MINISTRY UPDATE: FROM TAMPA BAY TO NORTHERN QUEBEC

Ministry UpDate

Just weeks in, and already 2026 is filling up with testimonies, needs, and opportunities!

From Tampa, Florida to Northern Quebec

OnJanuary 11, we had the privilege of preaching atNew Testament Worship Centerin the Tampa Bay area. Justseven days later, we found ourselves3,463 km northinChapais,

Quebec, ministering in a completely different context along side Sandra Morton, but with the same faithful God.

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The contrast couldn’t be greater, going from feeling like +25°C to -45°C, according to The Weather Network app. Yet the calling remainsthe same: to preach

the Gospel, encourage the Church, and follow where the Lord leads, no matter the distance.

Settling In, Stepping Out & Signs of Awakening

We’ve now settled into livingabove the churchhere in Chapais for the next few weeks. In this short time, we’ve already ministered inword and worship for

two Sundays, and we’re beginningweekly prayer and worship eveningsas we seek the Lord together.

From here, we’ll also be traveling out tovarious churches throughout the region, supporting pastors, encouraging congregations, and responding to doors

God continues to open.

Just prior to our arrival, a powerful10-day revival outpouringtook place inMistissini, a community we are scheduled to preach in at the end of February.

The fruit of that move of God has been remarkable. One pastor shared with us thatevery church in the area is now full, and theChief called a meeting with

local pastorsto discuss how the community can support the manynewly transformed youthcoming out of this season.

There is a shared sense among leaders thatthe fire is not meant to stay contained but to spread.

For Mark, this has been deeply personal. It echoes aprophetic vision he had in 1994 while in Moose Factory: a three-dimensional map of Canada in trees,

with a church steeple in the North, revival fire burning above it. From that fire, sparks were carried by the wind of the Spirit, landing across the nation

and wherever a spark touched down, anew steeple would risewith fire above it, sending out sparks of its own.

To see an outpouring like this in Northern Quebec  feels like divine setup, an answer unfolding over decades.

Building Space for What God Is Doing

As part of our ongoing ministry here, we’ve also been hands-on withconstruction and renovation throughout the church.

Our first priority was thechildren’s ministry room, which required immediate attention. In our first week, we: 

list of 3 items

• Removed awater-damaged, mold-covered wall

• Completed the required remediation

• Gave the entire room a much-needed overhaul

list end

This church also shares aweekly meal together, an integral part of their mission and culture. However, theceiling, floor, and kitchenhave clearly seen

better days…way better days. This week, we’re starting with theceilingand working our way down, believing these practical improvements will serve and strengthen

the life of the church and the family that gathers here.

Thank you for walking with us through the miles and the ministry. Your prayers and partnership make this possible, and we’re deeply grateful.

We’re excited to see what God continues to do next.

Sow into this Mission

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HOMEOWNER SCARES OFF HOME INVADERS WITH GUN

New York Post

 

Homeowner spooks off burglars with gun during ‘scary’ NYC home invasion

By Jennifer Bain, Amanda Woods and Zoe Hussain

Published Jan. 21, 2026, 10:45 p.m. ET

 

A homeowner scared off a wannabe car burglar and his pals with his gun during a home invasion in Queens early Tuesday.

 

Moshe Borukh, 35, heard commotion around the window of his Jamaica Estates home around 2:40 a.m., after getting a drink of water, and discovered a thief was inside while his wife and three young kids were asleep, he recalled to The Post.

 

The bungling thief had been spotted on home security cameras rummaging through the kitchen with a phone flashlight, searching for the key fob to Borukh’s Bentley, while two other burglars waited outside, according to footage obtained by The Post.

 

Borukh, who took his gun with him to check out the noise, “locked eyes” with the burglar and drew his Sig Sauer P365.

 

“I always take the gun with me, because who knows. Then I hear actual window breaking, the glass breaking. Something’s going on. I come downstairs, point the gun at him, and I’m like, ‘I have a gun. Don’t move,'” he said of the harrowing moment.

 

After seeing Borukh, the invader quickly scurried out the window and abandoned the botched burglary.

 

“It was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. You know, I was prepared for it, just because I have a family. I have to protect my castle, and so by any means necessary,” Borukh said.

 

“So I did what I had to do. I pointed the gun at him, and I was prepared to shoot him,” he added, noting he has a concealed-carry license.

 

“There was the Old Testament right next to where the guy came in from, on the table. So I don’t know if that Bible was protecting him or protecting me. Either way, it worked out for the best,” he said.

 

After the police were called, deputies were dispatched to another car burglary roughly six blocks away, according to Borukh.

 

Officers told the brave homeowner that two other vehicles in the area had been stolen that night and that the robbers responsible for breaking into his home likely had a “quota” for the number of cars they had to steal.

