Gems of Hope
Our Stories
Please see our stories below to learn more about who we are and why we do what we do.
Hello, I’m Jan. If I could give you a big smile and a warm greeting face to face and tell you my story, that’s what I would prefer. Instead, I’ll tell you in writing a bit about my life.
My Dad farmed beef and hay 11 miles south of Vanderhoof in the North Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. He worked hard in the mill and on the farm to supply our family’s needs. I grew up on the farm with Dad & Mom, a sister and two brothers. We played in the spring creek and helped with the haying in the summer.
My brothers and my sister and I walked a mile to catch the school bus and went to school at Vanderhoof. When it was too cold, Dad would drive us to school on his way to work at the mill. Mom would be there for us for us with homemade soup, home-made bread and buns, jams, and fresh baked cookies and more. Who did all the laundry under challenging conditions? I remember the frozen towels coming in off the clothes line in the winter. Mom was always ready for us after school and at suppertime. As we got older we helped with the dishes and eventually with the cooking. One time, we cut up the tulip bulbs to put in the supper dish. We never knew till after we had eaten the dish.
Mom cheered us on in our 4-H projects. I was involved in the 4-H Home Arts Club and 4-H public speaking. My sister and I took our rope-making demonstration to the PNE and won second prize. In high school, I went on an award trip to Ottawa.
In school, I remember learning to sing This is My Father’s World at school in a choir. In those early days we were invited into the elementary school early to sing carols at Christmastime. We always had Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer every morning, even through high school. What a wonderful Christian heritage I had as a Canadian!
One summer, I remember clearly that two ladies came to our house on the farm to ask our parents for their permission to invite us to attend the Vacation Bible School at the Lakes District Hall. Our parents said, “Yes”. We enjoyed the Vacation Bible School very much. They were brave souls! They stayed at the community hall, which was infested with mice. They came for a couple of years and taught us the Bible for two weeks each summer until the task was handed over to the Gospel Chapel, a church plant of the Mennonite Brethren.
At the Vacation Bible School, when I was ten years old, I wanted to be in the Bible memory contest, but I thought some verses were too hard for me. I came back to my teacher the next day with my plan to learn only the easy verses for the prize. She turned me down and I was trying to hold back the tears when she sent me outside to the steps.
I had a lump in my throat. I was still trying to hold back the tears when Miss White asked me a simple but direct question: “Do you believe God can help you memorize those verses?” I said a determined, “Yes”, but the question stung me. I knew inside that I hadn’t even thought about God in this way before. He was up there doing His thing and I was down here doing mine.
In bed that night a strong, sad feeling came over me as I laid on my top bunk. The thought of God knowing enough about me to help me overwhelmed me and I cried and cried as I talked to God within myself on my bed. I had the conviction of the sin of ignoring God. The next day when I went outside, I waved, and called out, “Hello God”. Something big had happened in my life!
My classmates soon found out about the change in me. I can remember an occasion at our place when one friend said to me, “If there is a God, why are there wars?” I told her, “I don’t know but I just know.” I also remember feeling a sense of strong urgency to sit beside a rough, worldly girl on the bus because I wanted to say to her something about God, but I didn’t know what to say. I told some girls at school who were being mean to other girls, “You’re breaking the law of the Lord!” I didn’t know how to tell them of Jesus.
Our religious life as a family was attendance at a United Church with my mother on special occasions like Christmas and Easter. We were Christian by name. But we did not know what it meant to put our trust in the Lord Jesus to save us.
In high school I found a school club called Inter-school Christian Fellowship though my classmates. Though that club, I got to know some youth who attended the Gospel Chapel. I said, “Mom, let’s go to that church”. She had become dissatisfied with attending the United Church because of its denial of the virgin birth. It was difficult for her to leave her friends behind.
