(LifeSiteNews) — It is a tough time to serve Jesus Christ in the Information Technology (IT) world, but the Lord provides refuge.  

As Psalm 9 proclaims:

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,

a stronghold in times of trouble.

And those who know your name put their trust in you,

for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you (Ps. 9:9-10).

Two years ago, the Lord provided that refuge, that stronghold, in the form of LifeSiteNews, and I praise God every day for his provision in my family’s and my hour of need with so great a collection of loving, caring, truthful, and devout people. God provided a Christmas miracle for a disillusioned software engineer. 

But to truly appreciate the marvelous work my Lord did in bringing me to LifeSite, I have to give you a bit of the history that brought me here. As Jesse Waitz has alluded, IT is a stronghold of the devil, and the devil does not like to give up ground! This was a long and hard lesson I had to learn through much of my youth. 

I have been attracted to science fiction and technology since my earliest memories. These recollections encompass being a 3-year-old sitting on the couch with my Dad watching Star Trek and getting my first family computer, a 80386 with a math co-processor and ‘turbo’ button, at 12. I immediately jumped into what would be my profession, and the drive to get my BSc in Computer Science. I also got involved with the Gaming ‘community’, and Game development.  

It was in my teens that I first honed my passion and began to yearn to use programming for the furtherance of the Kingdom of Heaven and the spreading of truth. (It was also when I first got involved in the pro-life movement, and I helped the local Crisis Pregnancy Center with their IT issues.) However, it was also when I got the first whispers of how dark the IT world was. It was the first time I heard the terms “furry” and “two spirit.”

University life did not make things brighter. My university assigned “guidance” councillor, who clearly had other attractions, tried to sign me to a course in “Human Sexuality” as a starting point in my education…in software engineering.  All the women who stayed in the program until graduation were hardened third wave feminists, though that is not what they were called then, and all the men were involved in drinking, fornication, and the distribution of pornography. Suffice to say, I was not even comfortable attending graduation ceremonies. Throughout all of it, though, I wanted to make software with a Christian purpose. 

After graduation, I moved West in search of that “gaming” job I dreamt of, but after a few job interviews, I realized that the major companies were not looking for ideas and passion to inspire people, but for drones to push out their agenda and to grind down until they burnt out. I shelved my gaming dreams until I could find a team of God-fearing people to help develop them and started working for a major telecommunications (telco) company. I need not name which, for they are all one monopoly at heart. It was during my few years in telco that I learned that the darkness of IT was not simply in gaming, but already entrenched in the older industries. I resigned myself to putting in my 9-5 and doing IT missions in developing nations to keep me focused. 

This proved only to make me more disillusioned, as my time in Nigeria served as the greatest temptation to sexual sin in my life, and this was at a Christian tech university. This was so dark a time and place that I developed stomach ulcers. A few short years later I married and, during the 2008 recession, my career in telco came to an end. Newly married, a child on the way, and no job amid a recession, I took work where I could.  

I did 6 months at the local community college IT department, but in that short time I was witness to all manner of lewd Life discussions. I was also “examined” by my employer for daring to hand Gospel tracts to a couple of students. It was at that point that I began to feel like Elijah on a mountain, moaning about how he was the only one left who served God. It was at this time, though, that God heard my groaning and soundly informed me that I was trying to lead Him into the career I wanted, rather than let Him lead me into the career He had for me. 

In late 2009 I was employed by a Christian man who gave me gainful employment for 10 years. There were many other Christians in his employment, and it was a refreshing reprieve from the lude and lascivious co-workers I had come to expect. During this time, my wife andI raised our children through their early years, and my daughter was enrolled in school. It was in 2015, though, that the hardest stage of my life began. 

There was much that happened in quick succession, far too much to detail here. To summarize: in 2015 I had a table at the Calgary Pop Culture & Entertainment Expo and was promptly banned from returning for “having Christian affiliations.” 2015 was also the year of GamerGate, with which I was very familiar. 2016 was when I became aware of the sexual perversion of our school system, and how they intended to abuse and harm our children. It was when I made my first enemies that actually sought to do me harm and even wish for my death. This led to a petition and court action, for which I was the principal plaintiff. It is when I discovered that a genetic disorder I have makes me a special class of citizen with extra protected “privileges,” and that the vast majority of media is dishonest and depraved. In 2017, I ran for political office and that made me more enemies, but through God’s long hand of providence it put me in touch with Campaign Life Coalition. C.L.C. welcomed me with open arms, introduced me to my first LifeSiteNews articles, and arranged for me to attend a meeting where LSN co-founder Steve Jalsevac was also in attendance. 

Since 2015 cracks had been forming in my employment, as my employer partnered with a competitor who sold products catering to homosexuals. Through contractual and cultural pressure, my employer was asked to sell those same products on his website. I was in turn asked to produce the product pages on the website for those products, and I declined to do so. My employer was understanding because there were other employees that were willing to do the work. However, this was an issue that occasionally cropped up again.  

In December 2020, after a year of devastating government Covid economic policy, my employer had to find ways to cut costs and increase revenue, even after having lain off 50% of his staff earlier in the year. He decided to outsource the IT department, and I learned I would be unemployed in 2021. Merry Christmas.  

But that is when the miracle happened. God’s providence and guidance through my life led to a perfect set of circumstances where I could take refuge and find peace, love, joy, and comfort in times considered by many to be the hardest in a century. A passion for video games led me to learn a skill that led me to discover a need in culture, which led to a friendship with those engaged in the same cultural battles, that led to an e-mail from a woman I will never forget, that enabled me to fulfill a dream from my youth to be a part of a team that brings the Truth to the world, and furthers the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Two days after I found out I would be unemployed in 2021, before I had told anyone but my wife, I got an e-mail from a contact at C.L.C.  She said she wasn’t sure if I was looking, but I was the only one she knew who had a tech background, and she thought I might be interested in a job posting at LifeSiteNews. I immediately applied for the job, had two quick job interviews, and was offered the position on December 27. Merry Christmas, indeed! I began on January 4, and these last two years, while the world has gone crazy, I have found joy, stability, and companionship in the Life Site News family. A refuge of Truth, founded on the immovable foundation of Jesus Christ, that I know I can rely on in these tumultuous times.