In this week's episode, we explore Mike Zenker's journey of growing up while being physically and verbally abused at home and sexually abused by a church clergy to becoming a Pastor and Chaplain, teaching what it really means to forgive. 

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Mike Zenker grew up in a German Baptist home in Southern Ontario. His parents were strict and enforced corporal punishment as a means to instill acceptable behaviour. The relationship with his

mother was a very difficult one as she played the ‘nice person’ in public, but behind the closed doors at home, she was extremely angry, physically violent and verbally abusive to her family. This led to Mike eagerly getting a newspaper route where he didn’t need to be at home as much. One of the Priests at a local Catholic Church on his route befriended Mike where things only continued to spiral downhill. The sexual abuse that followed lasted three years.

Years later Mike became a Minister and found a calling in ‘helping others discover faith’. Fast-forwarding to age 45, Mike was forced to face his emotional demons and began a three-year process of counselling and filing a lawsuit against the Catholic church for their part in not protecting the community from a known abuser.

Today, Mike has learned much from the journey of self-discovery and the journey of what it means to really forgive the pain from the past. His story is filled with roadblocks, forced storms to walk through, and finally, what were thought to be ashes of pain from the past, have now become the fertilizer for a more ‘hope-filled’ perspective of the future.

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You can find out more about Mike and his projects at...

www.hopefellowshipycc.com

www.stillgrowingingrace.ca

https://mikezenker.blog

http://www.youtube.com/c/MichaelZenker (Archive of all videos)

Facebook pages

https://www.facebook.com/growingingraceministriescanada

https://www.facebook.com/hopefellowshipycc

https://www.facebook.com/stillgrowingingrace

Emotion Wheel: https://bit.ly/3nc4tPr