During a Terry Winter’s Crusade at the Gospel Chapel, the Lord convicted me of my need to submit to His Lordship. With a deeper realization of my own sin and with the greater understanding of the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection, I cast myself fully on Jesus in great joy. Three years later, the Lord touched my life in a beautiful way when I was baptised in 1973. I’ll never forget the joy Jesus gave me as I openly expressed my love for Him.
Since that time, the Lord has drawn me on in a deepening walk with Him. He has brought me through situations that I thought were impossible.
I became a school teacher and then a missionary. I used the positive discipline methods and the principles of lesson planning I had learned as a teacher to prioritize for an encouraging atmosphere and to structure my Bible teaching for children, youth and adults at clubs, camps and Bible classes to tell the good news of Jesus Christ and the truths of the Bible.
In 1997, I got married to my husband, Jim O’Leary, who loves me well. Together we keep on serving Jesus. I am thankful for his support and kindness over the years. Together we have built a strong relationship through living out practical applications of the Word of God. We continue to grow in love toward God and to each other. How wonderful it is to have faith in God as we journey forward.
I hope that my story will help you to find the Jesus of the Bible, the God-man. He paid for our sins in a cruel death on a cross, but came alive again, triumphant over the grave. He will come again to rule on this earth. By putting your trust in Him, you will find peace with God, a satisfying way of life, and the hope of an eternal home in the kingdom of God. You can connect with me at jimandjan@gemsofhope.net
One dark night in 1986, I swore at the taxi dispatcher for a perceived wrong. I came into the taxi stand in a rage, and wound up having a dispute with another driver. For these actions the taxi company fired me.
That night was a low point in my life. I was angry, antisocial, and isolated. I had no friends, no family. If I had died, they would have wrapped a tag on my toe and put me in the ground, and no one would have cared.
Yet four decades later I am walking in the light of Christ. I have peace in my heart and a capacity to forgive. God has given me a wonderful wife, and we are developing the Gems of Hope ministry to share the Good News of Jesus to the world.
How has this transformation taken place? Let me share my journey with you.
I was born in Vancouver BC in 1950. I grew up in a dysfunctional home, and by the time I was twenty I was so full of anger, fear and confusion that I could not function normally. I left UBC where I was an undergraduate and wound up driving a taxi, isolated and unable to communicate
with anyone.
After ten years of this, I thought my life was over. I knew there was a God somewhere, but I didn’t know where He was. During my earlier years I had imbibed the New Age belief of reincarnation and the concept of Jesus as one of many gurus . It was my understanding that somehow my life was bad because of karma from past life times. However, my karma never seemed to end.
I began to have periods where I would weep in despair. This even happened while I was driving my cab. At such times I put my sunglasses on and, for the sake of my passengers, kept my grief to myself. After all, how would you feel if you were in a taxi and the driver started to weep?
Finally I got in touch with an old friend from the New Age movement, hoping he could help me. He was glad to see me, but gave me a surprise. “I’m not in the New Age anymore, Jim” he said, “I’ve met a group of people who are really on fire for God, and I’m a Christian.” I had no idea what “on fire for God” meant.
He began taking me to churches, and I finally stuck with a Pentecostal church called Vancouver Christian Life Centre. In 1988 I asked Jesus to be my Lord. I really didn’t think my life would change. But it has become utterly transformed.
The Holy Spirit began to bring all of my unforgiveness to the surface, and I had to cry out, “Jesus, I need Your forgiveness. Help me to forgive!” That forgiveness began to seep into my heart when I surveyed the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. Compared to His sufferings, my concerns seemed like rubbish. For the first time in my life I began to compare myself not to other people, but to Jesus.
I got saved in a very musical church, and one of my first new spiritual desires was to make music to God. I learned to play four instruments in six years, just to sing to God. He brought me musical places to play, and this ministry helped me to deal with the unforgiveness that God was releasing in me in these years.
One Sunday morning in 1993 God gave me a vivid dream which explicitly told me to go to Granville Chapel, a Brethren church with strong Bible teaching. I kept waking up and falling asleep, and the dream kept repeating itself. I may be a slow learner, but I finally realized that God was trying to tell me something.
