Testimonials – Calvary Pentecostal Church Kenora

Meet Adam Martens

Meet Adam Martens Adam Martens is the staff intern at Calvary Pentecostal Church. This is a small part of his story — just the chapter God has him in right now. It is the story of a man who had a good life and still felt far from God, who asked what it would look like if God were his only boss, and who found that God was already chasing him. It is about learning to fear the Lord, opening the Bible again, and saying yes to ministry training here in Kenora.

In January of 2025, my wife and I took a hard look at how we were living. We had a house on a beautiful property in Kakabeka Falls and two good incomes, but we were living larger than we needed. Both of us worked shift work, so we were almost never in church on Sunday morning. We felt distant from Christian community, and that ache just kept growing. Before I worked at Rogers as a technician, I was a chef for many years. In both careers I always pushed myself to be the very best at whatever I was doing. But some of my favourite days at Rogers were the rare times a customer opened the door for me to talk about Jesus. I had to be careful. It was against company policy. Whenever I could steer the conversation toward Him, my heart came alive. I would walk back to my truck thinking, “This is what I was made for.” The question kept coming to mind: What if God was my only boss? What if I worked just as hard to please Him as I ever did for any manager? That thought got me excited.

My wife and I started praying and dreaming together. We felt the Lord leading us to simplify our lives, sell the house, free up time and money, and go wherever He could use us most. I was not thinking of Kenora at the time. Pretty soon we had the idea of starting a soup kitchen right here in Kenora, taking hot meals straight to people on the streets so we could show God’s love and get a foot in the door to talk about Jesus. That idea was born out of years in the kitchen. I knew how to feed people well. I wrote a full proposal — ten to fifteen pages — and brought it to Pastor Mike to see if we could use the church kitchen and mailing address. I spent a good amount of time writing and editing it. I even said to my wife, “There is no way God made me do all this work for nothing.” Pastor Mike and the board prayerfully looked at it. In the end we were told the kitchen is only a warming kitchen, not set up for full cooking.

I felt oddly at peace. I knew God was going to do something regardless. That proposal also showed me something I never knew about myself. I am pretty good at writing. It is not something I had ever really practiced. I was never a great student in high school, but that was because I did not care. God showed me a gift I did not even realize I had. I did not always feel this way. I grew up in a Christian family and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour when I was a kid. I attended church every Sunday, kids club, Bible studies, youth group, youth conventions. You name it, I was there. But as an adult I started working almost every Sunday and drifted further and further away. I fed myself excuses until my faith withered like an unwatered plant. I became severely depressed. Some days the only reason I got out of bed was to bring home a paycheck. Every time I sinned, the shame crushed me so hard I rarely prayed anymore, and when I did it was mostly when I needed or wanted something. My heart had slowly hardened.

Then one night I was scrolling on Facebook and a random high-schooler I did not even know posted a video. They said, “I never post stuff like this, but the Lord told me to,” and started reading Proverbs 1:23-33. The second they started to speak, I could no longer see their face and their voice had authority. It was God Himself lecturing me. My whole body started shaking. It was not fear like I was terrified of God. It was a reverent fear of how powerful He is, of the love He has for me, and of the consequences of sin. It all just made sense in that moment. I truly feared God, and the moment you begin to fear God is the moment you begin to grow in wisdom. When the video ended I opened my Bible and read the whole book of Proverbs that night. From that day on I started reading my Bible faithfully again and praying with gratitude, wanting nothing more than to know Jesus. I have not wavered since. For years I had been asking God to give me wisdom and to break my heart for what breaks His. He did. He has been tearing down every wall I built up. The depression is now completely gone. I can only thank Jesus for that.

A couple of things I have learned recently about God: He chases after you. If you do not know Him, He is going to chase after you, because He loves you that much. And we often ignore God’s voice more than we realize. For years I had my fingers in my ears saying, “God, why won’t You speak to me?” when I was not reading my Bible.

Philippians 4:6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.