Trevor Benson’s Testimony

I was living with my two younger brothers, Mark and Jason, and my mother, Lois, in Stettler, Alberta, on our acreage when things began. My father, Howard Benson, started running around with other women and was gone much of the time. He initiated a messy divorce in which we, the three children of the marriage, were given a choice to make. We could go with Dad and be part of the trips, fun and material things that he was baiting us with, or we could remain with Mom and be subjected to some discipline and teaching about the Lord and the right way to live. My youngest brother, Jason, who was 5 or 6 at the time, went with Dad. Mark and I stayed with Mom, not out of any virtue on our parts, but as something that the Lord gave us to do. Through these circumstances, this verse was literally fulfilled:

“For from now on, there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three” (Luke 12:52).

It was in 1984, in the midst of our turmoil, that the Lord brought Victor and Marilyn Hafichuk into our lives to help us and give us direction. They had no place to call home but went wherever the Lord was leading them to go and, for a time, were sent to us while we were in need. In 1985, they began to teach us principles of life and truth in everyday living, a process that continues today. Through our circumstances, we all experienced correction and discipline that were unfamiliar to us but needful. The hardest thing for me, at the time, was to openly confess sins that I was hiding.

Dad was very opposed to Victor’s involvement with us, though Victor had taught us to be respectful and non-judgmental towards him. While we were going through the divorce, the Lord gave Victor a prophecy, which he did not know applied to Dad or that it would be fulfilled literally. It was, “I will destroy that man from off the face of the earth; you will see him no more, and I will give you his goods.”

It was during this time that the Lord also gave Victor a prophecy for the three of us: Mark would be a burning light, Mom would be given the “ministry of Phoebe,” and I would be given wisdom. I also was given a dream, which was fulfilled many years later. In the dream, something happened to my father and I was the only one in the immediate family who was crying. It was night and dark at the beginning of the dream. Then the scene changed and the three of us were in a car in the bright daylight and we were heading towards some mountains in the distance. When we reached the mountains, we came to a small village on the edge of a lake with a hill beside it. We walked up the hill and were resting beside a dirt road when I heard a voice that sounded like Victor’s say to Mom, “You are tired, aren’t you?” Then she started to cry. This portion of the dream has recently been fulfilled through issues that have come up in Mom’s life that the Lord has been dealing with. This dream symbolized our walk with the Lord.

The divorce was finalized on April 28, 1988, after which time Mom and Mark moved to Lethbridge. I was already in Lethbridge attending university and staying with Victor and Marilyn. This was the beginning of experiencing for myself correction and walking with the Lord. Up to that time, my brother, mother and I went through things together.

The Lord healed me in many ways, but there were three specific healings that He performed. The first was when I was in high school and occurred after I had gone skiing with my family on a warm day. I froze my toe, but did not realize it until a month or so later when it began to smell from the infection. The whole nail on the big toe had to be removed and there was even the possibility that I would lose the toe. We prayed for it, and it was healed with no lasting effects. For a long time, however, I had to wear sandals because my toe was sensitive. During this time, my peers teased me about being Jesus or a disciple because of the style of the leather sandals I wore. Of all the teasing I endured during my school years, this was one time I did not mind. (I had suffered teasing throughout my school years as I was born with a speech impediment that has been there to varying degrees my whole life. It is another tool that the Lord uses to work things out in me. The Lord promised that if I applied myself the problem would be taken care of. However, I did not apply myself as I should have, so the problem has remained.)

The second healing happened when I left home in the summer of 1989, while I was living in Lethbridge. This healing was made necessary because of a matter in which I sinned. I had been planning to give Victor a free will offering when I met him (and others in my family) at a park. As I was heading out the door, however, I accidentally picked up the wrong envelope. The problem was that when I met Victor in the park and handed him the empty envelope, I made light of it, joking about the empty envelope.

In the days following this, I began to develop warts all over my hands and forearms. Not knowing what to do, I tried treating them with a strong anti-wart medication. They only got worse, and the more I topically applied the medicine the worse my skin became. The medicine was very corrosive and, because I had spread it all over my forearms, the skin was wrinkled and scarred much like a burn victim. In the midst of this, I called Victor and he told me that the reason the Lord was subjecting me to this was because I had taken lightly my offering to Him. Once I repented, Victor prayed for me and I believed that the Lord would heal me, but expected to have the scars of the chemical burns on my hands and arms. At first, I got worse but then things turned around and my skin healed completely – no scars at all.

