith.  In Power to Change lingo we refer to those...

Surgery Cancelled ... Due to Healing

On Wednesday June 16'th, I received a call I'd been anticipating for quite a while.  The call was from the specialist Dr's office, informing me that they had time to do my surgery if I could come on short notice. The background to all this is that back in March, after waiting for months to see him, the specialist informed me that I would need another corrective surgery in order to attempt once more to...

San Diego

As some of you may already know, we recently took a family trip with our parents (Loren and Becky) down to San Diego to visit supporters and relatives and reconnect with the friends at Mission Valley Community Chapel. This was our first time travelling any sort of long distance with the kids. We were not quite sure what to expect but as it turns out they travel VERY well.  Julia was an angel for most...

Atheist Disappointed in God

We have often talked about how there are so many people who come to our websites for help or with serious questions about life and faith, but hearing numbers just isn't as effective as hearing the actual stories of people we interact with. I received this note recently from our director and though it might be something you would be interested in hearing as well. Earlier today “AwesomeAtheist” came into our chat room and began...

Power to Change in French and Chinese

I thought I would post a quick update on what I've been working on lately for those who might be interested.  Be warned, there is some "geek talk" ahead. One of the cool projects that I have the opportunity to work on these days is the rebuilding of our French and Chinese sites as new Power to Change sites. This not only gets us out of the obsolete software we had previously been using, but...