A mechanic who lost his vision now pastors a congregation in Saskatchewan, helping them and their community to see the light.On any given Sunday, about 140 people attend the Yorkton Victory Church in a community 200 kilometres northeast of Regina. Remarkably, their pastor Mark Lautamus can’t see any of the people he preaches to. His life has completely changed since 1990 when his vision was good but his life was in darkness.“I was actually living in Calgary selling drugs. And my partner got busted so I took off back to Saskatchewan,” Lautamus recalled to the Western Standard.Lautamus returned to the family farm near Whitewood, Sask. Although alcoholism had been an issue in his life and that of his family, that was changing. His parents had recently come to Christian faith and wanted their children to believe.“My mom and dad just got saved and they were bugging me to go to this camp meeting or whatever. They wouldn't leave me alone. And my brother was saved there. I thought they were all nuts,” Lautamus recalled. “In the back of my heart, I was obviously looking too, right? I just didn't know what I was looking for.”At the meetings, the preacher invited people to come forward to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. Some he prayed for, fell to the ground, apparently under divine power.“I thought, ‘This is a weird cult, a very strange place I'm in,’” Lautamus recalled.“And then I began to listen. And I thought, ‘Okay, God if you are real, then get someone to take me up there.’”With that, a stranger standing beside Lautamus looked at him and said, “Would you come up with me?” Lautamus agreed, despite remaining wary of the preacher.“I thought, ‘Well if he pushes me, I'm gonna push him back’ because he was knocking people down, right?” he recalled thinking.“I went up there. And he says, ‘Do you want to receive Christ today?’ And I just had this reaction: ‘Yeah, I do.’ I said a couple of words, whatever, and he touched me. He just blew on me, and down I went. And I had a complete freedom and peace that I'd never experienced before.“It was an amazing thing, right? I was completely free. And I had this peace, and there's joy in me that I never experienced before. Is this what it really is? No wonder people want to do this.”Lautamus went on with life not knowing how to build on his encounter. He worked as a mechanic and fell back into a worldly lifestyle. But life changed again when he began dating his future wife JoAnn. She embraced Christian faith after they both encountered God at a banquet hosted by the Full Gospel Businessmen.The couple married, and moved to Yorkton. When they wed, they already knew Mark had retinitis pigmentosis, a condition where the rods and cones of the eyes progressively deteriorate.“It's like a rope beginning to fray, so you start losing your peripheral, your light and your dark, your distance. So, 28 years ago, I drove us to our wedding. And then I just noticed one day that I didn't see some kids going on the side of the street. So then I thought, ‘Well I'd better not drive no more,’” Lautamus explained.“It was just getting harder to be around the shop. It would take longer for my eyes to adjust to the light and dark. Once my peripheral was starting to go, I would put a tool down, I couldn't find it. I would reach down to pick up my impact [wrench] and slam my head into the jack handle or run into a hoist.”Lautamus went into carpentry where the bright light of outdoors and a large-print tape measure allowed him to use his remaining sight. In time, even these jobs became too much. He went on a disability pension and a government worker was assigned to help his rehabilitation.“I said, ‘Well, all I really want to do is go into the ministry and be a pastor.’ And [the case worker] said, ‘Well, that's a dumb idea. Think about it for a little while, take three months and then make a better decision.’ He said, ‘You'll starve if you can't support yourself in a ministry,’” Lautamus recalled.“Two weeks later a guy phoned me up and said, ‘Hey, I'm just getting your caseload. I think your idea of going into the ministry is great. I'd love to help you succeed.’”With government help, Lautamus took distance learning courses from Briercrest College. He also approached local Apostolic Church of Pentecost pastor Dave Campbell to be mentored.“He called me a diamond in the rough because when he looked at me, I had longer hair, I had a cigarette pack in my pocket. I said, ‘I want to go into ministry.’ He said, ‘Well you can't go pray for people with lung cancer if you've got cigarettes. Get rid of that and make sure you're serious about it, then I'll help you,’” Lautamus recalled.Lautamus interned under Campbell doing youth ministry and followed him to minister for a year in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. He later had stints pastoring in Punnichy, Churchbridge, and Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan. However, his wife’s work at a grain terminal and their inability to sell their Yorkton home kept bringing them back to the community of 16,000.Eventually Lautamus’ brother put him in touch with Victory Churches who sponsored Lautamus to plant the church. After renting rooms in a former Travelodge, the Yorkton Victory Church leased, then bought a building. Six years ago it moved into its current and larger space.The church ran a daycare for years and continues to run the Serendipity Thrift Store. When Lautamus isn’t there, he visits people in their homes with the help of someone from his congregation. On Wednesday mornings, he leads the city in prayer on the local Christian radio station.Shannon Dudley and her husband Scott moved from Calgary to Yorkton in 2007 and joined Victory Church after attending one of their BBQs in a park. Dudley said her respect for the pastor and his wife have grown through watching them handle adversity and parenting three children.