Willard Thiessen

Willard attended University of Manitoba. That’s where he met Betty, and later the two were married on July 2, 1958. By the end of the summer Betty was expecting a baby. The first year of marriage, Willard continued to go to school to get his degree. On May 28, 1959 Donald Barry was born. Willard went to school for one more year to obtain a degree in Electric Engineering, and finished his schooling in 1960. The two happy couple then had two more children, Jeffrey Willard was born April 23, 1961, and Audrey was born March 4, 1965.
In 1967, Willard landed a job with Bristol Aerospace and his whole family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba. He began engineering for Black Brant Rockets and later moved to Project Marketing. Willard was often in Europe or Washington, D.C. for three weeks at a time for work.
The life of Willard became busier than ever as he travelled around the world and tried to keep both his family and church growing. Then the Lord begun planting seeds about a different direction - Christian television. After a visit to Compassion Christian Center, their friend Bert Bauman was a pastor. Bert asked his whole congregation to pray for Willard and Betty, the people began having prophesies and Willard and Betty were now confident of what they had to do for the work of the Lord. Willard quit his job at Aerospace, and began working in ministry full time. And after working in the church for a while, it was time for the two to begin their journey into Canadian Christian television.
After Willard and Betty visited Jim Bakker at the PTL Club, they did two days of on air interviews, Jim prophesied the Lord was going to use them in Christian television. In the fall of 1975,Trinity Television Incorporated was established with co-founders Irv and Diane Kroeker. The paperwork was done to create a non-profit organization. But Jim Bakker backed out, and the Trinity Television didn’t have studios. Just when things looked like nothing was going as planned, God made a way. Willard talked to CKND, a local broadcaster, and a deal was made where Willard would have to pay for an hour of air time but the studio costs would be free.

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