In the Spring of 2001, youth leaders from 4 local churches in

Bradford began to meet on a monthly basis to discuss how we

could better meet the needs of the youth in Bradford working

together.  In May of 2003 the suggestion was made at one of

these meeting that we meet with our Mayor and ask if there was

anything we could do together to assist them as our leaders.  

We had seen how God had blessed Roger’s attitude (read ‘High

School Ministry’ story) of wanting to ‘Give Expecting Nothing” in

serving with the high school administration and felt led to approach

the Mayor with the same heart. 

 

That same month I was able to meet with Mayor Jonkman on behalf

of CrossTrainers (our name for the local churches working together). 

 During the meeting I was able to share with Mayor Jonkman a little

 of our heart, wanting to serve them as the Church of Bradford and

meet the needs of our community, specifically with regard to youth. 

I could hardly believe my ears when Mayor Jonkman asked if we

would be interested in running a youth centre in town if they (the town)

 provided us with a facility.  To fully understand my excitement at this

point in the story I need to back track to Septmeber 2000.

 

REWIND:
In September 2000 Patti LaRose and I became room mates and in January of that same year God had given us both, individually, a vision of opening a youth centre.  The vision was huge, it included a gymnasium, auditorium, café, computer lab, training rooms, a rock climbing wall and more.  The heart God gave us was to open a facility like this to use primarily to relationship build with youth and openly share the love and truth of Christ with them through praying, playing and preparing them for the future.  We wanted to use the facility to provide direction in the physical, intellectual, social and spiritual aspects of life, based upon Biblical principals, to all youth without discrimination, in an effort to encourage and support them as they develop and pursue their vision.  Our heart was to see passionate purpose driven youth. 

We began praying and sharing the vision with those closest to us.  With their prayer support and encouragement we began looking at facilities in Aurora (the town we were living in at the time) and after investigating two different facilities the doors were closed.  We then began looking at potential facilities in Newmarket (the town just north of us) and leads on two facilities there fell through as well.  We knew God had given us this vision so even though the closed doors were a little discouraging they were not disheartening because we knew our BIG God had a BIG plan! 

 

While pursing this vision we began meeting with pastors and youth pastors in Aurora, and Newmarket and as we met with one youth pastor he invited us to attend their local youth network meeting.  We had no idea such things even existed so we jumped at the opportunity to share the vision God had given to us with so many youth workers all at once.  Although it was good to share with them at the meeting the biggest blessing for us was to be introduced to the idea of youth workers from different local churches working together.  It was so refreshing.  After the meeting Dale Winder, a local youth pastor at the meeting asked us if we would meet him for coffee.  What a blessing that was.  He shared with us his heart on the importance of working with local churches instead of working outside of them.  It was at this point that God began to give us a heart for unity among local churches and to serve with them to see God’s bigger picture realized; His Church (Captital ‘C’) united, loving Him, each other and the lost.  We began to regularly attend the youth network meetings and always came away with an increased passion to work together.  It was at these meetings that we met Roger Forget and Wade Paton.  Both these gentleman were youth pastors in Bradford, one at the baptist church and the other at the alliance church.  They drove to the meetings together and seemed to really genuinely love each other and working together.  Not that the other youth pastors didn’t enjoy meeting together, but these two really seemed like good friends and we found ourselves really attracted spiritually to what God was doing in and through them.  During this time God began to change our focus from opening a youth centre to building relationships with His Church. 

 

In January of 2001 the youth network hosted a day away for prayer and vision casting.  At this meeting Roger shared with me the need he had for more volunteers with the lunch drop-in program at the high school.  Shortly after that I began volunteering with him and Wade and began to really enjoy the ministry God had blessed them with to these youth.  Shortly after this we began our own local network meetings with youth workers in town. 

