Action4Canada - Christmas Service： A Story Of Hope

00:00:00.000 And now I'm broken, like I've got nothing, I've got nothing left to give, like what's any of it

00:00:06.480 worth anymore? And the Lord kind of whispered in my heart, and the Lord said, it's not

00:00:12.480 what you do for me that has your value, it's who you are in me. And I got to tell you,

00:00:20.720 that verse of scripture, Emmanuel, I realized the Lord was with me. And for the next two years began

00:00:30.840 the healing process, where every time I opened God's word, it was the Lord just ministering to me

00:00:37.300 and putting me back together and healing me. But it was also during that time that tragedy began

00:00:46.180 to strike in our home. You know, as I was starting to put this kind of life aside, I was still having

00:00:52.860 the bad dreams, the nightmares. I could literally feel in this one call, this young girl punching me

00:00:58.780 in the back, because I couldn't save her mother. You know, her mother was 51 years old. But then

00:01:04.580 tragedy began to strike in my own home.

00:01:16.180 Hello and welcome. We're so happy you can join us for this very special Christmas service. Tonight

00:01:24.340 is the final show of 2025. And we're so pleased that Pastor Dan Vachon is our featured guest,

00:01:31.280 and he'll be sharing a remarkable story with us. The title of tonight's show is A Story of Hope.

00:01:39.100 It's December 17th, 2025. And this is the Empower Hour.

00:01:43.980 We are so pleased to have Action for Canada's very own Pastor Dan Vachon sharing with us tonight.

00:01:51.740 Dan believes that the Christmas story is encompassed in the words of Jesus when he said in John 10,

00:01:58.280 verse 10, I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly.

00:02:04.960 Christmas is not just about the birth of Christ. It's about Jesus giving hope, peace, and joy in our

00:02:11.280 everyday life. Dan was a pastor in Ontario and Nova Scotia for over two decades, as well as a

00:02:18.000 missionary in former communist Romania, and in the Amazon jungles of Brazil. He also worked as a

00:02:24.520 paramedic in Nova Scotia for 30 years, where he was diagnosed with complex PTSD in January of 2020.

00:02:31.740 In May 2025, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and in July, underwent a full pancreatectomy,

00:02:42.560 having several internal organs removed. Through all these experiences, he attributes the presence

00:02:49.180 of Jesus in his life as the real meaning for his existence. The birth of Christ has never been a

00:02:56.620 one-day event for Dan. It has been a constant relationship with a Savior, Lord, and ever-present

00:03:03.000 friend in times of trouble and need. Tonight, Dan's testimony will give you the hope you need this

00:03:09.340 Christmas, pointing you not only to the true meaning of the season, but to the true meaning of life,

00:03:15.260 even in pain, suffering, and difficulty. And here's the good news. You can also have a life full of joy,

00:03:22.720 hope, and happiness when you discover the Christ child and his purpose for your life.

00:03:28.940 Will you all please help me welcome Pastor Dan to the Empower Hour. Hello, Dan.

00:03:34.500 Hi, Heather. Hi, Tanya.

00:03:36.680 Hi. Thank you, Heather, for that. And Dan, I'm just looking so forward to your service tonight

00:03:43.540 and to your testimony. And I know that it'll be a blessing to our viewers and to the Action for Canada

00:03:51.000 team who love you. You are our family, and you have been on quite a journey this year. And we know

00:03:57.280 that quite often we say, you know, what the enemy meant for harm, God will use it for good in his

00:04:02.120 glory. And we are praying that what you have been through in this last year, God will truly use your

00:04:08.780 testimony for his glory. And I know that that's very important to you as well. Amen. Well, I'm looking

00:04:15.680 forward to it. You know, it seems like just a few weeks ago, I was doing the Christmas program last

00:04:19.220 year. And the years kind of zipped by. Yeah. And yeah, so I'm going to share a little bit about

00:04:24.660 that. But I'm just blessed to be here. It was touch and go there for me a number of times this

00:04:30.920 year. But yeah, so I really want to encourage people this year, this Christmas, I feel people

00:04:36.960 have been under a lot of a lot of oppression this year, you know, the state of our country,

00:04:41.540 it's a beautiful country we live in. And I think people can still have hope in this day and age.

00:04:46.360 So thank you. By the way, my wife was gone for a while today. So I had to do my own hair

00:04:51.180 and makeup. Okay, you do. Your clothes match. You're doing okay, Dan. Good job. Okay. Yeah.

00:04:57.920 All right. Well, I'm going to hand that over to you then. And I look forward to your message. Thank

00:05:02.440 you. All right. Just before I go to a PowerPoint presentation, I didn't want to just sit here in

00:05:08.460 front of you folks tonight and talk, but I want to share a message to two groups of you tonight.

00:05:15.040 So the Christmas story, you know, we're all very familiar with it. It doesn't matter how old you

00:05:18.960 are. And first, the first group of you that I want to share the story of hope to are those of you that

00:05:28.040 would be born again believers, you're part of the body of Christ, and you're familiar with the

00:05:35.620 Christmas story. However, maybe you're at a point in your life where, you know, you have relegated the

00:05:42.540 story of Jesus. He's still kind of in a manger in your life where he hasn't had that impact in your

00:05:49.280 life on a day-to-day basis, maybe like he should. And what makes my story so special is that for most

00:05:59.420 of my life, you know, for 22 years or so as a pastor, missionary, as a giver that way, as I like

00:06:07.440 to say, as a lifesaver, you know, trying to save people's souls. And of course, it's not me that

00:06:12.380 does it, but it's the Lord, but through our ministry. And also as a paramedic for three

00:06:17.560 decades, you know, trying to save lives literally as giving that way. The thing with the Lord is he

00:06:27.140 has to be present in your life and he has to make a difference. And I'm going to share some verses of

00:06:32.180 scripture to show you that. So maybe you're here tonight and Christmas is coming, but you know,

00:06:38.160 it's just another one of those ho-hum Christmases. And the Lord of the Christmas, the Christ of

00:06:43.740 Christmas, you know, he's real and you know, you've committed your life to him, but he's not as real

00:06:50.760 to you as he should be. And tonight I want my story to change that for you. The second group of people

00:06:57.140 I want to talk to tonight are those of you that Christmas is more of the commercial part, you

00:07:02.660 know? Oh, you know, Jesus was born on Christmas and you know, he died on Easter, but that seems to be

00:07:09.380 your, the extent of your knowledge of Christ. You know, he, he was born and he died, but you don't

00:07:14.840 really know much more about that. And you don't really know what that means to you. And you don't

00:07:23.000 really maybe know why you're even here or why God even sent his son to be born. I want you to leave

00:07:31.000 here tonight knowing that you can have hope in this life and hope in the next life. All right. So the

00:07:37.720 scripture tells us, as Heather read earlier, Christ came to give us life. So in John 10, 10, the scripture

00:07:44.100 says the thief, which is the devil, our enemy comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And Jesus says,

00:07:53.800 I have come that they may have life and life to the full or life more abundantly. And tonight,

00:08:01.220 whether you are a child of God already, or maybe you're not, you may be looking at your life and

00:08:06.900 thinking my life is so ho-hum. Your life may be comprised of just going to work every day and you're

00:08:13.220 stuck in that cubicle or, you know, you're stuck in your family life or you're stuck in and out of

00:08:19.440 relationships. Maybe you're stuck in debt. Your life does not have that dimension, that 3D dimension.

