Ingrid Benson’s Testimony
(nee Nicolay)

I was born in Belgium in 1974, the firstborn of a Catholic family with three children. During the first years of my childhood, our involvement in the church was limited to going to church regularly on Sunday mornings. When I was about ten years old, my mother started to teach catechism and to be more involved in the parish; I helped her teaching as soon as I was done with my three years of catechism.

Teenagers have a tendency to believe they know everything better than anybody else, but I took it to the extreme. Miss Know-it-all at its worst. My younger brother used to say: “Rule #1: Ingrid is always right; Rule #2: If Ingrid happened to be wrong, refer to rule #1.” I was very proud of who I was, of my education, and considered my parents and everybody else as inferiors.

During my first year at university, I met Pascal, my future husband. Pascal was seven years older than me and I admired his philosophical reasoning. We started to see each other more and more often and things went very fast. Only a few weeks after meeting, we were talking about engagement and marriage the following year. With good reasons, given my young age and Pascal’s relative instability (at 26 years old, he still did not know what to do with his life), my parents tried to slow things down. Pascal and I were not very receptive or willing to take their advice. Very soon, the situation and the relationship between my parents and me went bad. As far as I can remember, Pascal was more reasonable than me in all of this. One day, after a particularly strong argument between my parents and me, my mother told me that if I did not like it and if I refused to obey them, I was free to leave. Which I did, in my stubbornness. At that time, my parents said something that I found to be old fashioned: “You are our daughter and we are giving you to whomever we please.” I did not know it yet, but those words were from God and according to His Word:

“Nevertheless he that stands steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but has power over his own will, and has so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, does well. So then he that gives her in marriage does well; but he that gives her not in marriage does better” (1 Corinthians 7:37-38).

And:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour your father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:1-3).

I went to live with Pascal, who, at that time, was working and providing for himself quite comfortably. As soon as we started living together, things slowly went bad. We had broken the laws of God and were going to suffer consequences. My parents opposed our wedding and took us to court twice, pretending that Pascal had me caught in a cult. Our financial situation went down, to the point that we were deep in debts and had to go live with my in-laws to reduce our expenses. Pascal started to suffer from a depression from which he never recovered. Two years later, my first pregnancy turned into cancer (I was 22 years old at the time and statistics show that my chances of having that cancer at that age were zero). Pascal did not find his satisfaction in our marriage and was trying to find it in the use of pornography. He founded an insurance brokerage company with someone who took advantage of him financially and took him to the prostitutes. The wrath of God was on us.

At the same time the Lord was putting us through these things to teach us what happens when one lives independently of Him or in opposition to Him, He was also providing for our needs. He gave Pascal jobs with a salary allowing us to slowly reimburse our debts and for me to go back to school. He provided a doctor who healed me from my cancer.

In 1998, we decided to get married in the church and Pascal suggested we contact my parents for that occasion. I wrote a letter to my parents, telling them that I had just had cancer, that time was short, and blamed them for the broken contacts between us. As a result of that letter we had contact again and we invited them to our wedding, which they attended.

Shortly after that, I was pregnant and gave birth to twin girls. With this double birth, the Lord gave back the child we had lost because of our disobedience.

Although we now had a relationship with my parents, there was always an underlying tension between them and Pascal and very often I felt as if I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Since 1993, Pascal and I had wanted to immigrate to Canada. Our debts and the birth of the children had slowed things down, but we finally left Belgium to come to Canada in March 2000.

Pascal took accounting at the University of Lethbridge and I stayed home to take care of the children. In our search for organic food, we found an organic farm near us: Harvest Haven Market Farm. Pascal worked there occasionally. As he was working there with Mark Benson, he talked to Mark about all the problems we had, be it financial or familial. That is when Mark suggested Pascal meet with Victor. After they had met, the Lord showed Victor that all the problems we had were the consequences of me leaving my parents and Pascal taking me in. At first, I had a very hard time accepting that idea and found it ridiculous. I kept telling Victor how wrong my parents had been in everything they did against us. I went on like that until Mark told me, “It may very well be that your parents did all that, but we are dealing with what you have done.” It is at that time that the Lord started opening my eyes. We had to repent, repair the evil we had done, and apologize to my parents. They were going to come to visit us soon and we wanted to take that opportunity to do it.

The visit was very tense and we ended up not apologizing, as we should have.

