Mike and Jodi joined the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard (WCV) in the early years of the church plant in '95/96 and got to know each other there.  They both were on one of WCV's first ministry trips to Nepal where they connected. Shortly after marriage, M & J were invited to be elders at WCV and later joined the pastoral staff. In 2005 Mike became the Children's pastor because he liked ministering with their four children.  He enjoyed furthering his studies graduating with a Masters of Ministry at St. Stephen's University.  But as soon as he graduated, it seemed right to hand off the paid work to Jodi. Jodi loved and excelled at pastoring, counselling, and speaking, and soon evolved into the Generations Pastoral role.  There was much joy for the Labuns in these days of doing ministry with their 4 kids in the swirl at WCV.

Although Mike was supporting Jodi pastorally in her role, when Mike talked to God, it seemed God was saying Mike should be a pastor.  Mike responded, "Yes, Lord, I know. We are all pastors. And, Jodi and I together function as pastors." But God impressed on him that he should be in a full-time, paid pastoral position. Unsure of how to respond, Mike looked for work in whatever churches were hiring in Winnipeg, but few even responded to his application.

God kept on talking to Mike about having a full-time, paid position, but Mike only experienced closed doors. At one point, Mike stopped talking to God at all because whenever he did, God would bring up pastoring, and that was just confusing.

It didn't get any less confusing when, in August of 2018, while driving on a lonely Northwestern Ontario highway, it occurred to Mike that if he was to take his ministry to the next level, he would need to spend time with David Ruis in Kelowna. The next thing he knew he was shouting, "We will go!"

Nothing like that had ever happened to Mike before. He pulled to the shoulder and wrote about the incident on his phone.  But Mike forgot about it because there was no file in his brain to store the download. He didn't mention it to Jodi for a long while -  in fact, he wouldn't even remember it until it would no longer influence their decisions.

In December 2018, David and Anita Ruis came to visit WCV. There had been a lot of changes at WCV, and in conversation with them, Jodi and Mike both felt that they should join the Ruis' in Kelowna. They decided that if either Mike or Jodi got a position in their city, they would sell everything and go.

Mike applied for a UBCO program with an 8% acceptance rate. In May 2019, Mike was at a campsite in Kawai with his oldest son, debriefing his recent Youth with a Mission Discipleship Training School that had taken place in nearby Kona. One morning, Mike opened his laptop to an acceptance email from UBCO. They were going to Kelowna.

That August, Mike, Jodi and their youngest, moved to Kelowna.

It was expensive living in Kelowna, and they needed every single dollar of the proceeds from the sale of their home. Mike got his master of data science while Jodi apprenticed to be a licensed funeral director.

Jodi was good at her work and was soon loved and effective. She had a bright future as she neared the completion of her apprenticeship and was expecting a good raise. It looked as though that increase, combined with Mike's new career in data science, was going to enable them to financially recover from a costly 2 years. Most importantly, Kelowna was beginning to feel like home.

Upon graduation, Mike started applying for data science jobs. But, in the midst of that, not forgetting the call to ministry, Mike responded to an Abbotsford Vineyard Church (AVC) posting for a ½ time Children's Ministry Director. (AVC actually didn't want a children's Ministry Director. They were no longer hiring, but they had forgotten to take the posting down.)

Jodi didn't know he applied because Mike didn't tell her because it seemed like the dumbest idea. When AVC emailed Mike asking him to interview and to bring his wife, Mike had a difficult time explaining the whole thing.  It didn't seem logic would be useful at a time like this. So, Mike just resorted to "please, please, pleeeease!"  Jodi wisely attended the interview to make Mike stop.

However, after interviewing and meeting with the Leadership Team at AVC, Jodi felt the Lord's call on them to put their names in for the position of full-time Associate Pastor of AVC.

Meeting the church, Jodi and Mike discovered that, like Gideon's army, AVC had been reduced in size. Also, like Gideon's army, only the diehard Christians remained. Mike and Jodi loved them instantly.

It's been 4 years of full-time pastoring.  The little church is slowly growing. We are blessed with many pillars of the faith - folks who have been a part of the Vineyard since the early days in Langley colliding with the Gen Zers who are desperate for a saviour. (Hey, if you're one of our Gen Zers reading this, you know that's a huge compliment, eh? We love you.)

When not engaged in time with the church, you can find M & J either working on their new business at Compassionate Cremation or hiking the beautiful mountains in the Lower Mainland, having a hot cup of tea and enjoying time with whichever of their adult children are around along with their adorable shih-poo dog chewy.