“He's fearless and he's passionate and he's not afraid to go into battle. I would follow this couple anywhere. And he's a visionary like I've never seen, and he loves the Lord like, holy man. Yeah. I have the most respect for these two,” she said. “I’ve just seen them walk through a lot of spiritual battles and they've stayed strong and never wavered.”Lautamus approaches life with good humour. In Sunday services, he invites children to tell a joke.“They love it. They’re excited about it,” he said. “Laughter is good. It really breaks the ice.”When asked for an example, Lautaumus said, “A guy goes into Walmart and he stops at the front door with his seeing eye dog, grabs the dog by the tail and starts swinging it around. And the manager comes running. He says, ‘Sir, what are you doing? Is there something wrong?’ He said, ‘No, I'm having a look around.’”Lautamus preaches most Sundays. When he gets inspiration for sermon topics, he uses Alexa to record his verbal comments and goes from there. He also uses the Victor Reader Stream, a handheld media player for the visually impaired used to access podcasts or read aloud books and news articles. He says he has never lost faith he will one day God will let him see again.“That desire has never left me. I just know that He's going to do it. It's just His timing has got to be right,” he said.Sight or no sight, Dudley still marvels at what the pastor can do.“It's amazing. That's why we forget he's blind sometimes. We were doing an addition on our house and he came and did some electrical for us. I remember our van was broken one day and he's like, ‘Just start it up,’ and he sticks his hand into a moving engine. He's moving, fixing things, he's using a shop saw. Nothing stops him,” she says.Lautamus says his life proves the ability to overcome.“Nothing is impossible. If you hate where you are, you can get to wherever you want to go,” he said..This is what the Western Standard is up againstThe Trudeau government is funding lies and propaganda by directly subsidizing the mainstream media. They do this to entrench the powerful Eastern, woke and corrupt interests that dominate the political, social and economic institutions in Canada. Federal authorities are constantly trying to censor us and stop us from publishing the stories that they don’t want you to read. Ottawa may weaponize our taxes and police against us, but we’ve got a powerful ally on our side.You. Free men, and free women. We need you to stand with us and become a member of the Western Standard. Here’s what you will get for your membership:Unlimited access to all articles from the Western Standard, Alberta Report, West Coast Standard, and Saskatchewan Standard, with no paywall. Our daily newsletter delivered to your inbox. .Access to exclusive Member-only WS events.Keep the West’s leading independent media voice strong and free.If you can, please support us with a monthly or annual membership. It takes just a moment to set up, and you will be making a big impact on keeping one the last independent media outlets in Canada free from Ottawa’s corrupting influence.
A mechanic who lost his vision now pastors a congregation in Saskatchewan, helping them and their community to see the light.On any given Sunday, about 140 people attend the Yorkton Victory Church in a community 200 kilometres northeast of Regina. Remarkably, their pastor Mark Lautamus can’t see any of the people he preaches to. His life has completely changed since 1990 when his vision was good but his life was in darkness.“I was actually living in Calgary selling drugs. And my partner got busted so I took off back to Saskatchewan,” Lautamus recalled to the Western Standard.Lautamus returned to the family farm near Whitewood, Sask. Although alcoholism had been an issue in his life and that of his family, that was changing. His parents had recently come to Christian faith and wanted their children to believe.“My mom and dad just got saved and they were bugging me to go to this camp meeting or whatever. They wouldn't leave me alone. And my brother was saved there. I thought they were all nuts,” Lautamus recalled. “In the back of my heart, I was obviously looking too, right? I just didn't know what I was looking for.”At the meetings, the preacher invited people to come forward to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. Some he prayed for, fell to the ground, apparently under divine power.“I thought, ‘This is a weird cult, a very strange place I'm in,’” Lautamus recalled.“And then I began to listen. And I thought, ‘Okay, God if you are real, then get someone to take me up there.’”With that, a stranger standing beside Lautamus looked at him and said, “Would you come up with me?” Lautamus agreed, despite remaining wary of the preacher.“I thought, ‘Well if he pushes me, I'm gonna push him back’ because he was knocking people down, right?” he recalled thinking.“I went up there. And he says, ‘Do you want to receive Christ today?’ And I just had this reaction: ‘Yeah, I do.’ I said a couple of words, whatever, and he touched me. He just blew on me, and down I went. And I had a complete freedom and peace that I'd never experienced before.“It was an amazing thing, right? I was completely free. And I had this peace, and there's joy in me that I never experienced before. Is this what it really is? No wonder people want to do this.”Lautamus went on with life not knowing how to build on his encounter. He worked as a mechanic and fell back into a worldly lifestyle. But life changed again when he began dating his future wife JoAnn. She embraced Christian faith after they both encountered God at a banquet hosted by the Full Gospel Businessmen.The couple married, and moved to Yorkton. When they wed, they already knew Mark had retinitis pigmentosis, a condition where the rods and cones of the eyes progressively deteriorate.“It's like a rope beginning to fray, so you start losing your peripheral, your light and your dark, your distance. So, 28 years ago, I drove us to our wedding. And then I just noticed one day that I didn't see some kids going on the side of the street. So then I thought, ‘Well I'd better not drive no more,’” Lautamus explained.