Dan's Story
I was born and raised in Winnipeg and have called it home all of my life. I am the oldest of two children born to my mother and father, and I grew up with a younger sister. My parents seemingly did not believe in God, and if they did, it was never spoken about in our home. My mother was into the occult and practiced it with the use of Ouija boards, crystals, and tarot cards. As a youth, I remember experiences of demonic forces being present in our home. Rocking chairs would rock all by themselves, dark figures would be present in rooms, as well as a number of other encounters. For example, on many nights my father would be thrown out of bed as he slept. Things became so bad that in desperation my parents asked an aunt and uncle, who were Christians, to come and pray the demons away. The Lord did answer and removed them, but they eventually returned. These occurrences carried on until I eventually left home. We just sort of got used to it. But these experiences, if nothing else, did make me very aware of the real spiritual realm.
My father was an alcoholic and would spend most of his nights on his own drinking and listening to music. He wasn't physically abusive, but his alcoholism had him in a bondage that was severely damaging his marriage to my mother. Additionally, it was making it next to impossible for him to have any desire for spending time with my sister and I. When I think back about my father, it’s hard to find a memory that doesn't have him lifting a beer bottle to his mouth.
I went to public school and began hanging out with kids that liked to get into trouble. Because I really had no direction from my parents, other than to be home for dinner and back before dark, I basically did whatever I wanted. This led me to theft, breaking and entering, bullying, drinking alcohol, smoking, and a number of other things all before the age of 12.
When I was around 13, my parents separated. My father's alcohol addiction had become unbearable for my mother. The brokenness of their marriage had finally caused it to end, and my father moved away to be on his own. I remember this being very difficult for my mother. She now had to work very hard to support us. We remained in our home, but because of my father’s alcohol addiction, he quit working and offered very little financial support. My mother worked nights, so she would sleep through the day which made our home life very difficult. It was taking a toll on her physically, so much so, that it led her to be pretty sour to my sister and I.
My relationship with my mother eroded as time went on. Her work schedule, life responsibilities, and even my physical resemblance to my father drove her to resent me. I tried to do maintenance in the house, and even got a job to try and help out and have her to see that I was not my dad, but this did not help. I eventually just gave up and things went downhill from there. My use of alcohol and drugs began to increase around this point and I quit attending school. My mother’s work shifts eventually changed to evenings. My sister and I would throw wild house parties inviting our peers into our home. We made sure to have everyone out before midnight, which gave ourselves some spare time to clean up before mom arrived.
Eventually my mother met a guy and they began to get serious. He was ten years younger than she was and had no desire to be a fatherly figure to my sister and I. We were simply in the way of their new relationship and this was noticed quite early on. As time went by, I would use drugs and drink alcohol with him almost as though he was a buddy of mine. My mother even began buying me cigarettes when she learned that I was smoking.
The bottom eventually fell out one day when my mother and step-father caught my sister and I with alcohol and marijuana after a house party. We came home to our bags packed and my mother yelling to us that we were to get out and not return. I was 17 years old at the time and had no idea what I was going to do next. I stayed with a friend for a number of nights before reaching out to my father. After a few days I moved in with him and slept on the floor in the tiny bachelor apartment that he was living in.
At this point, my dad really stepped up to help me. He got me started in an apprenticeship program to become an industrial mechanic and helped me get my new life started. I felt a new sense of freedom and I really liked it. The only trouble was that my life was still ultimately pointed in a direction of brokenness. The next few years consisted of working and hanging out with friends. I was a guitarist with a desire to play music and so a few friends and I started a band and got pretty serious about it. We were working to be a part of the Winnipeg music scene and eventually started to play live in bars. This for us became a passion. It led us to some pretty dangerous hole-in-the-wall type places. Drugs and alcohol use were at an all-time high for me. Most of the people I was surrounded by were doing the same and so it just made sense.
Eventually I met my wife Erin and for the first little while we just hung out as friends. As we got closer, I began staying with friends in the basement of her house. We would stay up all night drinking and then sleep all day. We did this for many months and were really stuck in a vicious cycle of substance abuse. At this time, during my work apprenticeship, I was hurt and broke my foot. This gave me many months off with compensation money coming in, thereby allowing me to continue down this destructive path.
Erin and I began to get more serious and became a couple. We got an apartment together and did what seemed right. But because we had no direction or support from our families, our relationship struggled right from day one. My mission was to play music in a band and so my focus was on that most of the time and not on our relationship. I had no idea what a healthy relationship actually looked like, as all I had ever really known was brokenness and dysfunction. Erin's experience growing up was similar to mine and so it was very difficult for us.
For the next few years we just carried on in the same bad habits. Our relationship took some rocky spills that would lead us to eventually break up and call it quits. We were still partying and drinking heavily and my obsession with music and bands was at an all-time high. The bands continued to take my attention away from everything else and did so for the next decade. My friends and bandmates were just as broken as me and so we would encourage each other to keep walking this path as we just did what felt right.
Erin and I were on again and off again for the next few years and life sort of continued this way as we just lived to party with friends and to play music. Our friendships were toxic and our direction seemingly aimless. By the time we got to our mid-twenties, we decided to get married. At this point we had bought a house together and were trying to piece together a relationship. We had been together for so long and cared enough for one another that marriage seemed like the next step. So we began planning a wedding.
During this time, my dad began staying at the Union Gospel Mission and had enrolled in a program to help clean himself up and change his path in life. My dad and I had an interesting relationship. He helped me out when I left home, but he was more of a friend. He would come over and party with us and even attend my rock shows. He was always a friendly drunk and that is really the only way I ever knew him.
