Following God after overcoming challenges is easier said than done, but for Virginia Spence and the team at the Courageous Heart Ministries, helping those people is their ultimate goal.
With Joshua 1:9 as their vision verse, it reminds them about strength and encouragement.
Starting back when they were in Bible College, her husband would walk around Broadway to the Aboriginal Centre, and way down on Main and Higgins.
"He would walk down and come back and he said on the way there, he ran into so many people going down Main Street and he would just be praying for them. And he would do this every single day," Virgina said.
As he would go each day to walk and pray, it didn't take long for him to get to know the people he was praying for.
"The people that I'm praying for, these are people that I recognize from my community, family members, people that I met here in the city. I just wanted to do something for them," her husband said.
Knowing that he wanted to do something to help, he prayed about it, and from that, the Courageous Heart Ministries was born.
"Starting in Broadway Crossways Church there we grabbed a little box of Tim Hortons and a box of donuts and we had some Bibles donated and we picked those up and made little posters and opened up our meeting and we thought it would be recovery, like AA 12 steps kind of thing. Every single person that came, was there because they wanted to learn the word of God," Virgina said.
Just a few months in, and 22-25 people were coming to the meetings and asking for a church.
"We listened to them and what the Lord was doing and we changed our revenue to 242 Manitoba and we were there up until the pandemic," Spence said.
Originally Virginia thought she was just going to do the paperwork, but it just kept growing bigger and bigger, even to this day she continues to learn more and more.
"We have our Constitution, we have a charities status, the foundation and there are pieces and parts that I didn't even know were a part of the ministry we have our faithful account person. He helps me get through the taxes every year, and so I'm growing in the background and my husband does a lot of the praying on the street and he's just faithful about going down to Portage Place area and praying for people," Virginia said.
Being on the street every day to pray for others, they start to recognize her husband.
They call him preacher or pastor or they just have different words for him and they'll ask for prayer. I remember one time I went with him to pray for people at Union Gospel Mission in the parking lot, and this lady came up to me and she started to pull these scarves out of her bag. She wanted me to have one because she said, 'Your husband prayed for me to help me to stay sober. I'm getting things together and I'm going to have my own place soon.' And these people come with these reports of what's what God is doing in the background," she said.
Being obedient to where God leads her and her husband has been an interesting journey, but well worth it. "We've dedicated children, we've had baptisms. Sometimes we go together bowling as families."
Now stationed out of St. Matthew's Church at 365 Mcgee Street, hosting Thursday night meetings every week.
You can watch the full interview with Virginia below.