A Courageous Heart

Today, we hear the frontline experience of growing up in Christianity and the many unique roles and paths the lord takes his men and women of God on. In this Journey, Stan Bradburn shares with us his many road trips, flights and seasons of travel and travel partners he has ministered with as a developing young man in music. His starting point happens over the phone when he hears he can sing as a friend from school requests him to sing a song. From there, God moulds and shapes him into an amazing musician. There are pitfalls, temptations, and things to overcome in each path. Sometimes, it is refreshing to investigate the walk of a brother or sister in the Lord so we know how to pray, how to receive them and where to bring support as they walk out their salvation with fear and trembling for the Lord. Stan shares in a very humble way his heart and story for the Lord.

Today, Pastor Howard Jolly shares an update with us about the detailed methods of how his Music Ministry and the telling of stories play an integral part in healing. He addresses the '60s Scoop residential School Experience and how he deals with Trauma in his work. He has developed sensitivity and insight into hearts and lives. He is drawn to reconciliation. He shares the theme and what it means to him spiritually: a beautiful heart and work of Unity and peace. In this episode, he updates us on “Come Sit with Me, “his current podcast with Square One World Media. The Work his music and “The Rising Above Band” do, and continued conferences and workshops pastor Howard Jolly is still involved in.

Howard Jolly, the executive director of Native Alliance Ministries and lead singer for the Rising Above Band. He shares his motivation for his leadership work to help people find the start to a lifetime of healing. This path of healing is truly a work motivated from a personal place. It expanded into amazing conferences that brought together stories and survivors. This became a safe place of healing and reconciliation that he still heads up and is very much committed to for anyone who needs the healing. Touching on addiction and the ripple effect and how it has changed families.

Lindsey Stillwell shares her life-changing transition from darkness to light as a birthing place. 4 beautiful children were blessed to her as were a chance to rely on Jesus as a born-again believer in Christ to learn to parent. She shares her incredible work on herself, and her re-parenting and healing of her past through parenting with God by her side in all things. Her story of success is only at a new beginning, with her new husband and re-unification with her precious family. She continues to mentor women and help others in any way she can. Progress not perfection, as a daughter of the King, she is now becoming a new creation in Christ.

Lindsey Stillwell carries us into her experience and the many ways she tried to fill that empty void. She fearlessly discusses addiction. The roots of her hurt seemed to set up her life and primed her to find and connect with a mood-altering substance to cover and shift her pain. As she was highly motivated and driven it pushed her further into a mindset of denial, controlling behaviors, and trying to prove herself and to the world that she had worth. Her description of this time is raw and truthful

Lindsey Stillwell shares with us who she was in the world before she met Jesus. Lindsey shares her childhood experience, her upbringing, and the path I've expectations that drove her to a place of exhaustion and burnout as a young athlete and student. Lindsey describes her identity crisis and not knowing Jesus and the darkness that journey carried. Lindsey talks about the void in her soul and always seeking after something to fill that void. She never gave up looking for what she calls today the most important relationship of her life, and the relationship she has with Jesus.

Marianne Curtis shares her healing journey as more than her writing career, and the deeper truths in her life surface as she seeks out a true and powerful relationship with her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This unique walk and journey of flagging, obedience, and worship has led her to amazing connections and divine appointments. She shares this with us to help us understand what a deeper relationship in Christ looks like and that healing happens in a variety of ways. “Your ways are not my ways saith the Lord.” Isaiah 55:8-9

Marianne Curtis a writer, author, and storyteller shares her incredible journey of survival in Manitoba’s Foster system and her gifted heart and soul that can process her trauma and keep her conscientious and connected to her truth so that she can one day tell her story. Marianne describes the events in her life that inspired a series of books written as a medium for her truth and her voice. It takes great courage to share your soul with the world.

