Everyone's faith journey looks different and for Pastor Roberta Roslund from Rose Church in Transcona it all started when she was 14 after being invited to a youth group and conference.

It was at that conference that she decided to follow Jesus and quickly knew going into ministry was the goal.

Although it wasn't a smooth journey, Roslund admits that it was fully worth it. 

"I knew right away after becoming a Christian, that I wanted to go into ministry because I just felt personally it had so much impact on me," She says about describing the impact her youth pastor had on her life. "I struggled to go to Bible college and kind of feeling like, 'what does it look like for a woman to lead?' I hadn't seen any women, you know, preaching on a Sunday, so I was like, 'I think it's possible,' but I just had kind of a huge disconnect."

After meeting her husband, Mark, in Bible college, a switch happened for Roberta. 

"We graduated, he got a job in ministry and I was kind of like, 'I don't want to be in ministry.' This is really tough. So I actually got a degree in social work, did that for a while, and then I ended up, as we were praying about planting Rose Church, it was always going to be kind of Mark [who] was going to do it."

The initial desire she had for ministry was still there. 

"I would support, but I just felt God being like 'No, I'm calling you into ministry as well and to lead,' so it was a little bit bumpy but I came back around into it."

The journey would continue to have bumps along the way, including having the grand opening of their first building pushed back from November of last year. Despite that, God has remained faithful, which is what all of Rose Church is seeing today. 

"It's just been amazing to just finally have a space where it's ours and people can come and even just being in Transcona, we feel like we get to just love this neighborhood and just get to have a stake in the ground and just be like, 'we're here and we love it.' So yeah, it was a journey, but we're here now."

Roslund says it's only beginning for Rose Church and they see that by how The Lord continues to work.

"Mark and I were saying it's not normal for a three-year-old church to have a building, like it doesn't just happen like that. So obviously God has just blessed us and been directing this whole thing we've seen, even since moving to the building, we've had 48 decisions for Jesus, four people were last weekend."

Over the coming weeks, they are hoping that number continues to grow. Besides people dedicating their lives to Jesus, there's been some other highlights for Pastor Roberta. 

"I baptized a whole family of five, it was the mom, dad, and three kids. So, it just feels like there's an excitement in the room for Jesus and what He's doing."

She shares how exciting it has been, getting to watch it all unfold. "It's just been a really cool thing to see how God is just like sparking the Holy Spirit in people. I feel like if you come to our church, you just get excited for God."

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