00:08:26.840 You don't have that enthusiasm in life. Maybe what's going on in our country in Canada right now has got

00:08:33.160 you worried, or maybe the future has you worried. You know, what you're seeing on, um, on the internet

00:08:40.280 or in social media has you so, uh, concerned about the future, the future of your children and your,

00:08:47.140 your grandchildren. And, uh, you know, I have nine children and 12 grandchildren. So that's certainly

00:08:52.480 a concern for me. What about their future? Right. And, but Jesus says, I've planned that you may have

00:08:59.340 life and life to the full. And so maybe this is kind of what the whole, um, story of Christmas is

00:09:08.840 for you is just that baby in a manger. And that's all it means to you. But I want you to know that

00:09:15.660 Jesus is not still in a manger. He didn't just stay there. Jesus grew up. And for the first 30 years of

00:09:22.940 his life, he lived as a normal, uh, person, you know, with his mother and his father, uh, uh, you

00:09:29.920 know, we know he was a carpenter and, uh, but then he began his ministry after he was baptized by John

00:09:36.300 the Baptist. And, you know, his claims that he was the son of God were not just claims. As a matter of

00:09:42.420 fact, there were, there were hundreds of prophecies that were fulfilled. And the prophet Isaiah tells us

00:09:50.620 about Jesus, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Now this is very important. Listen to

00:09:56.500 this. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. Now the term

00:10:05.680 Emmanuel means God with us. Now I want you to let that sink in for a second. God, the creator of the

00:10:14.520 ends of the earth, the one who made the moon and the stars, the bugs, the trees, the changing of the

00:10:23.460 seasons, all of the sounds and the smells, God who made all those things came to be with us. He came

00:10:33.800 to walk with us. He came that we would know his heart, that we would hear his voice, that we would

00:10:40.920 understand his character and his personality. He came to be part of our lives. And that's what I

00:10:48.420 want you to walk away with tonight and give you hope. You're not just here taking up space on this

00:10:54.580 earth. You're here so that you can know him and he can know you. And so there's a group called for

00:11:02.100 King and Country that have a, has a beautiful rendition of that Christmas song, Emmanuel. And I,

00:11:07.760 as you listen to it, I want you to pay attention to the words before we move on, but let it minister

00:11:13.800 to you and just let it, the message of it sink in. So listen to this song, Emmanuel.

00:11:19.360 So Emmanuel has been part of my family since the very beginning of my life. Like most people,

00:11:41.600 I was born at a very young age. In 1966, I was born in the tiny little village, mining village

00:11:48.540 of Val d'Or up in Northern Quebec. And my father was a pastor, a missionary, and an evangelist.

00:11:57.100 And as you can tell by the writing on this little pamphlet of a ministry he used to do,

00:12:01.740 that's in French. So French is actually my mother tongue. And this is just one of the ministries that

00:12:07.980 he used to do. And you can see in the date in the bottom right corner there, that's in July 1967.

00:12:12.700 Now, a couple months later, in September 1967, my dad got really sick. And in December 1967,

00:12:23.180 my father passed away. As a matter of fact, tomorrow will be 58 years that my father passed away.

00:12:32.140 And so as I was putting this together, it kind of hit me, you know, I never really knew my father.

00:12:42.540 And that kind of hits hard sometimes, you know. That's my dad and I on the top left-hand corner,

00:12:52.460 just a few months before he passed away. And so my mother moved us to Montreal, where she can support

00:13:01.420 us. My mother, by the way, was six months pregnant when my dad died. And just the shock of it, she lost

00:13:07.180 the child she was carrying. And that's me in the middle there, just literally like during the week

00:13:14.620 of my dad's funeral. And my mother bought me my first race car. She loved me that much.

00:13:24.300 We lived in an apartment in Montreal. And I never really knew my dad. So I, you know, grew up in a

00:13:31.340 single family home. And everything I kind of taught myself as I grew up, I kind of had to teach myself

00:13:38.860 myself. But the whole time I was growing up, I heard my mother say to me that she was praying for

00:13:46.620 me to follow in my dad's footsteps. And I'd ask her, what does that mean? She'd say, I'm praying that you

00:13:52.220 will be a pastor like your dad. And I had no desire, no inkling whatsoever to do that.

00:14:01.420 That was the furthest thing from my heart. But growing up, I wanted to be a pilot. You know,

00:14:07.500 I wanted to fly jets. I always loved speed. I was a big NASCAR fan growing up. And what ended up

00:14:16.300 happening in my life was my loves were baseball and riding my bike. And I played baseball for 14 years.

00:14:28.140 As a matter of fact, I got so good at it, I had some scouts looking at me in Montreal,

00:14:34.060 I grew up six blocks away from the Olympic Stadium. But through a freak accident one year,

00:14:40.860 I was a pitcher and a pretty darn good pitcher at that too. I ended up breaking my right knee. And

00:14:47.980 that kind of ended my baseball career. I did play football in college, but then I broke the same knee

00:14:54.060 again. And so that kind of ended my my athletic career. But growing up, Montreal taught me a lot

00:15:01.340 of things. I became street smart. And then when I was 10 years old, in 1976, in the month of July,

00:15:09.820 Montreal hosted the Olympic Summer Games. And my home church hosted three weeks of special meetings.

00:15:19.020 And under the preaching of David Wilkerson, I realized as a 10 year old boy, I was a sinner.

00:15:26.620 Now you might think, how much of a sinner can you be as a 10 year old child? Well,

00:15:30.780 nobody had taught me to steal, or to lie, or to say unkind things, or to cheat. But when I heard

00:15:41.020 the preaching over a few consecutive nights, I realized that if I were to die that night,

00:15:47.580 my conscience told me that I was not going to go to heaven. I was a sinner, and I was separated from

00:15:53.260 Christ. And so I went up to the front, and I confessed my sins to the Lord, and I repented of

00:16:00.460 my sin. And it wasn't just me saying a prayer, I was genuinely sorry, I had tears of sorrow. And I asked

00:16:08.060 the Lord to forgive me of my sins, and to come into my heart. And I told him, I want you to be my Lord

00:16:13.420 and my Savior. And there was an instant change in my life, I had a desire to read God's Word and to get

00:16:18.860 close to Him. And then in November of that same year, in 1976, I was baptized in water. And that

00:16:30.780 scripture, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him

00:16:35.420 shall not perish but have eternal life, that became so real to me. And that's when Emmanuel, God with me,

00:16:42.780 became so real. I could tell you a story one time. It was shortly after that time that Mom and I

00:16:50.060 switched to a different church. We'd been going to a small French church, but there wasn't very many

00:16:57.340 young people there. So we went to the big Evangel Church in downtown Montreal, right across the road

00:17:02.860 from the Montreal Forum. I remember one time we had gone to McDonald's across the road for lunch after

00:17:09.100 church one day, and then we were crossing the road. The light turned green, and so I started to cross,

