Rev. Andrew Rasmussen

A perspective from our founding pastor.

God has been speaking to me for quite some time about developing a church and training center somewhere up in Canada.   There were many independent churches which needed to be drawn together into some form of fellowship, and a Bible institute was needed for training our young men and women who wanted to devote themselves to the Lord’s work.   While serving my churches in the States, I had made several trips up to Alberta for speaking engagements, and had finally become convinced that Edmonton was the logical place to begin.

The trip to Edmonton was trying and exciting.  We had built a four-wheel trailer to behind our 1936 Ford.  This was during World War II, when gas and tires were hard to come by.  Everything we owned was on that trailer.  A 2000 mile trip lay ahead of us, and many dirt roads, detours and chuck holes that we knew nothing about.

Before we arrived in Edmonton we had to stop for 18 tire repairs.  When we crossed the Canadian border it started to rain.  Eight days after leaving Chicago we finally arrived in Edmonton.  When we pulled into the driveway of our new home, it was pure mud.  The steady rains had turned everything into sticky clay, and I felt the tires of our little Ford sinking down into the ooze.

It was a miserable beginning, but we were soon to find that we had warm-hearted friends who called on us and brought us food.  Later we learned how truly the Lord had given them to us and us to them to build His house and a center of evangelism and missions to the world.