Cynthia Broadfoot shares her heart and the love she had as a child for the things of God. Cynthia is a member of the Norway House Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. Her mother is an honored minister of the United Church of Canada. Cynthia shares in her story the impacts in her life between religious conflict, her own personal search for identity, and life's unexpected consequences I've choices she terms, we're not what God intended for her. She gives us an intimate insight into the struggles of a single mom, clinical depression, and the response to other distant churches. Cynthia attributes her ability to survive this time to the faith she generated as a child, but to a last-minute burst of anger and determination that did not allow her to follow through with suicidal ideation during her battle with clinical depression.

Cynthia Broadfoot shares her heart and the love she had as a child for the things of God. Cynthia is a member of the Norway House Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. Her mother is an honored minister of the United Church of Canada. Cynthia shares in her story the impacts in her life between religious conflict, her own personal search for identity, and life's unexpected consequences I've choices she terms, we're not what God intended for her. She gives us an intimate insight into the struggles of a single mom, clinical depression, and the response to other distant churches. Cynthia attributes her ability to survive this time to the faith she generated as a child, but to a last-minute burst of anger and determination that did not allow her to follow through with suicidal ideation during her battle with clinical depression.

Joanne Kitchenese shares what God has done in her life since overcoming great obstacles and healing from loss, abuse, and abandonment in her young life. As a now single mother of 2 beautiful children, Joanne shares with us what God has done for her in her life to strengthen her and show her his incredible love for her and her family. Joanne shares her goals and dreams along with the hope she has for young women and families to find the same Jesus who set her free. Joanne shares her journey in ministry and how she was used as a young woman to win souls to this same Jesus who saved her and set her free to heal, and how she is supporting and raising her children to Love Jesus today.

Joanne Kitchenese Joanne shares with us God's divine intervention in her life at a time when she needed her family the most due to the frustration and hopelessness of their own experience. Joanne found herself in the care of her older brother and on her own in a small town. Her experience reaching out to various adults in times of trouble had often seemed fruitless, so she quietly slipped into obscurity while in a public school and having people see her everywhere, yet nowhere at all. Joanne had disappeared it seemed to everyone but her brother and Jesus. God then moved on her life to intervene in the most unique of ways. Your ways are not my ways saith the Lord.

Joanne Kitchenese shares her story as a young woman from Ontario and what it was like growing up in a home impacted by alcohol. Joanne shares with us the good moments and the bad and highlights poignant times of joy, abandonment, fear, and the love that she had for her father. This story is not unlike many across this country of Canada where Indigenous children live out their lives amid poverty, addictions, and third-world conditions. Her father’s search for employment and his struggles to keep their family together while surviving unknown internal traumas of his own impacted Joanne’s life in ways no one could have predicted. Joanne courageously shares her beautiful and broken childhood.

Kathleen Strongwind shares with us She end by sharing a particularly poignant moment in her journey and her search to reconnect with her own family. This gives us greater insight into where her passion for advocating and sharing the stories families who have experienced the 60’s scoop here in Manitoba. The search to reconnect with her own family has helped her see the great need for healing and voicing of concerns not just in Manitoba but across Canada.

Katherine Strongwind shares with us her passion for advocating the concerns and the causes of traumas in the lives of families who have experienced the 60’s scoop here in Manitoba. She gave us her accomplished background and experience as it has set her up perfectly to be a national delegate and voice for the generation affected by the 60’s scoop. She answers the question, "Why Manitoba?" She gives direction as to how to access resources and supports as a survivor.

A look at the experience of ministry founder and Pastor Allan Spence, as interviewed by his wife and Co-Pastor Virginia Spence, featuring his testimony of coming to the Lord. What driving experiences led to the birth of their Ministry: The Courageous Heart Ministries Inc.? Pastor Allan also testifies of the miracle healing of his kidney, liver, and heart and what God has done since that time, over 40 years ago. It combines the experience of how the marriage of two people in the unity of God as a couple in Christ can become a tool in the hands of the Lord for bigger and better things in their lives. God makes the impossible possible.