00:17:15.500 and this car came down Green Avenue. It was a black car, and I stepped right out. I was about four steps

00:17:21.100 into the road, and this hand just grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me back. And there was a clink,

00:17:28.140 clink, and the car just clipped me, and it hit the steel rivets on my jean jacket. And I turned around

00:17:37.020 to see who had grabbed me. There was nobody there. There was about seven people on the street corner,

00:17:42.220 including my mother, who had her mouth covered. She was trying to scream, but everybody was about

00:17:47.660 four steps behind me. There was nobody there. I feel it was the hand of an angel that had grabbed me

00:17:52.940 and kept me from walking right in front of that car. That car was probably going 70 kilometers an hour

00:17:57.980 by that time. It would have been game over for me. And I could tell you story after story of how God

00:18:04.460 with me, Emmanuel, had just really touched my life. And so there I was, continued on to school

00:18:13.500 and high school. And in the summer, sorry, in the spring of 1983, I went to fulfill my dream. And so

00:18:23.500 I enlisted in the Air Force. I passed the aptitude test, the physical, and there was three or four other

00:18:29.900 tests. And in May of 1987, I turned 17. And in June of 87, I graduated high school. And so I was ready to

00:18:40.940 go for basic training in Nova Scotia here in, or I forget the name of the place here. But anyway,

00:18:49.340 in September, but in the month of August 83, I found myself at teen camp, which would have been

00:18:54.380 the last time I was going to go. And Rich Wilkerson, David Wilkerson's cousin, was the speaker that year.

00:19:01.100 And on August the 3rd, 1983, Rich Wilkerson spoke from Acts 26, 14.

00:19:07.900 Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads. Now,

00:19:12.940 some of you would know the story. This is the conversion of Saul, who was a dedicated

00:19:19.020 follower of God, but an unbeliever in Christ. And it's the Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus.

00:19:28.140 And Saul said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am the Lord Jesus Christ, who you're

00:19:34.380 persecuting. Go into Damascus, and I'll tell you what to do. And Rich Wilkerson was saying to us

00:19:41.820 young people, now there was 800 young people at this camp, and I felt like he was just talking to me.

00:19:45.980 He said, some of you have your whole life planned out. You've had childhood dreams that you're

00:19:52.860 pursuing. Some of you have grown up in Christian homes. Some of you even have fathers who are

00:19:59.420 pastors. Now, even though my father had passed away and I didn't even know him, the influence of a

00:20:04.140 pastor in a pastor's home was always in my house. And I tell you, everybody that knew my dad as a pastor

00:20:12.220 were fathering me. My dad was well-known. He was well-loved, talented. He played 11 instruments.

00:20:21.820 I played one in the radio, if that counts. But people were looking after me. And that night,

00:20:28.700 I knew at the altar call, I had to go. And when I went, the Lord got a hold of my life. And let me tell

00:20:35.260 you, every desire to go to Shearwater, that's where it was, for basic training, completely left.

00:20:42.140 And I knew that God had put his call upon my life to go to Bible college.

00:20:46.700 And so I called my mother that night and I said, you'll never believe what happened. And she said,

00:20:50.460 yeah, God called you into the ministry. And I was like, wow. Yeah, that's what he did. And the Lord,

00:20:57.500 by the way, the Lord provided somebody to pay for my years of Bible college. And so long story short,

00:21:04.140 I ended up in Bible college. I had to wait a year because I had to be 18 to go and I was still 17.

00:21:09.980 But in the summers, my grandmother worked at Norton Telephone in Montreal. She offered me a job at $35

00:21:17.180 an hour back in 1984 to help pay for my Bible college. And I prayed and I said, Lord, I need to

00:21:23.420 work in ministry. And so that photo on the bottom left is me and my buddy, Eamon. We worked at a

00:21:29.180 place called Camp Curio, where I got to lead hundreds of children and young people to the

00:21:34.620 Lord. That's my faithful dog, Marina, an ex-police dog that I had for a number of years. And I ended up,

00:21:40.860 long story short, spending nine years in Bible college and seminary. And I ended up pastoring

00:21:47.980 in Ontario for a few years, in Nova Scotia for 20 some odd years. When communism fell in Romania,

00:21:55.900 I got to go and work planting churches and working in orphanages. I got to work in the jungles of the

00:22:03.260 Amazon in Brazil for three years. We got to raise some support there. But it was while I was pastoring

00:22:11.100 this very church in South Park Harbor, Nova Scotia one day in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful people

00:22:18.060 there. This was my hunter's paradise, okay? I used to wear my chest waders to walk down the river with

00:22:26.780 my shotgun to hunt ducks to go to this church. My office was, I used to hunt deer behind there.

00:22:33.100 But I was in my big bay window in the living room one day, one Sunday afternoon. And I said,

00:22:38.140 Lord, how can I reach this community more for you? And just as I was praying that,

00:22:42.460 this ambulance went by my window, lights and siren. This was in 1983. And I thought,

00:22:48.220 wow, I wonder what it takes to become an ambulance driver. And by the way, don't you ever call somebody

00:22:54.060 that works in the ambulance an ambulance driver? Those days are long gone, okay? But I called the local

00:22:59.660 person that ran the ambulance business at the time. And again, long story short, in Nova Scotia,

00:23:05.420 we had 54 different ambulance operators. They were consolidating it all into one. But Wayne Giffen

00:23:12.460 said, you know what, I'll hire you. I'll put you through the training. You'll be grandfathered in.

00:23:17.180 And I ended up getting my EMAs, emergency medical attendant, my EMTs. And in 1989,

00:23:26.620 where were we? 1989, I forget the year now. But anyway, three years later, I got my paramedic,

00:23:37.900 my full paramedics license. And so I ended up working 30 years as a paramedic in Nova Scotia.

00:23:44.620 Now, the average lifespan of a paramedic now these days is five years, and then they burn out.

00:23:50.620 But let me tell you, it was such a privilege to work in this province during that time. And I was

00:23:56.460 doing the two jobs at the same time. Now, the next church that I pastored was a smaller church,

00:24:03.820 you know, and so I got to work bivocationally. And at the same time, I specialized in pediatrics.

00:24:12.780 So I was a pediatrics advanced life support instructor. I got to work as an instructor at

00:24:19.500 the IWK in Halifax, which was the main tertiary hospital for pediatrics for Nova Scotia, New

00:24:26.300 Brunswick, and PEI. So I used to teach nurses, doctors, nurse practitioners, and other paramedics

00:24:33.260 how to take care of a pediatric patient. I was on the accreditation committee for a regional hospital.

00:24:39.340 I was one of the driving coaches to teach new paramedics how to drive. I mean, I was a fairly

00:24:44.620 busy person. So for 30 years, you know, I had a very interesting career. I spent three years as

00:24:51.020 an industrial medic in the oil fields in Alberta, worked with some tremendous people. But then

00:24:57.260 something began to happen. I began to see our workload go up and up and up. Our 12 hour shifts

00:25:04.380 quickly began to turn into 14 and 16 hour shifts. We weren't given breaks anymore because we were so

00:25:10.620 busy. And I began to see the burnout rate in my coworkers happen so quickly. Then a number of my

00:25:17.740 friends and coworkers began taking their lives. And for 21 years of my 30 year career, my beat was the

00:25:29.900 undivided TransCanada Highway where I worked. And I estimate that during that time, I responded to

00:25:38.300 anywhere between 25, 30, 2000 calls. And there were some shifts in the summertime where, you know, we

00:25:47.180 would do four head on collisions in one shift. And they weren't pretty. And by 2017, I was a mess.

