Connections

Growing up, Savannah Locke always felt a strong pull toward creativity. 

She says she wasn't the typical child. Not only did she participate in her church and school plays, as well as write when she could, she would also do plays for the mailman and create songs about weather patterns. 

"As I got older and I really started working through my own story and developing that, I started realizing that God had sort of given me writing to help process the world and to hopefully help other people see bits of their own story as well," Savannah explains.

Rachael Lampa became an overnight success when she was just 15 years old. 

She spent years touring and recording before deciding to step away from her record label to find her true identity.

During those years she worked as a backup singer, joined an acapella group, nannied, got married, started up a non-profit with her family in Nashville and eventually became a mother.

For Alexandra Boylan, acting was her happy place. Whether it was in a high school musical or a play in her father's church, she knew that she wanted to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.

At the age of 14, Boylan began auditioning for roles in various productions. 

"My parents really nurtured that love of arts in me and told me to go for it," Boylan explains. 

With parents involved in worship ministry, Sarah Kroger’s love for music was sparked at a young age, but the impact of bullying and her struggle with anxiety and shyness hid her musical gift for years.

Everything changed when she met Jesus in an intimate encounter through worship at a youth conference.

“Worship became my language with God,” she explains. “It allowed me to communicate with the Lord in a way I hadn’t experienced before, there was something about it that opened my heart.”

In 1998, Mandy Smith together with her husband, a New Testament professor, moved from their birth country of Australia to the United States.

The pair had planned to stay in the U.S. for two years while attending school, but things quickly changed when their family started to grow. In the end, they wound up spending over two decades there before returning home.

During that time, Mandy worked as a lead pastor at University Christian Church, a campus and neighbourhood congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Flags are flying at half-mast at municipal, provincial, territorial and federal buildings across the country, but there are calls to do more to honour the 215 children whose remains were found at a former residential school in B-C.

There are also calls for governments to use ground-penetrating radar to find similar gravesites at other schools across the country.

First Nations teacher Rick Joe says the discovery of the remains is a triggering event for students who regularly learn about the history of wrongs against Indigenous people.

With the success of blogs and videos on minimalism, it has become clear that it is more than just a trend. In a time of climate change and a pandemic, people are looking for new ways to live more meaningful lives, and minimalism is meeting that need.

Over the last decade, Becca Ehrlich has been through plenty. She lost her infant son in 2014 and shortly after became very ill. It took years of medical testing, surgery and bouncing from doctor to doctor before Becca was able to figure out how to manage her chronic illness.

Todd Terry became interested in acting at just 14 years old.

He pursued that dream, went to acting school and eventually got an agent. 

Since then, Terry has acted in both faith-based and secular roles including  Breaking Bad, American Crime, Friday Night Lights and Walker Texas Ranger.  

"I do end up doing a lot of secular television," Terry explains. "Breaking Bad was shot around six years ago. I thought it was a well-written show and it was a great show to work on."

It was July 7, 2017, when the world was turned upside down for the Gallant Family.

On that day, Allan Gallant suffered a severe stroke that led to months of recovery and learning to speak again.

"When I say I lost my voice, I couldn't speak," Allan explains. "In my mind, I could speak clearly, but from my mind to my tongue, it was not clear."

He says this led to the hardest battle of his life, a battle with mental health; PTSD, severe anxiety and depression.

As a minister, Matthew Rucker found out early on, that people like stories. When he would say, let me tell you a story, people would tune in.

"When you use a story with a spiritual meaning attached to it, people remember it," Rucker explains. "If I had to give myself a title, it would be, The Story Telling Preacher."

Matthew gathers stories from not only his life at the farm but also his experiences as a passionate follower of Christ. He spent 40 years in ministry before taking on writing full time.