If reading my testimony has resonated in your heart and you want to know more about how one can enter into a personal relationship with God, this article which I've just uploaded to our Resources section can help show you the way. And for those of you trying to bring others into God's kingdom, feel free to use the article as a guide for explaining the gospel message to them. --Mitch

I've revised a few things in my personal testimony with some clarifications and additions. You can check it out here .

Times are difficult for the average person here in Canada. One indication of this Ingrid and I have noticed as we drive around is the number of cars we see that have a non-working headlight or brakelight. It seems people are trying to reduce their spending by not getting their cars serviced. This is not a good idea -- cars need to be maintained properly, and driving without working lights endangers both yourself and others. But with stubbornly high food inflation, rising housing and insurance costs, and wages not keeping pace, people are having to make hard choices about where they should allocate their money. Times are even harder for the poor in our society. While their are many kinds of poverty, and many reasons people may be poor, the ones the Lord has especially laid on our hearts are the poor elderly that live among us. For example, yesterday we did our weekly grocery shopping. Our first stop was Safeway, a chain of grocery stores here in Canada. As I walked around to get some items we needed, I quickly noticed some elderly people who looked like they were struggling to make ends meet. The old man who bought only a single litre of milk. The sad-looking elderly couple who slowly pushed their shopping cart through each and every aisle looking at items but not putting anything in their cart. I also noticed that the store had far more comfort food (chips, popcorn, candy, chocolate) on display than it had fresh fruit and vegetables in the produce section. That's another sign of how times are hard for people, prioritizing snacks that have low nutritional value (and high profit margins for the store) over healthy but expensive fresh foodstuffs. While the official rate of inflation here in Canada has now declined to just over 2 percent, the reality is that the cost of basic necessities (food, clothing, transportation and housing) for many people has risen by a huge amount over the last few years. This has impacted elderly people living on a fixed income, especially those who depend mostly upon the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) since those government payments have not increased nearly as much as the cost of living. It's an old story, isn't it, of governments and news media making misleading statements and promises about the real state of the economy. For example, our Prime Minister here in Canada during the 1970s, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was a popular and charismatic figure during a time of revolutionary idealism. But in a news clipping from the 1970 Christmas Eve edition of the Winnipeg Tribune newspaper, Prime Minister Trudeau was quoted as saying that "Inflation no longer exists in Canada" and was reported to have also said that "the fight against inflation has been won" and "the government's anti-inflation performance was unequalled in any country in the Western world."

A friend recently asked if I had any advice on how to equip members of his church to pray more effectively for the sick. I responded by sharing with him some materials I had developed for this purpose many years ago when Ingrid and I were Ministry Team Coordinators at a Vineyard church. We had used these materials to conduct a series of workshops for members of our church and for visitors from other churches. You can download a PDF of our Ministry Team Training materials from the new Resources page on our website, and if you find it useful feel free to share it with others. Cheers,  Mitch