00:25:58.620 It was hard to go to work. You know, I would show up at shift, and I would go into the stock room and

00:26:03.820 just curl up in a ball and start to cry and pray, Lord, please don't let the tones go off. I can't do

00:26:11.020 another call. I can't do it. But, you know, I was the senior medic on my platoon. And, you know, we were

00:26:19.260 called to so many of these calls. And it came to the point where, you know, we would be calling life

00:26:24.620 flight on on scene landings like so many times. And some of the life flight medics would be like,

00:26:30.300 like, I won't use the language on here, but they'd be like, yeah, like, we hate you on shift because,

00:26:36.700 like, you're like the magnet, you know. And it began to really take its toll on me.

00:26:42.860 And it came to a point where I knew that I was messed up. I was averaging one to one and a half

00:26:51.180 hours of sleep every 24 hours. And this went on two and a half years. It affected my marriage to the

00:26:57.580 point where my 30 year marriage came to an end. And physically, I had, I can't tell you how many

00:27:05.500 ailments I had. I had IBS and high blood pressure and two or three other things that I had to be

00:27:10.860 medicated for. But I came to a point where everything came to a head. But I got to tell you,

00:27:17.740 this is my hope for you. Your story may be different. But this same God, Emmanuel, who came,

00:27:25.580 was with me the whole time. Because when those suicidal thoughts came through my mind,

00:27:30.780 when the doctors were trying to push medication on me, I sat down and I cried out to the Lord.

00:27:37.340 And I said, Lord, where are you? And that's all it would take. The presence of God would completely

00:27:43.660 surround me. And I could feel the arms of the Lord around me. And he will do the same for you today.

00:27:50.860 Okay. So whether you're a believer or not today, Jesus is not still in a manger. And this Christmas

00:27:58.540 season could be a turning point in your life. You may say, I've just got an office job. I work in a

00:28:04.300 cubicle. But I know the pressure you may face. You may say, you know, I've got a small family. I

00:28:10.460 don't have nine kids like you do. But I can't even afford to buy them gifts this year. Hey, I know

00:28:15.420 there's no pressure. But you know what, the same Jesus that came, he could be the best present of

00:28:21.660 all that you can have this year. There's another song we're going to pray. And it's called Shoulders.

00:28:28.220 And that same Jesus that came, that God says, I'm sending you the Savior. He will carry you on his

00:28:35.820 shoulders. And that's exactly what the Lord did at the time and at the moment that I thought was my

00:28:41.580 lowest. It turns out that wasn't my lowest time. And we're getting to that part of my story.

00:28:47.620 But I want you to listen to the song and let it minister to you, because sometimes you need to be

00:28:53.980 carried on the shoulders of another one. And if that's you tonight, let this be the beginning of

00:28:59.280 you being carried. As you listen to this song, Shoulders.

00:29:12.980 Came to a point where I thought the one of the worst things that can happen is when you get sidelined,

00:29:18.340 you know, in ministry, when your marriage ends, when you have a fairly successful career, but then

00:29:26.060 you just can't handle it anymore in your head. And you, you know, you can't sleep anymore. And your

00:29:32.420 whole physical body breaks down because of it. Especially when one of your favorite life verses

00:29:40.360 is, first that's the one in 411 to 12, that says, make it your life ambition to lead a quiet life,

00:29:46.240 to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily

00:29:52.300 life may win the respect of outsiders. And so that you will not be depend, dependent on anybody.

00:29:59.360 Now, you have to understand a couple things about me as well. Even though

00:30:04.840 things had been very busy in my life in ministry, in as a paramedic, I had other interests growing up in

00:30:15.340 the city of Montreal. I believe it or not, I detested the city. I was more of a country boy.

00:30:23.140 And I didn't know anything about the country. I didn't know much about building construction or

00:30:27.900 anything. But now that I had a large family, I thought I got to keep these children busy.

00:30:33.280 And I thought I have a lot of children. And if they want to eat, they got to work and they got to

00:30:38.140 learn things and they got to learn skills. And so I ended up having six boys and three girls.

00:30:43.360 So I have a girl at the beginning and two girls at the end, my weekends, six boys in the middle.

00:30:49.860 And so through the course of my lifetime, we had three farms. We had a 36 acre farm,

00:30:55.800 a 56 acre farm, a 200 acre farm. But we also did tons of fun things together. You know,

00:31:02.660 when I had time off, we took the time off. We did a lot of kayaking, boating, traveling.

00:31:08.360 You know, I've always said to people, when I die, I'm going to move to Cape Breton Island.

00:31:15.520 And so that's where I live now. Most of these photos are part of our 200 acre farm that we had

00:31:21.620 in Nova Scotia. There I am at Bob Middle picking wild blueberries on our farm. We even had, you know,

00:31:29.560 cows in our house. But we did a lot of hunting, a lot of fishing. We grew our own fruits and

00:31:37.700 vegetables. That particular farm, we had an old house that was built in 1880, the barn in 1881.

00:31:44.260 But the old house, you know, it needed a foundation, but I didn't like right where it sat. So we picked

00:31:49.420 up the house. We put a new road in and we about a quarter kilometer, half a kilometer into the woods

00:31:55.740 and we moved the house. So I taught children how to do wiring and plumbing and roofing

00:32:01.540 and drywall. And by the way, I absolutely hate drywalling. I'll never do it again if I don't

00:32:09.300 have to. But we resettled the house there and lived there for a number of years. And it dawned on me,

00:32:16.740 you know, every once in a while, I get these things on my phone, you know, that like this time 10 years

00:32:21.660 ago, 15 years ago, this little girl, Hannah, she's number eight in the lineup. You know, this is when

00:32:27.700 she was small. This is just like a few years ago to now, you know, her going through high school and

00:32:34.420 university and just on the far left there, that's her getting married just a few months ago. Bottom 0.98

00:32:42.140 right earned her husband being commissioned out of their church in Moncton, New Brunswick to being

00:32:48.120 involved in ministry here. So they actually live in our basement until I think Friday because they

00:32:54.220 just bought a house. And I think they'll be moving out this coming Friday. So that's how quick

00:32:58.800 children move. And we've always taken pride in our children and in the activities that they've taken

00:33:05.240 part in. All of my children are preppers. If doomsday were to happen tomorrow, they can go out and forage

00:33:12.780 and can and hunt and fish. Most of my boys were always involved in cadets. I've had three, four of

00:33:23.080 my children serve in the military. I've got three of my grandchildren now serving in cadets. And, you

00:33:30.020 know, Caleb there, bottom right, we've always had our own smokehouse and that. So even my youngest

00:33:37.380 daughter there, Sarah Faith, the two on the on the far left, you know, anytime we did some work,

00:33:43.900 the chores or building or whatever, the children have always been very, very busy doing things with

00:33:49.660 us. When I was raising support to do my missions work in Brazil, for a year, we traveled around in

00:33:56.820 Florida, raising our support. We lived in Florida for two years, North Carolina for a year. We bought

00:34:02.220 an old MCI bus and that's it there. We it came with all the seats in it and everything. We gutted it

00:34:07.800 and we transformed it into a livable home. It's slept eight comfortably. It had two full bathrooms.