 

This now brings me back to my meeting with Mayor Jonkman in May of 2003.  Patti (after much prayer) had felt now was the time to go into this ministry full-time and had just quit her job teaching at a High School in Toronto.  We were blown away, that God seemed to just have been waiting until there was 2 of us to put full-time effort in and for us both to have stepped out in faith, before He provided a youth centre!  This was our dream and the vision God had given us almost three years prior.   By June of that same year we were contacted by the head of facilities and parks in town and were offered the use of a 900 sqft room in one of the town buildings.  The room was a challenge to renovate (to say the least) but God blessed us in amazing ways!  We had $0 in our budget to renovate, furnish and run a youth centre; however, as a network we agreed that we were called to give these youth the best we could.  We wanted to cause the youth to ask questions like, “Who is doing this for us?”,  “Why are they doing it for us?”, “How were they able to do all of this?”, by the way the room was presented, furnished and run. With this as one of our goals we decided to pray about what God would have us offer these youth and then made a list of the materials and furnishings needed.  I can give testimony to you today that God provided every item on the list, from black leather couches, a big screen T.V., and computers, to wood, paint and volunteers to do the renovation work and on September 29th we hosted our grand opening.  It was amazing to see the local churches come together to accomplish this goal. 

 

Looking back we could also see the beauty in God’s timing.  If He had of provided us with a facility back in 2000 we would have had a facility, with no volunteers, no programs, and no youth.  When we opened the doors for the first time on October 4th 2003 we had a core group of youth that began to make use of the facility from the high school drop-in program and we had core group of local churches at this time to draw volunteers and resources from.  God had also given us the wisdom to ask to rent the room from the town and He also provided the funds to enable us to do this. 

 

By January of 2004, only four months after we opened, we found that the number of youth members had far out grown the amount of space that we had.  There were approximately 300 youth with membership cards and we desperately needed more room seeing about 50 youth on a drop-in night.  In Febuary (2004) I phoned Mayor Jonkman to share our need of space with him, not knowing what he could do for us.  The building our room was in was full with other organizations making use of the rest of the facility.  He was so supportive and suggested that I call one of the town councilors that had a heart for youth resources in town.  We met with him and he shared our heart in wanting to see the facility expand for the youth.  Following that meeting we didn’t hear back for quite sometime and the need kept increasing. 

After speaking with both pastors at the local church we attend, they both gave us the opportunity to share with the church family how God had been blessing the last Sunday of March 2004.  During the first service we shared the need we had for more space and at the end of the presentation many of our brothers and sisters there gathered around us and prayed for (1) God’s provision of space as well as for (2) His continued blessing financially to meet the needs of running the centre.  Our God is SO big!  Following our presentation at the beginning of the second service our pastor shared with the church family that he felt strongly that God wanted them to take up an offering for us and for The Hub (this was after they had already taken up the regular offering).  We were amazed at how God was so quickly answering the prayers of those who prayed for us during the first service.  We were totally overwhelmed with God!  Our pastor then said that the following Sunday they would present us with the monies collected. 

 

The next day, after not hearing back about any space for the youth centre to grow for over a month, we received a call from the head of facilities and parks saying that he thought he had a solution.  We hung up and headed directly over to the youth centre to meet him.  He took us downstairs, into the room directly below ours which is approximately 3 times the size of the room we were presently using, and also included a full kitchen.  This space had been occupied by a co-operative nursery school for that last 30 years.  In trying to think of how God was going to provide the extra room we needed we didn’t even consider this space because the nursery school had been there forever.  It turned out that just after we contacted the mayor with our need to expand, the head of the nursery school also contacted the town to let them know that they were going to have to close their doors and would not need to resign their lease agreement for the following year.  

We could hardly believe how God was providing.  Not only had he just answered the prayers of our brothers and sisters from the day before for space, but he had also put it on our pastor’s heart to take up the offering which was going to provide us with some of the funds needed to renovate the new space – before we even knew we needed it!

 

The following Sunday there was much rejoicing as we shared with our church family how God had provided the new space and then were presented with a cheque for just over $4,000.  God is GOOD!

 

Over the course of the summer God provided for the new space to be renovated and exactly one year to the day, September 29th 2004, we had a grand re-opening to share with the community the story of how God had provided so miraculously!