As we were telling Victor about our frustration, he asked how my parents reacted to our apology. We told him that we had not apologized yet, because of everything that had happened during their visit. Victor then told us that when the Lord requires something, we have to do it right away. We then wrote them a letter of apology.

Since we had been in Canada, Pascal wanted to have a more active spiritual life and we joined the Evangelical Free Church in Lethbridge. We also had a few spiritual conversations with Victor, but I have to say that at that time, more than Pascal, I found his ideas, which I later discovered to be the truth, rather disturbing and my own beliefs more comfortable.

One day, Victor and Paul visited us and Victor offered to give us our food for free if we did not have enough money to eat once our bills were paid. I remember feeling incredibly thankful for that offer, because now I had the assurance that my children would not be hungry if things did not go well for us.

During that visit, Victor quoted the following verses from the Scriptures:

“He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that takes not his cross, and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me. He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:37-39).

Strangely, and without knowing why, my heart hurt and I was torn upon hearing these words. In the following days, I wanted to show my thankfulness to Victor for his offer and decided to translate his writings into French.

After several conversations we had with Victor after that, we were convicted of the fact that some things that we were doing were contrary to God and we stopped doing them: wearing a cross pendant, celebrating Christmas and Easter, baptizing new-born children, eating pork and shellfish. I was pregnant again, and our decision to not have the child I was bearing baptized was particularly disturbing to my mother, in spite of the Bible clearly showing that this practice is anti-scriptural. Pascal and I had also started to read the Bible every day, sharing and talking about some verses.

In his spiritual quest, Pascal had started to read a book by Paulette Boudet, This Fight is Not Yours…But Mine. In her book, Paulette Boudet talks about her religious experience and, in particular, describes charismatic meetings during which people get in a trance or in a state of prostration after hands have been laid on them and they allegedly receive the Holy Spirit. Pascal gave me the book to read and my instinct was telling me that what was in the book was not good. Paulette Boudet also claims that since hands have been laid on her, she has a relationship with God. Pascal was seduced by this idea, which ignored the real and necessary steps to a relationship with God that he was not willing to face.

On December 23, 2000, without telling me why, Pascal told me that he wanted to go to the farm. Since Saturday was their day of rest, I suggested he call them before going to see if he would be welcome, which he refused to do.

That afternoon, after Pascal had been gone for some time, I had a terrible stomachache caused by the pregnancy and had to call Pascal back to look after the children. As I was vomiting bile mixed with blood, I cried out to God, asking that this illness would not happen again.

When Pascal came back he seemed to be upset about something. He had gone to the farm so that hands could be laid on him just as Paulette Boudet describes in her book. Nobody was free to lay hands on him as God had showed them that there were things in his life he needed to repent of. I told him that he could not force Victor or anybody to pray for him. Pascal was still upset and, later on that day, he went down to his office and decided to pray alone to receive the Holy Spirit. At the end of his prayer, he came back up and had his first heart problem on the stairs. He was describing that his heart would stop beating for several seconds and that he felt as if he was pushed towards the ground. I witnessed several of those episodes and saw what he described happen before my eyes.

Starting then, things began to really go down for us: not only regarding Pascal’s health, but also everything around us. To mention just a few examples: Pascal’s car broke down at 6:00 AM on a remote road in the middle of the winter (-30C°). Nobody wanted to stop to help him. In such a cold weather, without anything to keep you warm, such a situation can easily have serious consequences. Several of our appliances broke down, necessitating repairs that our already tight budget could not afford. The twins got sick and we had to use antibiotics. Pascal got an eye infection, etc, etc.

Pascal’s temper also changed. He hardened himself against Victor, saying that he was doing his grocery shopping on Saturday and that if Victor was going to close his store to keep the Sabbath, he was not going to change his shopping habits for Victor. In so doing, he was rejecting the offer Victor had made us to give us our food for free if we did not have enough money left after we paid our bills. I remember being in a grocery store and feeling awfully guilty because shopping there was as if we were trampling on an offer that was a provision from God. Pascal also went back on the decision we had made not to celebrate Christmas that year.

During that time, Pascal and I had several conversations about Paulette Boudet’s book and the fact that he had supposedly received the Spirit. During one of these talks, Pascal tried to convince me to do the same. Something in me was very opposed to it and I refused. I see today how the Lord was keeping me.

