Back to the Beginning

Back to the Beginning

It’s been just over a month since we’ve moved to Edmonton already. It’s wild to think how fast time flies. And yet in some senses, it feels like we’ve hardly done anything since arriving. Every other time our family has moved, it’s been close enough to not have to worry about a lot of the details we’ve found ourselves now needing to think about. 

Buying a new vehicle, replacing most of the furniture we sold back in Saskatchewan, switching insurance providers, paying for repairs to our van so it could be registered cross-provincially. All things that in and of themselves would feel small, but now together end up taking a lot of time, bandwidth, and energy. Not to mention the stress of realizing how much this all costs.

And in the middle of this all, by the third week of July, I found myself learning the ins and outs of the Alberta Health Care System when I ended up back in the hospital with a case of pneumonia. 

But while laying in the bed of the emergency room waiting for the results of the battery of tests they gave me, it brought me back to February of 2020, when the seeds of the desire for church planting were beginning to germinate. 

It was about four and a half years ago that I found myself in St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon after waking up from a coma that the doctors had induced so they could clear out my lungs and get me on the path to breathing on my own again. I had come into the emergency room clinging to my life because of a bad bout of acid-reflux that quickly turned into a deadly case of pneumonia.

The doctors had found that this was caused by a hole between my trachea and my esophagus. It turns out it had been there since birth. And because of it, I had basically been living with low-grade pneumonia for most of my life. So after running a few more tests and finding out that my esophagus was essentially a dead muscle, they declared that I would need to go for surgery to patch up the hole, remove my esophagus, and put me back together, or else at some point, because my esophagus didn’t work, it was likely to one day just shrivel up and choke me to death, like a ticking time bomb.

Now, during this time, our church had just begun to really start growing and maturing. We were seeing some real fruit take hold after years of tilling and seeding in what seemed like some pretty rocky soil. And because of this situation with me in the hospital, we were able to really see the church be the church with how they stepped up to care for my family in this time of crisis and need.

And though it was one of the most difficult physical experiences of my life, there’s something about not knowing if you’re going to live that makes you appreciate your dependence on God for everything. I’d say in many ways, the three weeks I spent in the hospital after that near-death-experience were some of the best three weeks of my life. I don’t know if I’ve ever had more intimate times of worship, prayer, and closeness with God than in those weeks in the hospital. 

And it was during that time, that I started to realize, in an even deeper way, that real joy comes from being dependent on God, not just in taking comfort in his gifts and provision. I had known this already, of course. I had preached these things countless times before. But now it was more real than it had ever been before. And as Kim and I talked, we started to realize that there might be more God was calling us to than just growing old in our small comfortable Saskatchewan town, as nice and as enjoyable as that was. 

It gave me a hunger and a zeal for others to once again taste the experience of a life lived in dependence on God, while starting to stir in my own soul the taste for adventure that comes along with church planting.

But then, as I prepared for my upcoming surgery, news struck that there was some kind of worldwide pandemic on its way, putting everything on hold. There was a new crisis to face, and these thoughts of church planting would need to be put on the back burner.

As you can imagine, with all the events that would unfold over the next year or two, including needing to go through a pretty life-altering surgery, church planting didn’t stay at the forefront of my mind. It would tickle my imagination now and then, but it wouldn’t be until things were starting to feel more normal again, and I found myself in Canmore for an Acts 29 Canada Lead Team meeting that the idea would come back with a vengeance. But I’ll save that story for another time.

This last week, however, as I laid in the hospital bed once again, I was reminded of my full dependence on God. My life is not my own. I’ve been bought with a price. Every breath I have is a gift from God. I don’t deserve this life I have. I don’t deserve the immense love and affection that this God has given me. 

And yet, here I am, a child of God, loved and accepted, cherished and chosen, called to be a light to the people around me, as I depend on my wonderful Creator for everything I have. All because of the work of Jesus on my behalf. Taking what I deserved to the cross, so that I could receive what he deserves - full love, joy, and acceptance from the Father. Amazing!

So even though things have been slow-going, even though it feels like there is a mountain of things yet to do before we even take the next step in this church plant… There are still yards to finish, decks to build, neighbours to meet, and plenty to still figure out. We press on in full dependence on God.

Over the next few months, our plan is to continue to connect on a regular basis with West Edmonton Baptist church as our home-base on most Sundays while we check out other churches on a semi-weekly basis to build relationships, establish friendships, and let other churches and pastors know that we’re here to plant a church, but we’re not there to “steal their sheep.” 

Our hope is to spend the next while gathering a core team of mature believers, new believers, and maybe even some not-yet-believers who feel called to explore what it might look like to be a new church in the city of Edmonton. But we can’t do that on our own. Even though I lived in Edmonton 20 years ago, it’s a new city to me compared to what it was then, and we’ve pretty much come here with nothing but a call, a dream, a hope, and a big dependence on God to come through and make this thing happen.

So we would love your prayers that God would connect us to the right people, that we could build the right relationships, and that we could see him come through in miraculous ways that only he can do, so that we can have a front row seat to see how he’s going to build this new church that he’s called us to be a part of in Edmonton.

If you would like to contribute at all to any of our expenses for moving or the ongoing cost of serving in these roles of missionary-church-planters, you can do so at https://graceyeg.com and click the “Connect” link on the top left.

If you'd like to read previous editions of the newsletter, you can do so here: https://graceyeg.beehiiv.com/

On behalf of our families,

Clay Bitner and Jared Klassen