 

Borukh knew the robbers were trying to swipe his Bentley from security footage, which showed them fumbling around with his car outside.

 

“They were under my car trying to do something, and they couldn’t open it. They were messing around with something, trying to open and they couldn’t,” he said.

 

He believes the increase in robberies in the tree-lined Queens area is due to its proximity to highways, which allow car thieves to quickly speed away.

 

“There are no consequences, even if, when they are caught, there’s still no consequences — catch and release. And it’s, you know, it’s very minor in prison, time, even no prison at all,” Borukh said.

 

Borukh said his wife is still a little “anxious” and “nervous,” and that though his youngest, at just 4 years old, was spared the details, his other kids “know exactly what’s going on.”

 

He also encouraged other homeowners to be aware of their right to own a gun.

 

“I’m just trying to raise awareness for the community, because they have rights they don’t realize they have,” Borukh maintained.

 

“And having a gun is the most, you know, it’s the most important thing, in my opinion, right now, the government’s not gonna help us, the mayor’s not gonna help us. Governor’s not gonna help us,” he said.

 

“But the laws are still in place to help us. Just people need to know what those laws are.”

MAN TELLS WOMAN HE'S TURNED OFF BY HER BODY, THEN TRIES TO SNAG A DATE ANYWAY

New York Post

 

Bold man tells woman he’s turned off by her body — then tries to snag a date anyways

By Mary Madigan, News.com.au

Published Jan. 22, 2026, 10:37 a.m. ET

Originally Published by: News.com.au

 

An anonymous text message exchange is going viral after an Aussie man claimed that a particular type of body hair on a woman is a relationship deal breaker for him.

 

Members of a popular Australian Facebook group where women share anything and everything have been left shocked after a member anonymously posted a text she received from a guy she is dating.

 

“It is 2026, and men are still trying to dictate how we should look, and they wonder why there is a male loneliness epidemic,” the post reads.

 

It starts normally enough, the man texted her good morning, but then he declares that he would like to be “upfront” about something that is a “deal breaker” for him.

 

“I’m not comfortable with visible body-hair on forearms, and I find it a turn-off,” the text reads.

 

“I completely understand if that does not work for you. No pressure at all. I’d rather just be honest early.”

 

The anonymous woman texted back and let him know she wasn’t impressed.

 

“Yeah, I’m not going to let anyone dictate anything about my appearance,” she wrote.

 

“That’s actually really gross on your part. Goodbye.”

 

In a surprise twist, the man shrugged off the goodbye and asked if she’d still like to go on a date.

 

“Absolutely not,” she wrote back.

 

She then explained that she believed he’d use AI to try to be respectful, but it backfired.

 

“The audacity to think I would still want to go on a date with you is absolutely astounding,” she texted back.

 

“My arm hair and I will stay home together and have a much better time.”

 

The anonymous dating text exchange immediately sparked a lot of debate in the group.

 

Some were certain that the man was using AI, and others were just surprised that a man even notices arm hair.

 

The post has over 400 comments and counting.

 

“Arm hair? Good grief,” one wrote.

 

“I don’t know how it has come to this. Imagine our grandfathers giving two hoots about female arm hair,” someone else mused.

 

“The way I just screamed in my phone and threw it,” another joked.

 

“Real men do not care about body hair,” someone else argued.

 

“The audacity of some men makes me sick,” another fumed.

 

“He probably used AI. These aren’t his words,” one theorised.

 

“If he is going to be weird about a completely natural thing, the least he can do is type it up himself and not copy it from ChatGPT,” another claimed.

 

Other members of the group came out in the man’s defence, pointing out that even if he did use AI, he had made the effort to be kind.

 

“How would you have preferred it? Seems like he was trying to be as kind as possible?” One asked.

 

“As crappy as it is. I think he was pretty respectful about,” someone else pointed out.

 

“There is no way to be respectful about it. It is disrespectful even mentioning it,” another fired back.

 

“If he is going to be weird about a completely natural thing, the least he can do is type it up himself and not copy it from ChatGPT. Coward,” one claimed.

CANADIAN WOMAN WAS EUTHANISED AFTER HER HUSBAND WAS FED UP WITH CARING FOR HER

Daily Mail

 

Canadian woman was euthanized 'against her will' after husband was fed-up with caring for her

By NIC WHITE, US SENIOR INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER

Published: 19:19 EST, 22 January 2026 | Updated: 06:11 EST, 23 January 2026

 

An elderly woman was euthanized within hours of her husband claiming she changed her mind after insisting she wanted to live.

 

Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying laws allow patients to request a painless death if an assessor agrees their terminal condition meets certain requirements.

 

Patients often wait weeks, but it can happen the same day the application is lodged if judged to be medically urgent by a MAiD provider.