I went to Granville that morning and a new chapter in my life opened up. I became part of a Bible study that was full of mature believers. Each week was a revelation as God opened up His Word to me. At a certain point I caught myself thinking, “Now why did I ever think all of those other thoughts?”
As my suppressed feelings came to the surface, I became aware of a deep loneliness in me. Some nights I woke up to find myself crying in my sleep. During this time I said to the LORD, “God, You know I need a partner. You know that I need to be filled up. Where is that special woman that You have for me?” I felt the LORD answer, “Jim, if you want to be filled up, go and fill up others”.
I began to give my life away for His sake, volunteering in Bible camps, boys clubs and other ministries. God brought musical friends into my life, and we played at churches, in missions, on the street, and in parks. Like Zechariah my tongue loosened, and I began to stand up in front of people and tell them about Jesus. For the first time my life began to bear fruit as I helped build God’s kingdom on earth.
I was now in my mid forties, and had been driving a taxi for twenty years. The thought came to me, “I’m probably going to drive a cab for the rest of my life. ” And I thought further, “I’m probably always going to be single too.” Considering these possibilities, I thought, “It will be okay. I know the real God now.” I had no idea what the LORD was about to do.
In 1995 I had a dream where I was telling people about the wonderful woman that God had brought into my life. A few months later, Janet appeared on the scene. After wanting a wife for many years, when the right one came along, I didn’t know what to do. I told myself that she would make a great wife, but for someone else, and tried to set her up with a friend. Deep down I was afraid of commitment and fearful because of my family background. But the LORD worked it out step by step and Janet and I got to know each other over a period of a year and a quarter. She gave me a birthday present that year. It was the first birthday present I had had in 25 years.
Finally the LORD gave me a vivid dream in which He let me know with certainty that marriage to Janet was for His purposes, and that it was good. That day I proposed to Janet. She accepted so readily that I asked her, “Could you repeat?”
At the same time, spurred by counsel from members of my Bible study, I began to consider the possibility of going back to school so I could get out of taxi driving. Could I do such a thing after a quarter century? And could I marry Janet? During 1996 these two forces intertwined in my life. But the LORD’s timing was impeccable. We were married on August 9, 1997 and I started back to school three weeks later. God is never late.
I studied computers at Langara College for two years. I thought it would be too much to ask to work for a Christian organization when I graduated. The LORD had another opinion. In March 2000 I began work as a programmer for Campus Crusade for Christ, Canada. For three years I was privileged to develop my computer skills while being challenged and strengthened in my faith by the members of this dynamic, zealous, evangelical organization.
In 2003 I felt the need to learn more about computers and left Crusade in order to work toward a Bachelor degree at BCIT. Well, I was only fifty two years old. Despite leaving my job, my income rose as Jehovah Jireh supplied all our needs.
During this time I encountered a technology called geographic information systems (GIS). I could see its potential to improve life on earth, and I developed a passion to get into this field. Although I had no training in this field, The LORD again made His will known by opening the right doors at the right time. In 2008 I was hired as a programmer in the GIS department of City of Vancouver. In order to increase my knowledge in this field I again went back to school and obtained a Master of Science in GIS from University of Salzburg in 2013 at the age of 63. Did I say that God is never late?
I didn’t mention that my wife plays piano and guitar, and sings like an angel. I didn’t dare ask God for all that when I pleaded with Him for a wife. Leading up to my retirement in 2023 at the tender age of 72 years old, I asked The LORD to give me songs so that we could go out of the church and share the gospel with words and music. Thus was born the Gems of Hope ministry that continues to develop to this day.
When I look back at my transformation over the past decades, I am amazed. Knowing Jesus had made all the difference in my life. He has set my feet upon a rock. He has put a new song in my heart. He has restored the years that the locust stole.
My life is a testimony to
“His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his
mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead.”
– (Ephesians 1:19)