00:34:16.160 And so that's what we did. Another fun project, you know, and we ended up bringing the thing home and

00:34:20.940 some guy bought it so he can rent it out as a novelty novelty thing. Then when we settled back into

00:34:28.280 Canada in 2010, 2010, 2011, in the village that we lived in, where I had a farm working as a paramedic,

00:34:38.500 an old store came up for sale. So I bought it. It was an industrial farm feed store. And by the way,

00:34:47.040 look at all the ivermectin I had there. We had gallons and gallons of it there. Right. And so we had

00:34:53.580 about an 8,000 square foot warehouse in the back. We ended up, and this is my dream, by the way,

00:35:03.980 you know, having had farms in the past. So we had our own store. We ended up putting in an outfitters

00:35:09.980 and gun shop. We, you know, we, we sold more guns than Canadian Tire did. We ended up putting an indoor

00:35:15.720 archery range. We had a bakery in there. People in the community used to call me the mayor. But,

00:35:23.000 you know, this is about the time where everything started to kind of crumble in life, you know, and I,

00:35:28.240 I came to a crossroads and, and I realized, wow, things in my life are really, really a mess. But the

00:35:36.160 one thing that really wasn't a mess was my God, my relationship with the Lord. And I remember sitting

00:35:41.680 in my dad's old recliner chair. That's the only thing I have left of my dad now is that old recliner.

00:35:47.180 And my little kitten was sitting beside me and I had my Bible on my lap. And I said, Lord, you know,

00:35:51.840 I've got nine years of Bible college and seminary training. I've got like years and years and years

00:35:59.280 of like trauma training. And, and, you know, I used to work in the, in, in the trauma department

00:36:05.080 in our hospital with, with some of the best trauma people. And like, I, and now I'm broken. Like I,

00:36:12.300 I've got nothing, I've got nothing left to give. Like what's any of it worth anymore?

00:36:18.260 And the Lord kind of whispered in my heart and the Lord said, it's not what you do for me

00:36:25.180 that has your value. It's who you are in me. And I got to tell you

00:36:31.380 that verse of scripture, Emmanuel, I realized the Lord was with me. And for the next two years began

00:36:41.440 the healing process where every time I opened God's word, it was the Lord just ministering to me

00:36:47.940 and putting me back together and healing me. But it was also during that time that tragedy began

00:36:56.780 to strike in our home. You know, as I was starting to put this kind of life aside,

00:37:02.360 I was still having the bad dreams, the nightmares. I could literally feel in this one call,

00:37:07.900 this young girl punching me in the back because I couldn't save her mother. You know,

00:37:12.720 her mother was 51 years old, but then tragedy began to strike in my own home.

00:37:18.340 My son, Samuel, from the time he was just young, he used to sit on the toilet middle of the night,

00:37:22.800 complaining, rocking back and forth. My tummy hurts. My tummy hurts. My tummy hurts.

00:37:29.000 Now, one thing I got to tell you about myself, when I was 24 years old, I began having extreme

00:37:34.240 pain in my chest. And I would be taken to the hospital and they discovered it was pancreatitis,

00:37:40.500 acute pancreatitis. And I asked the doctor, so what in the world is that? This is before I was

00:37:45.740 a paramedic. And they said, well, technically it's an alcoholic's disease. And you know, it's

00:37:50.440 your pancreas is inflamed and it's backing up. And the pancreas juices are digesting your pancreas.

00:37:56.340 And let me tell you, it is very painful. Now I have a very high pain threshold, but it kept getting

00:38:01.480 worse and worse and worse and worse. So for the next six and a half years, I had 36 pancreatitis

00:38:06.340 attacks. I was hospitalized for 24 of them. I had a couple of procedures to kind of fix it.

00:38:12.620 But the specialists told me by the time I would be 35, I would either be a diabetic or have pancreatic

00:38:20.540 cancer or both. Well, 35 came and went and I was still around and I didn't think much of it

00:38:27.120 until Samuel started to have pancreatitis, pancreatic pain. And then my daughter, Sherea,

00:38:34.620 that's her in the middle and bottom right. And then my son, Kenan, my youngest son, Kenan,

00:38:40.320 and then my granddaughter, that's her at the top right. And then my youngest granddaughter.

00:38:45.720 So as it turns out, my son, Samuel had a full pancreatectomy. So they took out his pancreas,

00:38:51.140 his spleen, his duodenum, his eugenium, part of his small intestine, part of his

00:38:56.640 small intestine, part of his bowel, and part of his large intestine. And I think one other part.

00:39:08.360 Then they did the same thing with my daughter, Sherea. Then they did the same thing with Kenan.

00:39:12.700 And then they did the same thing with my granddaughter, Tears Up. Now I'm sparing you

00:39:17.520 all of the gory parts because I have photos of their pancreas and all their parts and all their 1.00

00:39:22.380 scars and all their surgeries and all that. Okay. Then it began to hit home. So we took some genetic

00:39:29.140 testings and it turns out we have a PRSS1 gene mutation in our family. So in October 2024, I began

00:39:39.120 to be sick. I was at my son's place on a hunting trip. It was a very successful hunting trip, but boy,

00:39:44.720 was I sick. I came home. I spent 10 days in the hospital. Then in January, I went back to,

00:39:52.040 I was not feeling well. I had some blood work done. My doctor called me the very next day, said, Dan,

00:39:57.980 get in your car right now, drive right to the regional hospital. They have a bed waiting for you.

00:40:03.720 You are to see the surgeon immediately. I ended up spending

00:40:07.480 10 weeks in the hospital. I had so many tubes shoved down my throat. I ended up getting my gallbladder

00:40:20.340 out. I almost died. I spent five days in ICU. I ended up having, I would keep you here all night

00:40:30.940 to let you know all the procedures I had done. I had a procedure I had to have done in Halifax.

00:40:36.300 They sent me back to the hospital here in Cape Breton for a few days. They sent me home on a Sunday.

00:40:43.680 Two and a half hours later, I came home and I basically died on my bathroom floor. I came to,

00:40:52.080 my wife said there was so much blood on the floor. The poor paramedics showed up and they wanted to know

00:40:58.640 if that was all my insides that had come out. The one paramedic knew me. He didn't recognize me at

00:41:04.760 first, but he saw the photo of Melanie and I on my bedside table. He's like, holy cow, that's Dan.

00:41:09.860 He's like, he's one of ours. They stepped it right up. It turns out I needed eight units of blood,

00:41:16.380 two units of plasma, two units of platelets. Back in the OR, they found the bleed. I had come to the

00:41:22.420 ambulance dispatch coaching my wife how to do CPR on me. She took pictures of that and I'll spare you those

00:41:27.800 as well. I came home towards the beginning of April. I had gone from 192 pounds to 145 pounds.