 

But a report by the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee raised concerns that safeguards were being eroded that led to questionable deaths.

 

One case study was that of a woman in her 80s referred to as 'Mrs B' who had complications after a coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

 

She went into severe decline and opted for palliative care, and was sent home from hospital with palliative support and her husband caring for her.

 

But as her condition got worse, her elderly husband struggled to care for her even with the help of visits by nurses.

 

'Mrs B reportedly expressed her desire for MAiD to her family. In response, and on the same day, her spouse contacted a referral service on her behalf,' the report read.

 

However, she told the assessor she 'wanted to withdraw her request, citing personal and religious values and beliefs' and instead wanted inpatient hospice care.

 

Her husband took her to hospital the next morning where doctors found she was stable but her husband was 'experiencing caregiver burnout'.

 

Mrs B's palliative care doctor applied for in-patient hospice care due to her husband's burnout, but it was quickly denied.

 

Her husband asked for an urgent second MAiD assessment later that day and a different assessor showed up.

 

This one judged her to be eligible, but the original one, who was contacted as per protocol, objected.

 

'This MAiD practitioner expressed concerns regarding the necessity for "urgency" and shared belief for the need for more comprehensive evaluation, the seemingly drastic change in perspective of end-of-life goals, and the possibility of coercion or undue influence (i.e., due to caregiver burnout),' the report explained.

 

Their request to meet Mrs B the next day was declined by the MAiD provider as 'the clinical circumstances necessitated an urgent provision'.

 

Instead, a third assessor was sent who agreed with the second one, and Mrs B was euthanized that evening.

 

Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee members raised concerns about how Mrs B's case was handled, in the report released by the Office of the Chief Coroner.

 

Many members 'believed the short timeline did not allow all aspects of Mrs B's social and end-of-life circumstances and care needs to be explored'.

 

These included 'the impact of being denied hospice care, additional care options, caregiver burden, consistency of the MAiD request, and divergent MAiD practitioner perspectives'.

 

'Many members brought forward concerns of possible external coercion arising from the caregiver's experience of burnout and lack of access to palliative care in an in-patient or hospice setting,' the report noted.

 

Members were also concerned that Mrs B's spouse was the main person advocating and navigating access to MAiD, and there was little documentation that she actually asked for it herself.

 

The MAiD assessments were completed with her husband present, which raised additional concerns that she felt pressured to go along with it.

 

Dr Ramona Coelho, a family physician and member of the committee, wrote a review of the report that was extremely critical of Mrs B's case.

 

'The focus should have been on ensuring adequate palliative care and support for Mrs B and her spouse,' she wrote for conservative thinktank the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

 

'Hospice and palliative care teams should have been urgently re-engaged, given the severity of the situation.

 

'Additionally, the MAiD provider expedited the process despite the first assessor's and Mrs B's concerns without fully considering the impact of her spouse's burnout.'

 

Coelho is relentlessly critical of MAiD and assisted dying in general and savaged the Hollywood film In Love last year.

 

The film, based on Amy Bloom's 2022 memoir In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss, follows a man with early-onset Alzheimer's who travels to Switzerland for an assisted suicide.

 

George Clooney starred as Bloom's husband Brian Ameche, an architect diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's in his mid-60s.

 

Coelho cared for her father Kevin Coelho, a businessman and teacher from Dorchester, Ontario, until his death from dementia in March last year.

 

She called the film 'dangerous' and 'irresponsible' and claimed it risked encouraging vulnerable people to end their lives.

 

'Turning assisted suicide into a Hollywood love story is dangerous,' Coelho told the Daily Mail in October.

 

'It romanticizes death for people who are vulnerable and afraid.

 

'If George Clooney makes death look beautiful, sexy and noble, what message does that send to people who are sick, elderly or disabled?' she said.

 

'When death is presented as an answer to suffering, it encourages suicide contagion - the opposite of what we teach in suicide prevention.'

 

Canada legalized assisted dying in 2016, initially limited to terminally ill adults whose deaths were reasonably foreseeable.

 

But the law has since expanded to include people with chronic illness, disability, and soon - pending a parliamentary review - those with certain mental health conditions.

 

Dementia cases remain controversial because of questions about capacity and consent.

 

In the US, only a dozen states and Washington, DC, allow physician-assisted death under strict conditions.

 

Other cases highlighted by the committee's report included an elderly woman known as Mrs 6F who was approved for MAiD after a single meeting in which a family member relayed her supposed wish to die.

 

Her consent on the day of her death was interpreted through hand squeezes.

 

In another, a man known as Mr A with early Alzheimer's signed a waiver years earlier.

 

After being hospitalized with delirium, he was deemed 'capable' for a brief moment - and euthanized.