I had always been anemic and had weak blood, which led me to take iron supplements from time to time. In the summer of 1990, the Lord performed a third miracle of healing in my life. I started to experience pain in my chest after eating. Then I began to find blood in my stool. Soon I was off work, sick in bed at Mom’s place where I stayed on my days off. I even passed out several times and was so weak that I could not walk or even stand because of all the blood I had lost internally. Again the cause was spiritual, and the issue was pride. After I repented, I began to get better, and my physical needs were taken care of, through the circumstances at home and work, while I recovered. The Lord knew what I needed and provided the means to meet my needs. I had my blood tested several times after that, and not only was the problem with my stomach healed, but my blood had an above average red cell count that has remained to this day. Like the other two healings, the Lord had done miraculously for me.

In the spring of 1993, my grandmother on my mom’s side passed away and Mom and I were wondering if we should attend the funeral. There had not been much contact with our family for many years due to their rejection of us because of what the Lord was doing with us and because of the lies that Dad had told them. We asked the Lord what we should do and we believed we needed to go, which Victor confirmed. Since Mark was living in Japan at that time, just Mom and I went. At the funeral, the family heard for the first time the truth about our side of the story concerning the divorce and other things that had happened over the years; it was good because, after hearing both sides, they had no justification to continue believing lies. That is the way truth works and how people are judged in this life, here and now, starting with believers and going on from there.

Later that spring, I went back to university. The first year I was there, I became caught up in activities with my friends and was not taking time for a day of rest; I was trying to cram a heavy school load around my pleasures. My priorities were not where they should have been and things came to a head when I visited Victor and Marilyn at the end of August 1994. They prayed for me and I was given to confess many sins and was delivered of a number of devils. One thing that I had no idea was there, but was greatly affecting me, was anger towards my father. It came as a result of his disappointment in me because I was not at all good at sports, whereas my brother Mark was. Much of Dad’s attention was directed towards Mark and what he hoped would be a hockey career. During that visit with Victor and Marilyn, the Lord dealt with me in a way He had not previously, and, at the end of it, we prayed that I would receive the Holy Spirit. The Lord said that I would receive His Spirit, but not yet.

We also prayed about whether or not I should return to Thunder Bay to complete my engineering degree, and all were in agreement that I should. That year at university was a complete contrast to my last, in that I was not spending my time entertaining myself and going places all the time with my friends. I also did not do any schoolwork on Sundays, but took it as a rest day. Even though the Sabbath would not be given until much later, the Lord honored me for obeying Him in a re-setting of priorities, and my grades, which had been average or less than average in some cases, greatly improved.

A few months after arriving back in Thunder Bay, I was reading the Bible about the crucifixion when I was utterly convicted that, if I had been there the day that they crucified the Lord, I would have been no different than the people there. I began to cry and I knew that something had happened to me.

Soon after that, I was going to sleep one night when I had a vision of sheep crossing a rocky pasture. There were not many, maybe a dozen, and they were going roughly in a line by twos. All the sheep appeared the same on the outside, white with black faces like the Suffolk breed. The Shepherd of the flock had a long, wooden staff and walked behind the sheep. As I watched, one of the sheep, which I knew represented me, got off the path and started eating a rare tuft of green grass. The Shepherd then used His staff to put me back into line and all the sheep continued on over the hill. The interpretation of the vision was: The Shepherd was the Lord and I would go off and do my own thing, but the Lord would bring me back into line. This vision has been fulfilled both specifically and generally since then in dramatic ways.

After graduating in May of 1995, I went to Toronto looking for a better job and found work with the office of the company that I had previously worked for. The other motivating factor for my going was a girl named Alina Dinca, who lived there and whom I had met while at university.

Before moving to Toronto, I went to Lethbridge to visit everyone. When I was leaving, Victor had a prophecy for me that, in essence, described what I had seen in the vision of the sheep – me going off in my own direction. I was greatly disturbed by the prophecy and was praying and crying while I drove home to Red Deer. The Lord answered my prayers and gave me a series of visions while I drove. In the first, I saw myself on the phone and I knew I was talking to Victor. In the background was a woman who I believed was my wife or someone close to me who seemed to be very upset. The second was not so much a vision as a sensation of a burden being lifted off of me so I was free. The third was a vision of me walking together with my wife and several kids on a bright blue sky day and feeling complete fulfillment. Fulfillment not as the world views it, but the all-encompassing sense that things are the way they are meant to be, and that the Lord’s will and my will are reconciled.

After spending a year in Toronto and going through an unsuccessful relationship with Alina, I took a transfer to Abbotsford, BC. I got involved with a girl there, Kirsten Rice, who, like Alina, was not a believer.