One day, on the way back from the E-Free Church, Pascal decided that because of the generosity Victor had shown towards us, maybe he owed them an explanation as to what had happened with him. We stopped by the farm and Pascal saw Victor and Lois there. Lois commented on the fact that Pascal was in his Sunday’s best and Pascal explained that we were coming back from church. Lois then told him that going to church was not where it was at when it came to following the Lord. Pascal then told Victor that he wanted to share what had happened with him and Victor decided to visit us that afternoon at our place. As Pascal was leaving the house, shortly followed by Victor, Lois had words from the Lord that she spoke to Victor, saying, “The time is short.”

Pascal wanted to take advantage of the children’s nap to prepare for Victor’s visit and search the Scriptures. They refused to sleep and, pretty soon, Pascal was very angry with them, acting towards them in an irrational and disturbing manner. I told him that if receiving the Spirit of God had such consequences on his behaviour, I would never want it to happen to me.

Victor arrived with Mark, and Pascal started by explaining what he thought of the fact that Victor had refused to pray for him to receive the Spirit and that he had decided to pray alone to receive. Victor told Pascal that he didn’t believe he had received the Spirit, and said that we should all pray and ask God to judge the matter and show what had happened. During the prayer, God told Victor that Pascal had not received the Holy Spirit, but an evil spirit, because Pascal, instead of listening to what God had said, which would have led him to repentance, had chosen to do his own thing.

Before sharing that with us, Victor turned to me and said, “Ingrid, I am sorry.” Victor and Mark tried to warn Pascal, telling him that if he did not repent, things would not go well for us. They were not aware of all the things that had gone wrong since Pascal had prayed for himself, but I was, and what God had just shown us explained a lot of things. After Victor left, Pascal was very disturbed. He had tears in his eyes and asked me what I thought. I have always had a hard time expressing honestly what I think. In that case, however, I was given to silence the fear I had in my stomach and told Pascal that he should consider very carefully what had just been told him. Pascal got very angry with me, saying that, as his wife, I should be supportive of him and not of Victor against him. Of course, I did not see it that way, but told him only what I knew in my heart to be true.

Pascal’s heart problems did not improve and he was now complaining of having them almost every day. The doctors put him under a device to monitor his heartbeats for 24 hours in an attempt to diagnose what he was suffering from. The device recorded the problem he was describing, but they could never tell what the cause was.

On Monday, February 12th, Pascal got up at 6:00 to go to work for the week and, shortly afterwards, I heard a noise that I thought was coming from outside. It was like a very loud and strange snoring. Still half asleep, I thought it was coming from a wild animal. Worried, I went to find Pascal because I wanted him to check on this before he left for the week. When I got into the bathroom, I found him sprawled against the bathtub and realized that the noise was coming from him. I called the ambulance in a state of frantic panic. When I arrived at the hospital, I was still hoping that they had succeeded in bringing him back to life, but it was the news of his death that was waiting for me.

I was in shock and could not believe what had just happened. I would have liked to be able to wake up like from a nightmare. On top of the shock of losing my husband, I also had to face the practical consequences of his passing. I was alone in a foreign country, not speaking English very well, with two young children, seven months pregnant and without any money or income. I did not even have the first cent to pay for the funeral.

When I got home from the hospital, I called our families to tell them the news. Pascal’s parents decided to come earlier than planned to attend the funeral. They came with Fabienne, Pascal’s sister. I went to live at a friend’s place in the meantime. Those friends were Mormons and they tried to get me to join their church; they even invited one of their bishops to lay hands on me, which I refused, as the Lord was keeping me.

The first night, I could not sleep, and, still under the influence of the esoteric books I used to read, almost expected Pascal to appear to me in the stars, to tell me what to do. The following day, something that I could not resist pushed me to call Victor. I had to tell them about Pascal’s passing and I wanted to ask him a few questions regarding some things he had said during our last visit. Something in me knew that he could give me the answers about what had just happened.

At first, Victor was a little reluctant in talking to me, asking why I was calling them. His reaction was understandable, since I too had not been in touch with him. I asked him why Pascal had passed away, if it was because he had received an evil spirit and was a fulfillment of what the Lord had said when He said that things would not go well if Pascal did not repent. Victor said that it was. At that time, the gravity of the situation hit me. I realized that God was real, that we could not believe in Him at our convenience or believe whatever we wanted. I have to say that I was scared and that for several months I was expecting to end in the same way Pascal did. I was living with a Damocles sword hanging over my head. It was on my part a complete and horrible denial of the Lord’s justness and mercy, a leftover of the influence of my Catholic upbringing.

