BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

While preparing to go there, Marcus heard the Lord say, 'The place you’re going, isn’t the place where you’ll end up.' “The whole time I was in the Cayman Islands, I knew I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I prayed in the Holy Spirit all the time for direction. Was I supposed to go to Trinidad? No peace. Jamaica? No peace. I knew the faith message was being taught in the U.S., so I wanted to preach where people hadn’t heard it. I called my family and asked them to pray. “I visited Toronto and found myself in the subway, holding my Bible. Standing there, I heard people speaking Chinese, Indian, African, Italian and Spanish. I realized that if these international people received the gospel, they would go home to visit their families and friends, sharing it with them. What a mission field of opportunities!” Open Doors of Opportunity In 1999, Marcus moved to Toronto, where he worked for a small church that couldn’t pay a salary. That didn’t stop him. He started holding a youth meeting on Friday nights called Youth Jam. The meetings grew so fast, that soon there were more than 100 young people attending. Sometimes, gang members were there. But they had a different motive. They put targets on Marcus’ back. Winning those young kids to the Lord sometimes, for Marcus, meant being shot at. Some he sought to reach, tried to kill him. Truly, Marcus understood this ministry wasn’t for the faint of heart. It required being immersed in the Word of God, operating by faith and out of love. More than anything, it took pleading the blood of Jesus and continuously praying and confessing Psalm 91. Doing these things wasn’t optional, Marcus discovered. It was a matter of survival. When he would play basketball with the kids, Marcus talked to them. More importantly, he listened. He soon came to realize that the men in their lives never spoke life over them. They spoke death. “No, you’re not stupid,” Marcus would tell them. “God has a plan for your life. You have a destiny, a purpose on earth. God knew you before you were formed in your mother’s womb. He loves you.” They listened. And one by one, they lived up to what he believed about them. Lives were changed. It happened so often, that before long, officials at the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services began to take notice, Marcus said. A Paid Position “Officials in the correctional institutions saw a change in the kids I worked with,” Marcus recalls, “and in 2000, they offered me a paid position as a senior staff member working with young offenders. Instead of putting them in a cell, they placed them in a big house. There was no one with a gun. Just a social worker and a youth worker. “I was the assistant director for one of those open custody facilities. If a young offender did well, I applied for him to be part of the temporary release program, which allowed them to go back to school. All they had to do was call and check in every two hours. Not only did it help them get an education, it also made it easier for the offender to integrate back into society.” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Join us in teaching believers how to use their faith. KCM.ORG/PARTNERNOW 1-800-600-7395 U.S. only * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The position held one major drawback for Marcus. “Because I worked for the government, I wasn’t allowed to preach the gospel,” he said. “Still, I knew my words would make a real impact on their lives. I had to get them to believe something different than what they’d heard all their lives. “‘No, you’re not a gangster,’ I would tell them. ‘No, you won’t die before you’re 20. There is a destiny in you. All these forces are trying to bring you down, but it won’t work. I believe better for you.’” One young person Marcus had connected with had been in college when he got mixed-up with the wrong group and ended up incarcerated. “I wanted him to finish his education, so I worked with him for months and got him into the temporary release program,” Marcus recalled. A couple of years ago, a well-dressed, successful-looking man walked up to Marcus, held out his hand and said, “Hello, Mr. Martinez.” “You don’t know who I am, do you?” the man said. “Sir, I apologize, but I don’t,” Marcus answered. It was the young boy Marcus had helped get into the release program. Today, he is an attorney. Growing a Church Marcus worked with young offenders for 10 years, starting in 2001. That same year, he also started a church. In some ways, it was like ministering to two different flocks. The endgame, however, was the same—victorious lives for all. “Our church is very multicultural,” Marcus says. “We have 65 different nationalities represented. I had to learn the proper way to deal with people from each culture. For instance, you approach a woman from India much differently than a man from Africa. “The hardest part for me was not being hurt by people. I love people. I truly love them, and I like to be liked. So, when people left the church, I felt hurt. Listening to Brother Copeland’s teachings on the love walk through messages like, 'How to Listen to Your Heart,' 'How to be Led by the Holy Spirit,' and 'How to Live by Faith,' helped a lot.” As a church, Marcus’ ministry grew slowly with the congregation moving to larger facilities five times over the years. After eight years, they moved into a 34,000-square-foot facility in the heart of Toronto. They also established Bible training schools in Toronto; Africa; and the Caribbean. In addition to pastoring, Marcus began traveling around the world, teaching people to live by faith. All the while, Marcus held on to a personal faith project that he had not shared with anyone—but the Lord. For years, he’d been praying for the wife God had for him. Year after year, he continued to stand in faith, believing for God’s best. One day, Marcus received a call from a friend saying there was a young woman he wanted Marcus to meet. There was only one small problem: The woman lived in the Dominican Republic. 14 : BVOV

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