00:41:37.400 I was home for about six weeks. I started feeling better. I got sick again. I went back into the

00:41:44.100 hospital. They kept me for the weekend, but this time the prognosis was really, really bad. They said,

00:41:51.480 you have some tumors in your pancreas and it's pancreatic cancer. And they said, but this time,

00:41:58.080 prognosis is not good. There's a surgeon in Halifax that got a hold of it. And he said,

00:42:03.140 we need to get you into surgery. Like right now, we may be able to save your life. And I said, well,

00:42:09.060 here's the problem. I said, my daughter is walking down. I'm walking my daughter down the aisle in

00:42:14.560 Brunswick in about four weeks, three weeks, and I have to walk her down the aisle. And so they held

00:42:21.040 off as long as it could. And here I am walking my daughter. Well, you don't see me walking down the

00:42:27.920 aisle, but here I am. We walked her down that path and my daughter is happily married. And here I am

00:42:34.060 taking the first dance with my daughter. And let me tell you, I prayed for that. My next prayer was

00:42:40.180 like, Lord, I would like to make it to Christmas. They did do the surgery. And I don't know why I

00:42:47.880 threw this in here, but this is where God has me living now, by the way. If any of you have ever

00:42:51.420 been to Cape Breton, this is part of my healing journey. One of the most beautiful places on the

00:42:57.300 earth. Cape Breton is one of the top, it's the third top most beautiful islands in the world,

00:43:04.160 by the way. And this is where I'm talking to you from right now. But that verse of scripture that I

00:43:08.380 read to you earlier, make it your life's ambition to lead a quiet life. I have always been busy with

00:43:14.260 my hands. I have to be busy. I have to keep my head and my hands busy. And during that

00:43:21.140 small remission time, when I felt good, I was able to do my firewood, build my sawmill shed

00:43:27.000 because it was down by the river. And you know what? I felt good, but I knew things were not going

00:43:32.480 to go so well. And so here I am. The surgeon said, your surgery is going to be 50, 50. You may or may

00:43:39.360 not pull out of it. And I think the surgery was about six and a half, seven hours. Sorry for the

00:43:45.400 boar. But I showed this to Kim McBride, that photo on the left. And I said, look, Kim,

00:43:53.280 the staples are going kind of crooked. They couldn't even do a straight line. And she says,

00:43:58.500 geez, Dan, like they had one job. So my zipper goes a little crooked now. But they transferred me

00:44:06.320 from the QE2 Health Sciences Center after four days, where I had been seeing rats go all over the floor

00:44:13.420 and a nurse walk in one side of my bed to the other. My wife took pictures. She's like, Dan,

00:44:19.580 there are no doors. And so the drugs they had me on were pretty darn good, though I was seeing things

00:44:25.800 that weren't there. The paramedic that took me from one hospital to the other, a life flight medic,

00:44:32.300 he's like, in my 27 years, Danny says, I've never transferred a patient with so many IV pumps. I had

00:44:39.820 12 IV pumps running. And it's really, truly a miracle that I have survived. Now, the survival

00:44:46.160 rate of the cancer that I have is of one year is 20%. And I'm on month number five. I am in chronic

00:44:54.520 pain right now. And I became a diabetic moment they took out my pancreas and a bunch of other parts.

00:45:01.840 And again, I've got pictures of those parts, but I'm sparing you. But it's truly a miracle that I'm

00:45:06.220 still here today. And it's by the grace of God. Every morning, I spend an hour to an hour and a

00:45:11.360 half with the Lord. My wife and I spend time in the Word. This Jesus that was born at Christmas time

00:45:16.620 is not just a baby in a cradle. And I got to tell you, you've got to have hope. There's a reason why

00:45:23.640 I'm here. There's a reason why you're here. There's a reason why Jesus Christ came at Christmas time.

00:45:29.160 And it's to give you hope. And I don't care who's prime minister of Canada. I don't care what they

00:45:35.880 say they're going to do. My God sits on the throne of heaven, the maker of heaven and earth. And he's

00:45:42.200 in charge. He's in charge of Canada. He's in charge of you and me. He's in charge of this world. He's in

00:45:51.040 charge of eternity. And your situation may be dire tonight. It may or may not compare to me. And there

00:45:57.620 are people whose situations are 10 times worse than me. I want to tell you, I have no fear, none

00:46:03.680 whatsoever. And I struggle sometimes. I'm like, Lord, I wish I could go to heaven and leave all this

00:46:11.160 behind. But I got a dear wife that I love to bits that needs me. I have my son Samuel that's living with

00:46:18.940 us now. My daughter Hannah and her husband Andrew have been living with us for three months until they

00:46:24.860 get their home. They depend on us. So that's why I'm here. And I'm going to skip through this really

00:46:30.620 quick. The last few years have been horrendous. And the fight that is in me has not slowed. It has

00:46:38.220 slowed somewhat. Because when I'm in pain, I got to sit on a certain place on the couch with a heating

00:46:43.860 pad wrapped around me and I've got my pain meds. But this is the fight we've been involved in. And the

00:46:49.840 ministry that I no longer have, I have a new one. And I discovered Action for Canada a number of years

00:46:55.520 ago or Action for Canada discovered me. And we would go to these rallies and I would be speaking

00:47:02.380 in Halifax. And lo and behold, like a thousand people would show up or two thousand or three thousand.

00:47:09.200 I would go to speak in in Moncton, New Brunswick, and two thousand people would show up or three thousand

00:47:15.860 people would show up. And we have this incredible new family that we would meet. We started doing

00:47:21.600 these prayer walk for revivals for five weeks every spring from Passover to Pentecost. And the people

00:47:30.240 that would come and pray their hearts out over our schools, our elected officials, our elected

00:47:36.780 officials in our buildings, the people that God has placed into our hearts. On the bottom left-hand

00:47:43.860 corner, I can't say enough of these people. Pastor Bruce and Tom and Bev will lead our Wednesday and

00:47:50.140 our Friday prayer meetings. We have an incredible prayer team with Action for Canada. You know,

00:47:56.220 we've met Max Bernier a couple of times. He's come to our church. That fellow with right in the middle

00:48:01.840 there, me and my younger prime days, Dave Mills, you know, a mentor in my life. You know,

00:48:08.040 Rain Roslin, McDonald, they're here from, they're from here in Cape Breton, right here in Sydney. But,

00:48:14.980 you know, they've got a ministry in Israel, Lekit. And, you know, Heather, a friend of mine from Bible

00:48:22.980 College, you know, was involved with Action for Canada. I mean, incredible people. And I can't be

00:48:30.120 remiss to tell you how important and how incredible God is. Every time there's going to be a storm here in

00:48:36.660 Cape Breton or the tail end of a hurricane or something, we pray Psalm 91 over a property.