Pascal’s body was sent to Calgary for an autopsy. The report of the medical examiner stated that Pascal was dead of a cardiac arrhythmia of unknown origin. All the tests the doctors had done on his body after his death showed that, physically speaking, his heart was working perfectly. The family doctor even went as far as to tell me that the cause of Pascal’s death was spiritual and not physical.

I mentioned earlier the hard situation Pascal’s death had put me in. The Lord provided for my needs in the smallest details, without me having to do anything. He caused people to be generous with me and they put money in a bank account they had opened in my name. Soon, I had enough money to live and even to reimburse our debts. The government paid for the funeral. One month before his passing, Pascal had put all his papers in order and put in a binder all the documents I would need if something happened to him. A friend who was well versed in business helped me with it all. From all directions, people came to visit me and brought me prepared meals.

Pascal’s parents arrived two or three days later for the funeral. Everybody around me was in sorrow, but not me, for several reasons. Firstly I knew why Pascal had died and, out of fear, I did not feel free to mourn someone the Lord had struck in such a way. The second reason was because of a great pride and a superiority complex, as if the fact that I was believing put me in a superior cast. Thirdly, I believe that the Lord was also giving me the strength I needed to take care of things and some serenity to take care of the children. Fourthly, I was bitter about our marriage and it was as if I was vindicated through Pascal’s death, at least partly. During the years we were married, he had wanted me to believe that some of the things he was practicing or was asking me to do were normal and that I was the one with a problem, not him. Those things were among what he should have confessed and repented of, had he obeyed the Lord.

It is in that state that Pascal’s parents found me, when they would have expected me to be desperate and broken. I realize today how I lacked compassion towards them. I felt superior to them and was looking down on them because they had sorrow. I had not realized yet that God had shown me grace and mercy and I was wrongly taking credit, thinking that it was somehow coming to me.

Very shortly after the funeral, the Lord gave me a dream in which He was calling me to repentance, lest what happened to Pascal happen to the children and me. I called Victor and he asked me if I thought the dream was from God or Satan. I said that I did not know. Victor said that it was from God, as Satan does not call to repentance. Victor said that I had to turn to God and ask Him to show me what I had to know; there was nothing that he could do for me. I prayed. At the beginning, nothing happened and I was starting to be quite worried. I then begged the Lord and He answered by showing me how I had broken all Ten Commandments. Tens of events from my past came before my eyes and I saw how in all those situations I had been a liar, a thief, a deceiver, a traitor, a murderer, a masturbator, a coward, disobedient, perverse, proud, high-minded, disrespectful, to only mention a few. I asked Victor to come and visit me so that I could confess everything the Lord had just shown me. Our conversation lasted seven hours. The conclusion was that I had to ask forgiveness from the people I had wronged and make restitution wherever possible.

At the end of the conversation, I told Fabienne that she should talk to Victor about her sorrow and the questions Pascal’s death had raised in her. I wanted for her the same healing the Lord had started to give me. During their conversation, she told Victor that what was soothing her pain was to know that Pascal was in Heaven with God. Victor told her what had really happened to Pascal and why. Fabienne was shocked and shared with her parents. They then understood why my behaviour had seemed so strange to them.

From then on, our relationship went bad. They had not been given to see what the Lord was showing me and disapproved of some of the decisions I was making, interpreting them as a desire on my part to make Pascal disappear from my life. The Lord was calling me and there was an automatic division between us. They started to make notes about me, to listen in on my phone calls with Victor, to talk behind my back to people I knew, etc. They could not hear the plain truth, so they chose to be convinced I had fallen prey to a cult.

Immediately after confessing all the things I talked about earlier, I realized when I was reading the Bible that I was understanding it in a completely different way. Before, there were verses in the Scriptures that I disagreed with, thinking that they needed to be interpreted or modernized, and this was no longer the case. I also now understood some verses that I had previously found obscure, even the day before.

After what the Lord had just shown me, I was convinced that I had to go back to Belgium to make restitution for what I had deprived my parents of when I left their home in 1993. I was also convicted of the fact that I needed to apologize to some people for my attitude towards them or for what I had done to them in the past. When I did this, people around me were surprised and bothered by it, because they did not understand what was happening to me, and it was like a mirror showing them that they were guilty of the same things.