MOM IN ENGLAND HELD WOMAN CAPTIVE FOR OVER 20 YEARS AND FORCED HER TO WORK AS HOUSE SLAVE

PEOPLE

 

Mom of 10 Held Woman Captive in Her Home for Over 20 Years, Forced Her to Work as 'House Slave' from Age 16: 'Unimaginable Cruelty'

By Becca Longmire  Updated on January 22, 2026 02:53PM EST

 

A woman in England has been found guilty of modern-day slavery offenses after keeping a victim captive in her home for more than 20 years, authorities have said.

 

On Wednesday, Jan. 21, Amanda Wixon, 56, was convicted by a jury at Gloucestershire Crown Court of two counts of forced or compulsory labour, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of assault, per a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) news release obtained by PEOPLE.

 

"During her more than 20-year imprisonment, the victim was repeatedly beaten while being forced to clean and sweep the floors of Wixon’s home and get her children ready for school," the release stated.

 

The victim worked as a "house slave" for Wixon and her 10 children, Sky News reported, citing the court hearing.

 

Gloucestershire Constabulary said in a separate news release posted on Facebook that "Wixon was found guilty of [modern-day] slavery [offenses]" following an investigation by the police team's Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Police released chilling images on Facebook showing the squalid conditions the victim had been made to live in.

 

The victim, who is now in her 40s and has learning difficulties, moved into Wixon's family home in 1996 after the suspect "assumed responsibility" for her, police said.

 

The victim was 16 years old when she moved into Wixon's property, per The Times.

 

"For more than two decades Wixon kept the victim in squalid conditions; locking her in the house and depriving her of food, health and dental care," the police release said, adding that Wixon had also "deprived" the victim of money.

 

"Despite claiming benefits for the victim since 2000, which were paid into Wixon's bank account, the victim was forced to live in poverty and wear hand-me-down clothes," police said.

 

The victim was "exploited" and forced to "complete work around the house under the threat of violence," the jury learned, per the police release. It added that the victim "was made to spend hours on her knees each day" doing the chores.

 

"Wixon forbade the victim from washing herself, but she was made to bathe the children and run baths for Wixon," the release stated. "She would allow the victim to have one meal a day, usually leftover food or scraps, and the victim would often hide sweet foods to eat in secret if she got hungry."

 

"Those threats of violence were accompanied by actual violence with Wixon regularly beating the victim if she did not complete the jobs around the home," police added.

 

Officers said that between January 1997 and March 2021, the victim claimed that Wixon had strangled her, as well as putting her head down the toilet and pouring cleaning fluids on her face and down her throat.

 

"Wixon also stamped on the victim and hit her in the face with a broom handle, causing her to lose her teeth. She would also forcibly shave off the victim's hair, despite the victim wanting it long," the release said.

 

It added, "On one occasion, when Wixon discovered the victim had been given a [cell] phone, she took it from her and hit her around the face with it, giving her a black eye. She then smashed the phone with a hammer."

 

On March 15, 2021, the victim finally called someone she knew for help after using another secret cell phone she'd been given, police said. The CPS added in its release that one of Wixon's sons had called police, claiming he was concerned about the victim's welfare, per the release obtained by PEOPLE.

 

"At the time of her discovery, she was malnourished, her hair had been forcibly cut, and all of her teeth had been removed," the CPS release said.

 

Police said they responded to the call and attended Wixon's address at around 10:40 p.m. local time that evening, where officers found the "frightened" and "gaunt" victim, who "smelt strongly of body [odor]."

 

She was then taken to see a dentist for the first time, while doctors "noted scarring around her mouth, thought to be due to contact with cleaning fluids, and calluses on her ankles, which were consistent with the victim's account of spending hours on her knees sweeping the floor," the release stated.

 

The dentist said the victim "would have been in severe pain at multiple points over the years due to infections and abscesses which were never treated," police noted.

 

Detective Constable Emma Jackson from Gloucestershire Police said of the case, "Wixon kept an extremely vulnerable victim captive in appalling conditions for over two decades," adding, "Instead of caring for her, as she was supposed to, she exploited her and forced her to work in domestic servitude whilst subjecting her to the most cruel and inhumane treatment," per the release.

 

"I commend the victim in this case for reaching out for help. Knowing all too well what the violent consequences would have been if she'd been caught, it was incredibly courageous of her," the officer added, confirming that the victim "is now flourishing."

 

Laura Burgess, a Senior Crown Prosecutor for the CPS, said: "Amanda Wixon subjected the victim in this case to decades of unimaginable cruelty, exploitation and control. She was denied her freedom, her dignity, and even the most basic autonomy. The progress she has made since being removed from this oppressive environment is a testament to her strength."

 

Wixon has been released on bail by the court and is due to be sentenced on March 12. She's denied the charges against her, per The Times.

 

The Gloucestershire Constabulary didn't immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for additional information.

 

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.