00:48:41.820 Now, two years ago, we had Hurricane Fiona. We live on a dirt road and all of our neighbors,

00:48:48.060 their properties were a mess. Uprooted trees, shingles off the roof, power off. I have a prayer

00:48:54.740 bench that overlooks the river. We live on a river here. It's a beautiful spot to pray. My little prayer

00:49:00.180 table was overturned. The top of a birch tree fell on my prayer bench and broke one side of the armrest.

00:49:08.980 This is not a staged photo. This is exactly how I found it the next morning. This is my prayer bench

00:49:16.580 where I pray for my children to come to know the Lord and to get right with the Lord. This is where I

00:49:22.240 pray for protection. And this is how it fell in the shape of a cross on my prayer bench. To me,

00:49:29.440 this was like the enemy rattling things, but the Lord reminding me, I've got you. The Lord has a

00:49:36.460 plan and a purpose for your life. I want you to know that there is hope in this season. And that

00:49:43.300 hope is found in Jesus Christ. And you can know him. God has surrounded me with an incredible family.

00:49:50.360 Here I am spending time with my boss, Tanya, and my coworkers, Kim, and her husband,

00:49:56.820 Renee came up to visit my lovely wife, Melanie. She is my rock. And she has been so great with me

00:50:02.540 through this, this time of illness and sickness, you know, and she's already lost the husband to

00:50:07.980 cancer and a son to cancer. So this is difficult for her too. So I appreciate the prayer team and

00:50:14.320 everyone covering her in prayer because this is hard on her too. But I just want to thank the Lord that

00:50:19.920 this journey of mine is not over. And, you know, I may have a day left. I may have a year left. I may

00:50:26.280 have 10 years left. I don't know. But it doesn't matter. Every day is a gift. And for 30 years as a

00:50:33.180 paramedic, I've watched people put on clean socks and underwear in the morning, perfectly healthy, and

00:50:38.760 not get 20 minutes into their journey. And that was the end of their life. Nothing is guaranteed.

00:50:44.520 But, you know, when you're a child of God, you know, Jesus Christ, that baby in a manger who came

00:50:51.080 to be your savior. That's all you need to know because he offers eternal life. For God did not

00:50:58.660 send his son into the world to condemn the world, it says in John 3, 17, but that the world through him

00:51:04.080 should be saved. And so as I wrap this up here, I want you to know God gave me a great posterity.

00:51:10.740 And this is another reason why I'm here. This is another reason why I have hope. On the bottom

00:51:16.180 right, that's, I think, seven of my nine children. And I think it's eight of my 12 grandchildren.

00:51:24.880 And on the top left, my little brother standing next to me there. He lives in Austin, Texas with his

00:51:29.820 wife and some of his children there. But and again, that's only some of our family. That's not all of

00:51:36.540 that's my mom that prayed for me to follow in my dad's footsteps. And I still have a ministry

00:51:41.900 with Action for Canada. I'm proud to say I'm the national Action for Canada pastor, church coordinator,

00:51:48.700 and it gives me great pleasure to lead as I can and just to be an encouragement to to our folks.

00:51:54.980 And just as we wrap up, you know, people say, oh, you know, at Action for Canada, you preach the

00:51:59.700 Lord and that you believe in Santa. Well, there's me as Santa a number of years ago. My daughter's

00:52:04.620 Hannah and Sarah Faith. Believe it or not, they walked into the room I was in. They didn't even

00:52:08.760 recognize me. That's how good of an actor I can be. And that's my little pup over there

00:52:13.400 encouraging me through this cancer journey. But let me tell you, I got to tell you, the Lord loves

00:52:18.980 you so much. You can have hope this Christmas. And I want you to know that someday when this life is

00:52:25.660 over, we will stand before God. I want him to stand you to stand before him as your Savior and as

00:52:31.580 your Lord, not as your judge. Will you make this Christmas special? I want to close in a quick

00:52:37.620 prayer, and then we're going to have one last song together. Heavenly Father, this world may seem so

00:52:44.120 hopeless, but these people that are either watching this live, Lord, or will watch the recording,

00:52:50.960 they may feel so hopeless. They may be broke. They may feel broke. They may feel our economy is broke.

00:52:55.800 They may feel Canada is broke. It really doesn't matter who is in Parliament in Ottawa. It makes

00:53:03.000 no difference. None of them are there, and you're not worried about it. You're not saying, oh no,

00:53:08.940 I can't believe so-and-so got voted in, or so-and-so crossed the floor to the liberals. That's nothing to

00:53:14.760 you, Lord. You raise people into power, and you depose them. And Lord, we just got to trust you.

00:53:21.360 We just got to trust you, Lord, this time of year. And so, Father, I pray for those that are seeking

00:53:27.420 hope this year. May they find you. And Lord, for those believers that have maybe left their first

00:53:34.320 love, or maybe that don't take you to school, that don't take you to their cubicle, that don't involve

00:53:40.380 you in their family affairs. Father, may they find you again. May they find you and bring you back into

00:53:46.740 their life. And Lord, if there's anybody on this show right now, and they say, well, I've never had

00:53:51.680 a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I've never thought of Jesus more than Jesus in the

00:53:57.480 manger, or Jesus dying at Easter. May they come to know you. And if that's you tonight, and you'd like

00:54:04.860 to know Jesus Christ, the Bible says if you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus

00:54:11.560 Christ is the Son of God, you shall be saved. So I invite you to just simply pray and invite Jesus

00:54:18.100 Christ into your heart to be your Lord and Savior in your own words. And the Bible says, you shall be

00:54:24.560 saved. So as we conclude this part, I invite you to listen to the message of this wonderful song,

00:54:32.920 Mary, Did You Know? And then we'll turn it over to Tanya. Thank you.

00:54:41.560 Wow. Dan, you know, I've been sitting here watching the chat and the love for you. I thank you

00:54:57.700 for providing a full story of your life. I appreciate seeing from your childhood. And you are just really

00:55:07.000 at this time of year a living testimony that just because we hand our lives over to the Lord and

00:55:13.420 we make that decision one day does not mean that our lives are going to be easy. But compared to

00:55:21.060 unbelievers, we know where we're going, we have faith in Christ, and we see our trials differently.

00:55:28.740 And that helps us to get through them in a different way. I'm not going to say easier,

00:55:33.460 because I've watched you in the last year. And I know it hasn't been easy for you. I know that our

00:55:39.640 team.

00:55:47.940 Sorry.

00:55:50.480 You are, you are family. And I just think about the years ago when when you came into our lives many

00:55:57.100 years ago now. And at a sense, you know, we all know now that you are a paramedic. And,

00:56:04.060 you know, where was your ministry going to go? And I remember being you being excited that you could

00:56:09.260 stand up before the crowd and start to tell people about Jesus again. And that's why I've said about

00:56:16.740 Action for Canada. Action for Canada is indeed God breathed. He's created this organization.

00:56:21.900 He's given us this platform. And I couldn't imagine a more important time in the history of Canada

00:56:29.980 for us to be telling people about Jesus. Because of how dark this world has become,

00:56:37.080 and that our only hope is in Him and eternal life. That's where the priority comes. And so I'm very,

00:56:44.780 very grateful that you gave your testimony of what you've been through in the last year as well.