In December of 1996, Dad and Jason (my youngest brother) visited me in Fraser Valley, where I lived, on their way to spend New Years in Seattle. Soon after they arrived, the biggest snowstorm in 50 years hit and they were stuck there as all the roads in the Valley were closed for three days. This visit along with another in February of 1997, where Kirsten and I stopped in to see him, caused Dad to put Mark and me back into his will, albeit as minor beneficiaries (he had taken Mark and me out of his will several years before, because he did not want us to have anything to do with, or to hear from, Victor). The Lord was using my waywardness and unrighteousness to bring about good and judge my Dad.

After Jason went to be with Dad at the conclusion of the divorce, it was not long before the rosy picture he had painted to us about trips, fun and good times faded. We later found out that Dad was into drugs and women, and Jason experienced mental and physical abuse at his hands. When Dad and Jason visited me in Harrison Hot Springs in December of 1996, one incident left me disturbed. Jason was underage and out drinking at a local bar. When I confronted Dad about it, he said, “At least I know where he is.” This attitude reflected how he had raised Jason and there would be consequences to pay for it in the not-too-distant future.

One day around this time, Kirsten and I went to Whistler for a ski trip. On our way home, we hit an area of black ice on the narrow, winding, two-lane road near Brandywine Falls. In the place where it happened, there is a blasted rock face on both sides of the highway and when Kirsten lost control of the car, it ended up on its side, stranded in a snow bank in the right ditch. In the seconds while we were sliding out of control, I knew that our fate was in the Lord’s hands. When we stopped moving, the rock wall was about 6 inches away. We were both okay and two American skiers in the car behind helped us and gave us a ride back to Squamish. Once the traffic had subsided from people leaving Whistler for the day, a tow truck was dispatched to retrieve Kirsten’s mom’s car. To our amazement, there was not one scratch on the car, only the engine compartment was full of snow. Although we were kept in this situation, I later came to realize that it was a warning that I was not where the Lord wanted me to be.

On April 28, 1997, my youngest brother, Jason, shot and killed my dad. This happened nine years, to the day, from when his divorce from my mother was finalized. The police came to my office in Abbotsford to inform me of the death, but I was in Vancouver looking for work as I had just been laid off the week before. My employer contacted Kirsten, who met me in Vancouver and told me the news. We left immediately to attend the funeral, and stayed at my grandparents’ farm. That evening, I proposed to Kirsten. The next day, Victor called to speak to me. All of my relatives were visiting and talking amongst each other and when Grandma said Victor was on the phone for me, there was a hush over everyone – something that went beyond just the physical dimension.

I took the call in the kitchen for some privacy and Victor told me that he had just received that the vision of the sheep that I was given in 1994 was going to be fulfilled – the Lord was going to bring me back onto the path. It was as if a switch was turned back on inside of me and I had life again, but at the same time it was agonizing because I knew that Kirsten would not be coming with me. While I was on the phone, Kirsten was hugging me and looking into my eyes. I could not look at her because she always knew what I was thinking and I could not hide things from her. On the way back home the next day, I realized that this was the fulfillment of the first vision of the series that I was given while driving to Red Deer in August of 1995. That week I called Victor and we discussed whether or not I should come to Lethbridge. I knew it was the Lord’s will for me and something I had to do, but it was not my choice. It was the last thing I wanted to do, as it meant leaving behind Kirsten and the life I had there.

Late on May 12, 1997, I arrived back at the farm and Victor and Mom waited up for me. Victor said when I arrived that he was glad that I was here. Coming to the farm would begin a whole new chapter of my life, which is still going on to this day.

My first summer at the farm was rough as I was not used to living with other people and I did a lot of stupid things, including driving a 3-wheeler into the pond. Although I was at the farm, I still had a struggle letting go of Kirsten, which meant that things were not done inside of me. This was plain for everyone at the farm to see, and I was shown that I did not have what I needed to, in order to change in this.

That July, the Lord gave me a dream: Kirsten, along with her mother and aunt, came to see me in a van. When the van door opened, they beckoned me to come inside with them. However, they saw that I was not the same person that had left them only a few months before. I was changed and no longer under their control, which upset them. A week or two later, I received a phone call from Kirsten. She and her mother were in Lethbridge and showed up having given no prior notice. When they came to the farm, we all talked on the deck and I was confronted, by those at the farm, on where I had been at when I was in B.C. Although nothing was said to Kirsten and her mother directly, my correction reflected on them by extension. It was not long before they left. Kirsten was crying and her mother was upset. It was not what I hoped or expected would happen, but I knew that things in me had changed. The only way that I was given to let go of Kirsten was by the Lord’s grace.

