Their focus is two-fold: befriending the newcomer (especially through conversations over food—Sandi’s an excellent baker and Daniel loves to cook!) and Bible Exploration. Students and scholars meet Jesus, unpack issues that help dismantle their barriers to faith, and encounter the God who loves them and has a place of significance for them. They are affiliated with International Student Ministries Canada (ISMC).
Daniel and Sandi McDougall came to Christian faith through quite different circumstances. Sandi can’t remember a time when she didn’t love Jesus and trust him with her life. Daniel came to faith—his heels dug in against anything resembling ‘religion’—in his third-year undergraduate studies, largely through the influence of a godly chemistry professor, who celebrated Jesus as Lord in every sphere of life—including the sciences, sports, aesthetic appreciation and even inter-personal communication. But rather than ‘competing’ from their respective spiritual journeys, Daniel and Sandi have come to appreciate and celebrate each other’s history and perspective.
Before arriving in Victoria in 2003, Daniel and Sandi were enriched by a number of professional and personal experiences that continues to inform the way they do ministry to this day. Sandi served in the secretarial/financial sector and Daniel was busy with his cabinetmaking daytime business and graduate-level theological teaching in the evenings and weekends. All these endeavours gave the McDougalls ‘hands-on understanding’ of the real world in which real folks follow Jesus.
Prior to 2003 Daniel served for several years as Director of Schloss Mittersill, a gorgeous castle in the Austrian Alps (yup, really suffering for Jesus!), which embraced various folks in Christian community from (mostly) former East Bloc countries for biblical/theological training, conferences, spiritual retreat and sabbatical rest.
Daniel is presently an associate teaching pastor at Lambrick.
The McDougalls have two daughters who give them continual delight, Connally (32) and Morrigan (26), as well as an infectiously happy Labradoodle (Lab/Poodle mix) named Islay (pronounced in the Scots way ‘Eye-lah’).
"(Please pray) that we would continue to connect with students now that they're flung literally around the globe (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), and also that God's people would embrace and befriend them there."