One month after the birth of my third daughter, I went back to Belgium with my children and all my belongings and went to live at my parents’ place. At first, things didn’t go too bad, in part because my family blamed my new beliefs on the trauma caused by Pascal’s death. They were hoping that the distance between me and the people at the farm, especially Victor, would allow me to come back to my senses. The relationship with my in-laws did not get better, which was fine with my parents. After all, they had their daughter back after all those years. They could also enjoy their granddaughters.

I felt very lonely. I enjoyed taking care of the children and providing for their needs, but I had nobody I could talk to, nobody that believed as I did. I corresponded with Victor and Paul via email and our conversations were a comfort and an encouragement to me. Part of my loneliness was due to the fact that I was separating myself from the people around me, feeling very superior to everybody.

A few months later, I decided to come back to Canada. It had become increasingly harder to live under my parents’ roof, because our ways and beliefs were so different. Moreover, Paul and I were now more than just friends, our relationship having changed during our conversations. When I told my parents about my plans, they were not very pleased, for several reasons. It was the last thing they wanted. They did not want to see me under Victor’s influence, feared that I would not have enough income to support myself and the children, and did not want the children to be raised according to my beliefs and under Victor’s hand.

Because of my mother’s threats and an anonymous letter warning me, I decided to leave secretly a week earlier than planned. I went to the airport, leaving my parents a note telling them that I was taking a few days with the kids to think. However, before I could board the plane, the police arrested me at the airport. Later that day, I was told that the Courts had given custody of the children to my parents and had forbidden me to leave Belgium with them. I was afraid and got rid of all of Victor’s writings that I had with me in the garbage of the washrooms of the airport. In so doing, I was denying the Lord before men to protect myself. It is written:

“But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in Heaven” (Matthew 10:33).

So the Lord also denied me.

In spite of the devoted care I had always given to the children, I never was able to regain their custody. Trial after trial, it was given to my parents and later to my parents and in-laws. The Lord showed me that the children were more important to me than Him and that they were my idols. God had to be first, even if it meant going back to Canada without them. After five months of merciless battles in court, I went back to Canada, without the children. Those five months were hell. I had no other choice, if I wanted to be with my children, but to live under my parents’ roof. Their intentions towards me, contrary to what they were telling the judges, were evil. They used a mental cruelty that could have easily caused a breakdown or suicide if the Lord had not kept me. The Lord was putting me through all those things because my heart and my nature had to be purged. There is nothing that happens to us that we do not either need or deserve. It is all for good; I can tell you that today with perfect assurance.

For many months, I was still hoping for the children to be returned. As months went by without it happening, I was filled with bitterness towards my parents. I could not accept that all the evil they had done to me would remain unpunished. As a consequence of that bitterness, I started to suffer from arthritis in my hands and knees. None of the remedies I tried healed it. One day, Victor confronted me on it and the bitterness I had was brought to the light. The Lord gave me to repent of it and the arthritis disappeared in one week.

A few weeks later, I was convicted of the fact that I should call my parents and in-laws to tell them that I forgave them and to ask for their forgiveness. Needless to say that they did not understand where I was coming from and some of them did not accept it. For my part, it brought me freedom.

A few months later, the Lord showed me that He was the One Who had decided that the children should stay in Belgium and that those were the circumstances they needed for their salvation. He gave me to accept the fact that their salvation was more important than to be with their mother. It is at that moment that I was delivered from my idolatry of them. I also knew that those circumstances were what all the people involved needed for their salvation: my family, Pascal’s family, our friends, our lawyers, etc. He also showed me that all those people were just as important to Him as my children.

In the summer of 2007, I was married to Trevor Benson, after a four-year engagement. I have constantly judged Trevor for his faults and weaknesses, thinking that I was better than him. God has shown me that it was far from being the case and, during that process, I often thought it would be much easier to have the faults I had looked down on Trevor for, or those for which I had judged Pascal, than mine, which are much worse.

Through all those events, the Lord has shown Himself to me and has started a work that He, not I, will finish, in His time, according to His will and His righteousness, not mine. He has delivered me from some of my fears, has healed me from ailments, and has shown me mercy through corrections and encouragements.

I am still very far from understanding fully the meaning of the following words, but I want to say that there is an infinite freedom in knowing that what matters is the Lord’s righteousness and not ours. We have none and the righteousness we think to have is an abomination to Him.

Ingrid Francine (Nicolay) Benson

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

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