We didn't keep in touch often but my dad would phone me out of the blue on occasion to see how I was doing. This was always good because with these phone calls I knew he was still alive. But on one interesting evening he called to invite Erin and I to the Union Gospel Mission for dinner. He said this was something he wanted to do for us, and to let us know what had been happening the last few weeks in his life. It was out of the normal, but Erin and I went and he cooked us a meal. On this evening my dad told us that he had found Jesus and was being changed. I was a bit shocked but I was happy for him because I knew his lifestyle was killing him. He would still come by to some of our parties, but he would remain sober which was very odd to me at the time. It felt like I had to get to know a new person now that he was sober, but I was happy to see him on a new path.
My father was diagnosed with cancer a few months later. His alcohol and drug addiction had taken such a toll on his body that it couldn't take it anymore. He was told that he had three months to live when we found out he was dying. Our wedding plans were still underway and he was able to attend our ceremony although he was rapidly deteriorating. During this time he would tell us about Jesus when we were together.
We didn't acknowledge God in those days and decided to use a justice of the peace to marry us and have a wedding in a country club. Our wedding was just a big expensive party. Family and friends attended and witnessed the union but there was really no support for our marriage. I’m not sure that anyone of our family or friends knew what real marriage looked like either. But we were married.
A few months later my dad passed away. Some of his final words to Erin and I were "Stick with Jesus." My dad encouraged us to look for Him. I had no idea what this meant and I was so deep into my sinful life that I had no intention of doing this. However, Erin took this to heart more so than I. After our wedding we experienced brokenness in our relationship like never before. We had different ideas of what marriage meant and I was more interested in what I wanted than anything else. Our relationship was turmoil and we fought most nights. We were in a very bad place and even sought out counseling. This only helped for a short time as we were just not in the right head space to work it out.
This carried on for the next few years until we decided to have our first child. I’m not sure why we decided to do so. I suspect it just felt like the next step. It was what everyone else was doing and it seemed like this was just how life carried on. So, in our later twenties, our son Noah was born.
When Noah was born, I was deeply impacted by his arrival. I recognized that this little boy needed a mother and father and not a person hooked on drugs and alcohol. Something in me changed and I wanted to give him better than what I had growing up. The trouble was that I was not willing to give up my harmful lifestyle right away. With his arrival, we had friends and family come to visit and see him. One visit was from my aunt and uncle, the same Christian couple who prayed the demons out of our home when I was young. They brought Noah a children's Bible and encouraged us to raise him in the Lord.
Erin began reading the Bible and the Lord began speaking to her through His word. I was still playing music, partying, and living the same life I was before. My heart was slowly changing, however, because of the birth of my son but I was still trying to hold onto the past. As time went by, Erin began praying and seeking the Lord. The Lord began changing her desires and even the people who were in our lives. We began talking about attending church and it was something that even I felt was the right thing to do. We had no idea what this meant, but it felt like we could maybe find peace there and a new community. Little did we know that the Lord was at work in our lives.
We started going to a nearby church and began exploring what it meant to know this Jesus. We attended a few services there and enjoyed them, but it wasn't until we were invited to a friend's church that our journey really began. The first church that we really started to call home was The Meeting Place. The Lord really began to show himself to me there in a very real way. For the first time I began to understand and feel the Lord’s love in a deep way that shocked and blessed me to the core. I had never felt anything like it! I began reading His word, soaking in the truth, and feeling a fire within. This drove me to learn more. I wanted to know Him more and I was enjoying doing so.
The Lord was very present in my life now, showing Himself to me in ways that could not be denied. Prayers were being answered, our minds were being renewed, and our relationships were being changed. It was a lot to take in, but it was a real faith-building experience for both Erin and I.
Our second son, Owen, was born to us around this time and was now a part of our family. This made it even more important for us to get closer to the Lord as I wanted my boys to know Him and to have a different experience growing up than I did. And so did the Lord, who was breaking a family curse of alcoholism and brokenness.
A few years later I hurt my back at work quite badly. It was an injury that required surgery and had me off work for nearly two years. I was now receiving worker’s compensation which was less than what I was making fulltime. It was very stressful as this was our only income and now I had a young family that needed support. We cried out to the Lord and He was faithful to make sure that we had what we needed to get by. I remember ‘random’ worker’s compensation cheques arriving by mail for reasons that didn’t make any sense to me at the time. This support helped us to catch up when times would begin to get financially tough.
While I was off of work, I began tinkering with guitar amplifiers to keep myself busy. I was very bored sitting around with a broken back, but this was light duty and something I could do to keep my mind busy. Electronics and music were a passion of mine so this was a great fit. I began to study electronics and learned a lot. I eventually began building and designing my own amplifiers and had friends try them. One of my friends made the comment that I should sell them and get into business. At first I laughed it off, but later on I considered maybe just selling a few.
As I began building this new small business, I could see the Lord's hand in this as well. My path led me to places and people that were key elements in having this business actually come to fruition. It was a very interesting time and served as another faith-building experience to watch it come together. I eventually took on a business partner and left my other job to do this fulltime. I put my full trust in the Lord to support us and to bless the business, which He has.
Over the last ten years, Erin and I have begun to know the Lord more personally. He has done amazing work in us, and in our marriage, and has also blessed us with a daughter, Sophie. We have experienced healing and more life than we could have ever imagined. The Lord has changed our desires and stripped away the baggage that held us in bondage for so many years. He has crafted a new path for our three children to walk in so that they do not have to repeat the same experiences and mistakes of my youth. He has also blessed us with a new community of fellow believers at Faith Church which is the place we now call our home church.