“It was just getting harder to be around the shop. It would take longer for my eyes to adjust to the light and dark. Once my peripheral was starting to go, I would put a tool down, I couldn't find it. I would reach down to pick up my impact [wrench] and slam my head into the jack handle or run into a hoist.”Lautamus went into carpentry where the bright light of outdoors and a large-print tape measure allowed him to use his remaining sight. In time, even these jobs became too much. He went on a disability pension and a government worker was assigned to help his rehabilitation.“I said, ‘Well, all I really want to do is go into the ministry and be a pastor.’ And [the case worker] said, ‘Well, that's a dumb idea. Think about it for a little while, take three months and then make a better decision.’ He said, ‘You'll starve if you can't support yourself in a ministry,’” Lautamus recalled.“Two weeks later a guy phoned me up and said, ‘Hey, I'm just getting your caseload. I think your idea of going into the ministry is great. I'd love to help you succeed.’”With government help, Lautamus took distance learning courses from Briercrest College. He also approached local Apostolic Church of Pentecost pastor Dave Campbell to be mentored.“He called me a diamond in the rough because when he looked at me, I had longer hair, I had a cigarette pack in my pocket. I said, ‘I want to go into ministry.’ He said, ‘Well you can't go pray for people with lung cancer if you've got cigarettes. Get rid of that and make sure you're serious about it, then I'll help you,’” Lautamus recalled.Lautamus interned under Campbell doing youth ministry and followed him to minister for a year in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. He later had stints pastoring in Punnichy, Churchbridge, and Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan. However, his wife’s work at a grain terminal and their inability to sell their Yorkton home kept bringing them back to the community of 16,000.Eventually Lautamus’ brother put him in touch with Victory Churches who sponsored Lautamus to plant the church. After renting rooms in a former Travelodge, the Yorkton Victory Church leased, then bought a building. Six years ago it moved into its current and larger space.The church ran a daycare for years and continues to run the Serendipity Thrift Store. When Lautamus isn’t there, he visits people in their homes with the help of someone from his congregation. On Wednesday mornings, he leads the city in prayer on the local Christian radio station.Shannon Dudley and her husband Scott moved from Calgary to Yorkton in 2007 and joined Victory Church after attending one of their BBQs in a park. Dudley said her respect for the pastor and his wife have grown through watching them handle adversity and parenting three children.“He's fearless and he's passionate and he's not afraid to go into battle. I would follow this couple anywhere. And he's a visionary like I've never seen, and he loves the Lord like, holy man. Yeah. I have the most respect for these two,” she said. “I’ve just seen them walk through a lot of spiritual battles and they've stayed strong and never wavered.”Lautamus approaches life with good humour. In Sunday services, he invites children to tell a joke.“They love it. They’re excited about it,” he said. “Laughter is good. It really breaks the ice.”When asked for an example, Lautaumus said, “A guy goes into Walmart and he stops at the front door with his seeing eye dog, grabs the dog by the tail and starts swinging it around. And the manager comes running. He says, ‘Sir, what are you doing? Is there something wrong?’ He said, ‘No, I'm having a look around.’”Lautamus preaches most Sundays. When he gets inspiration for sermon topics, he uses Alexa to record his verbal comments and goes from there. He also uses the Victor Reader Stream, a handheld media player for the visually impaired used to access podcasts or read aloud books and news articles. He says he has never lost faith he will one day God will let him see again.“That desire has never left me. I just know that He's going to do it. It's just His timing has got to be right,” he said.Sight or no sight, Dudley still marvels at what the pastor can do.“It's amazing. That's why we forget he's blind sometimes. We were doing an addition on our house and he came and did some electrical for us. I remember our van was broken one day and he's like, ‘Just start it up,’ and he sticks his hand into a moving engine. He's moving, fixing things, he's using a shop saw. Nothing stops him,” she says.Lautamus says his life proves the ability to overcome.“Nothing is impossible. If you hate where you are, you can get to wherever you want to go,” he said..This is what the Western Standard is up againstThe Trudeau government is funding lies and propaganda by directly subsidizing the mainstream media. They do this to entrench the powerful Eastern, woke and corrupt interests that dominate the political, social and economic institutions in Canada. Federal authorities are constantly trying to censor us and stop us from publishing the stories that they don’t want you to read. Ottawa may weaponize our taxes and police against us, but we’ve got a powerful ally on our side.You. Free men, and free women. We need you to stand with us and become a member of the Western Standard. Here’s what you will get for your membership:Unlimited access to all articles from the Western Standard, Alberta Report, West Coast Standard, and Saskatchewan Standard, with no paywall. Our daily newsletter delivered to your inbox. .Access to exclusive Member-only WS events.Keep the West’s leading independent media voice strong and free.If you can, please support us with a monthly or annual membership. It takes just a moment to set up, and you will be making a big impact on keeping one the last independent media outlets in Canada free from Ottawa’s corrupting influence.
