PERSONAL TESTIMONIES
By Jim and Barbara Wilson • 2026
Jim's Story
I was born in Windsor, NS—the second oldest with 4 brothers and 2 sisters. We were raised on a dairy-orchard farm in a tiny community called Mount Denson at the eastern tip of the Annapolis Valley. My Dad couldn’t read very much, as he only had a Grade 3 education. My Mom had a Grade 5 education and money was scarce, so there were never any books in our house… even children’s books or newspapers.
I had a relatively happy childhood and we always had enough to eat because we grew our food ourselves. Our house didn’t have indoor plumbing and I was always self-conscious about going to school in case there were any barn odours on my clothes from doing my barn chores in the morning. I always loved plants and started my own greenhouse to grow cabbage transplants when I was 10 years old.
Our family considered themselves to be Anglican, but we only attended church twice a year… at Christmas and at Easter, and I never owned or even read a Bible. I always wondered what was going on inside of plants which led me to wonder where everything came from. Is there a God or isn't there? I was determined to find out.
So that quest to find out if God really existed carried on through all my studies… first at NSAC in Truro and then at Macdonald College of McGill University. When I finished my B.Sc. degree, I had to make a choice whether to get a job (job offers were plentiful in those days) or to continue my studies. I had majored in Horticulture, so I decided to study for my M.Sc. degree in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
I was still looking for an answer to the question: “Is there a God or isn’t there?” All the while God was guiding me in my choice of school because after I arrived at Cornell, He quickly arranged events so that I was invited by my roommate to attend a small church where the pastor was also a Space Physics professor at Cornell. His congregation was made up of mostly science students and he stressed that there was no conflict between true science and true religion. Before many months had passed, in April 1966, one Saturday night I had an experience reading Genesis about Moses and the burning bush where Moses said to God, “Who shall I say sent me?” God said to Moses, “I AM”. I asked God out loud, “You are?” and He said “I AM”. At that moment, I had the answer I was looking for and I was overcome with emotion. The next day at church I went forward and received Christ as my Saviour and was baptized that afternoon.
Barbara's Story
I was born and brought up in Moncton and Sackville, NB, with two older brothers. I was “a city girl” and even though money was scarce, unlike Jim we had indoor plumbing and I always had anything I needed for school. My parents also found the funds to pay for piano lessons for me from age 5–16.
I was brought up in a Christian home (my Mom was Baptist and my Dad was Anglican) and our family were regular church-goers. When I was one month short of my 10th birthday, I received Christ as my Savior as the invitation was given at a Sunday School meeting in Highfield Baptist Church in Moncton. I was baptized when I was 12.
I studied for my B.Sc. degree at Macdonald College of McGill University. For 2 years Jim and I ate at the same Dining Hall, but we were moving in different circles and never met each other. I was one year behind Jim so by the time I started my M.Sc. (Nutritional Science) studies at Cornell, Jim had already become a Christian. Within three days of my arrival in September 1966, God brought us together at an ICY (International Christian Youth) meeting. It was “love at first sight” for both of us and we were engaged 19 days later and married in August 1967. This August we will be celebrating our 59th Wedding Anniversary.
God has blessed us with three sons. Our eldest is Daniel, who is a Molecular Biologist with his own business which he co-founded, called Pegasus Biotech Inc., located in Charlottetown. Our second son, Stephen, is a Mobile Mortgage Specialist with RBC. He lives in Tecumseh, near Windsor, ON. Our third son, Andrew, works for Google as a Software Engineer and lives in Mountain View, California. We have two grandchildren and one step-grandchild.
After university, our first jobs in 1967 were with the NB Government in Fredericton. In 1974 we moved to NS where Jim had taken a job as Production Manager of Avon Valley Greenhouses in Falmouth, NS. In 1977 we started our own greenhouse operation and built a 1.2 acre range of 7 gutter-connected greenhouses, growing primarily tomatoes and English cucumbers. Barbara was in charge of Marketing and Administration (we had around 20 employees) and Jim was responsible for Production. We had many trials and tribulations. One of the largest occurred in January 1981 when an historic snow storm caused our entire greenhouse range to collapse. Immediately the bank canceled our operating loan which would have financed the growing of our crop until harvesting. Also we had to refinance our loan with the NSFLB to help us in the reconstruction of the greenhouse.
In 1986 while Jim was mixing and pouring cement for the front walk of our house, he was run over by our 35 HP tractor, causing severe injuries he still is affected by today. We operated the business for 20 years until it became so unprofitable that we could no longer continue. Financially we lost everything. We started a second career as Financial Advisors and Life Insurance brokers which provided for us until we retired.
Experiencing the Holy Spirit & Founding Healing Presence
Meanwhile many things were happening to us in our spiritual lives. On October 28, 1986, when Jim was run over by the tractor, I ran out, saw Jim on the ground and the tractor heading down the hill toward the river and he yelled, “Forget the tractor, I think I’m going to die! Jesus, help me!”
Jim: At that moment, the Holy Spirit filled me. It’s hard to put what happened into words, but I felt warmth and joy fill my body and I didn’t care any longer whether I lived or died… it was ok. I knew what had happened was an experience with the Holy Spirit, so the next day I asked Barbara to go to the Christian bookstore and purchase whatever books she could find on the Holy Spirit. She did just that. Also a friend gave us a tape by a group called Silverwind called “By His Spirit”. Over the next several weeks of recovery from surgery for a crushed pelvis in the hospital in Halifax, we wore that tape out and had to get another copy. Oh, how technology has changed… for the better!
In the past 30 years God has graciously allowed us to grow deeper in our intimacy with Him, and He has also allowed us to experience the Father’s love. In 1995 we started a House Church in our home which we pastored for five years until we lost our home to the NSFLB and moved to an apartment in Halifax. Throughout all this turmoil, God was arranging things to allow us to move to PEI and start the Retreat ministry. In 1994, in a miraculous fashion, our ministry came into possession of the former IVCF property, called the Atlantic Pioneer Camp. After several years of coming to PEI only for an Annual Retreat Weekend in the long weekend at the end of July, God “spoke” to us that it was time to move to PEI permanently, which we did in 2001. We registered the Healing Presence Retreat Centre in 1999 and began renovating the Hope cabin and then a space in the Main Building for us to live.
The story of how our labyrinth came into being is found on our website, called www.healingpresence.org.