00:56:49.680 And we, as your Action for Canada family, have loved and adored you. And I know that in your

00:56:56.300 heart, I just want our viewers to know that in your heart, always, every time, whether he was in

00:57:01.220 at the hospital or just finishing up with surgery, there's more to his story about, you know,

00:57:08.020 Dan's life being made a priority to save over somebody else's and what that effect that had on Dan.

00:57:14.580 And that it was always a matter of how could he use what he was going through in his trials

00:57:20.280 to minister to somebody else. And again, you've done that again tonight, Dan. And I've always said

00:57:27.960 you wore many hats. I would say you're Pastor Dan and Prepper Dan and Action for Canada Chapter

00:57:34.440 Leader Dan and Provincial Leader Dan. You're a missionary and a mayor, apparently.

00:57:38.980 And so many different things. So I just couldn't imagine a better way for Action for Canada to

00:57:46.960 finish off our year and to have a Christmas service celebration than you giving your testimony.

00:57:53.440 And I truly believe that it is going to give people hope and that whatever heaviness that

00:58:00.140 they are making their way through right now, I believe they will know there's another side to it.

00:58:06.540 And that, as always, we've welcomed people to reach out to either pastors at actionforcanada.ca

00:58:13.580 or call to at actionforcanada.ca or reach out to our chapter leaders in your community.

00:58:20.880 And that's why the government wants to divide us because we're strongest when we have community

00:58:24.680 because we sometimes need the help of support and family and friends to get through the trials

00:58:30.060 such as Dan has been in this last year. So thank you, Dan, from the bottom of my heart.

00:58:34.680 You're welcome. And just let me say, if you're going through a hard time, don't get angry with God.

00:58:40.460 That's not the answer. I don't regret one second of any thing I've gone through, even the pain in that.

00:58:47.920 It has drawn me closer to the Lord. It really has. And you have to go through it to understand what I'm saying.

00:58:54.440 But getting angry at the Lord for the circumstances and for what you're going through is not the answer.

00:59:01.500 And I know people say, well, how could a good God allow that to happen?

00:59:04.980 We live in a sin fall in the world.

00:59:06.560 And I have seen so many people die in front of me.

00:59:14.180 I've seen the light go in their eyes and I've seen them enter eternity.

00:59:18.180 And I have felt my own self die, you know, to know that the one sure thing about life is death.

00:59:28.480 And it's inevitable. But to face life, the difficulties in that with God on your side, it makes all the difference in the world.

00:59:38.780 So let him into your life, let him into your heart and allow him to make that difference.

00:59:44.940 You'll never regret it.

00:59:47.040 Amen. Yeah. Thank you for that, Dan.

00:59:49.140 I've mentioned that I've been through, you know, trials within my own life as well.

00:59:53.200 And I've got to say, there's sometimes I got angry.

00:59:56.220 What are you doing? You know, and that sort of thing.

00:59:59.240 And I know that God understands that.

01:00:02.020 And but that's where we need that community continuing to encourage us, just like Dan has just done now, that you can and will make it through this and that you will find on the other side, you're a better person.

01:00:13.860 You're a better, stronger person.

01:00:15.660 At least that's what I look back.

01:00:17.060 And I'm actually thankful for my trials now because of what I'm able to accomplish today.

01:00:21.860 And look at what you're accomplishing, Dan.

01:00:23.800 You have been called to Action for Canada and within your community.

01:00:27.660 And you continue, no matter what, to minister to people and to serve them.

01:00:32.580 And I just, yeah, again, thank you for joining us tonight and for giving this amazing testimony and service.

01:00:39.800 God bless you.

01:00:40.500 My pleasure.

01:00:41.020 Yeah.

01:00:41.420 And it's a pleasure working with you, Tanya.

01:00:43.520 Likewise.

01:00:45.000 All right.

01:00:45.700 Well, everybody, I just want to remind you that Action for Canada has taken a break, a much needed break over the Christmas holiday for a couple of weeks.

01:00:54.400 And we will launch the Empower Hour, as it says here, on January 14th in 2026.

01:01:00.860 And I want you to know that we are prepared and we're going to hit the ground running in 2026.

01:01:05.920 I just want to encourage you to join Action for Canada.

01:01:09.080 If you haven't already signed up, do the call to action campaigns.

01:01:13.500 Bill C9 is going to be a really, really important one going into the new year.

01:01:17.920 We've got new actions that we've just launched last night on that.

01:01:21.480 And then so to close off as well, I just want to read a final verse.

01:01:25.780 It's from Titus 2, 11 to 14.

01:01:28.320 And I think that it really adds to and complements what Dan has said tonight.

01:01:33.860 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions

01:01:42.420 and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope,

01:01:50.300 the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us,

01:01:55.780 to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself, a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works.

01:02:05.100 And that's, you know, this is my prayer for you.

01:02:08.180 And Dan gave an invitation that if you don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life,

01:02:12.720 and you want to take that step of faith, please reach out to Action for Canada and we'll have somebody get in touch with you.

01:02:19.160 But this is the time, this is the season.

01:02:22.040 And there are so many people, it's generally when times are good, that that is when people stray from God.

01:02:31.420 And it is through the difficult times when he brings oppression and persecution,

01:02:34.940 when we finally get on our knees and look up, when we finally get on our knees and say,

01:02:41.420 I need help and become vulnerable.

01:02:43.920 And I think that God is giving us a season of grace right now and giving us an opportunity to get right with him.

01:02:50.620 So, I just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

01:02:55.040 God bless you and God bless Canada.

01:03:13.240 And God alone for the ground that I'm standing on.

01:03:17.940 I'm going to thank our founding fathers for giving their lives and sacrificing so much for our freedom.

01:03:33.440 And I'm calling on you today.

01:03:36.700 Don't put them to shame.

01:03:38.960 Don't waste what they did.

01:03:40.780 We have guaranteed rights in this country.

01:03:51.480 We are putting chapters across the nation.

01:03:55.060 We are going to be in every town and every city.

01:03:58.780 And we are going to build communities within these communities of like-minded people

01:04:03.460 who are actually going to care for one another again and love on each other

01:04:07.320 and give each other the help when they're down.

01:04:10.620 We are going to use the teams and the people that build within chapters to support our businesses.

01:04:17.200 The government's actions are completely, 100% unlawful.

01:04:24.900 Judgment will again be found on justice and those with virtuous hearts will pursue it.

01:04:33.140 You have a virtuous heart if you are here today pursuing freedom and righteousness.

01:04:39.320 And then verse 23 comes along with a promise.

01:04:45.280 God says he will turn the sins of evil people back on them.

01:04:50.860 He will destroy them for their sins.

01:04:56.080 I take great comfort in that because I serve a mighty living God

01:05:02.260 who has allowed us to go through this season of discomfort

01:05:07.800 because we as a nation have turned our backs on him.

01:05:12.300 And we need to get right.

01:05:14.840 So I am just going to thank you so much.

01:05:18.700 I'm going to say God bless you and God bless Canada.

01:05:22.480 I'm going to say God bless Canada.

01:05:52.480 Thank you.

01:06:22.480 Thank you.

01:06:52.480 Thank you.

Action4Canada - December 19, 2025

Christmas Service： A Story Of Hope

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