A second dream involved my granddad, Bill Benson, whose funeral took place in the fall. In the dream I saw myself beside my Aunt Betty and Uncle Al. Beside them was a crowd of people, many that I did not know. In front of me was a window through which I saw my dad. He was very angry and trying to kill me, but he had no power to do so. I stood in front of him and said, “What is Victor’s crime?” At the time of the dream, I did not know that my Granddad had passed away and, a week or two later, Aunt Betty phoned to tell me of his passing.

The funeral was a stark contrast to my dad’s in that the family, who had then welcomed me as a long lost member, now treated me as if I was guilty of treason after returning to Lethbridge and associating with the believers there. After the service, we all drove out to the grave, which was located in a small country cemetery. As we came into the cemetery, Aunt Betty and Uncle Al took me by the arms to comfort me as we walked to the grave. The rest of my relatives were to my right, exactly as they had been in my dream. In front of me were two graves. Both my Dad and Granddad had been cremated and the wooden boxes containing their ashes were sitting side by side. As the minister red the last rites I was wondering what I was supposed to say, because of the dream. It all happened so fast and, before I knew it, it was over and I had not said a word. Afterwards, several people asked me if I would be going to the community center for tea and I replied that I did not know. As I drove away, I knew that the dream had been fulfilled and that my reason for being there was finished; I drove straight back to Lethbridge. When I shared with everyone what had happened, Victor told me that what I had spoken in my dream was said, not literally, but just by my being present.

Mark came home from Japan in February of 1998 for a visit. Victor had received prophecies for each of us, and, while Mark was visiting, he shared them with us.

The prophecy for me said that I have desired a wife, and I would receive a wife, but it would be a wife of His choosing and not mine.* Over the next five years, many situations came up wherein I was trying to figure this out and ended up making a fool of myself by running after a number of women, thinking that each of them was the one spoken about in the prophecy.

During the three years after I arrived back in Lethbridge, I was given the responsibility for dealing with the affairs concerning Dad’s estate. Ironically, the executrix, Carol Reesor, who had convinced Dad to put us back into his will, became our adversary in the whole affair.

It came to a climax in July of 2000, when we attended court to challenge the fees Carol was charging for the work she had done on the estate. That morning, Carol’s garage had been broken into and her car vandalized. As we met in court, we represented ourselves and faced Carol, herself a lawyer, and the lawyer defending her. At first it seemed as if we were getting nowhere, but then things changed. The Lord told me to say to the judge that we recognized that she was in her position as determined by God and that we would accept her judgment as from Him. I wanted to discuss this with Mark before saying anything, so was about to request a recess. At that very moment, the judge said that she had a cold and needed to blow her nose and took a short recess. Mark agreed, so when court resumed, I said what the Lord had given me.

Immediately, the judge’s attitude toward us changed. Whereas before she had been sympathetic to Carol and her lawyer, now she stated that the reason that we were in front of her that day was because Dad had been foolish enough to appoint a lawyer as his executrix. She then reprimanded Carol for charging lawyer’s fees for mundane duties related to the estate. When Carol’s lawyer objected, the judge threatened to increase the reduction in her fees. The whole experience was an illustration of the Lord’s sovereignty over all things.

Dad had once sworn that we would never see a dime of his estate. In the end, it was given to us to give to the Lord. It was the fulfillment of the prophecy the Lord gave Victor years before.

On May 13, 2003, I was engaged to Ingrid Nicolay of Belgium, who had come to the farm under the very trying circumstances that can be found in her testimony. Many things were worked in us during our four-year engagement, and, on July 22, 2007, we were married in a small ceremony at Harvest Haven in the company of the other believers. It says in the Bible that a good wife is a gift from God, and Ingrid has been and continues to be a blessing to me, both in her strengths and weaknesses. The way we are is purposed by the Lord to work things out in each other.

Ever since my walk with the Lord began, a main issue with me has been selfishness, which has been manifest in many ways all along and has been addressed countless times. On October 12, 2007, Victor was given to pray for me and to cast out a spirit of selfishness in me. Since then, the Lord has continued to deal with matters in my life for good. I am very thankful for this and know that His timing with all things is perfect.

Praise the Lord!

Trevor Howard Benson

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

* Prophecy to Trevor (February 1998): You have desired a wife and a wife you shall have but of My choosing and not yours. Behold, she is at the door. And you shall serve Me according to My will. I will bring suffering upon you for your sake but know this, that reward will follow if you overcome unto the end with patience. Have faith, it is My good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Minister in your gifts to My faithful ones (they will need you), because I send fire on the earth to subdue the wicked who will resist and who will fight Me by their sight, fighting those I have chosen unto Myself. Permit nothing to come between you and Me and I will keep you, I will bless you and make you a blessing to all those I send you. I have ordained wisdom for you and so shall it be.

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