“Trapped” by Evolution!

Art Wanuch is a native North American Indian from Canada. The son of a trapper, he has a fascinating background, which includes how the AiG ministry dramatically changed his life. Now he’s doing his own creation/evolution seminars, including one at a native Indian reservation in early May.

He is so excited about using “creation evangelism” as a means to share the gospel that he and his wife Joan have built a scale model of Noah’s Ark that he brings to some of his talks.

Now that the Disney movie Dinosaur is out in many theatres, it’s even more important that we show how the Bible explains dinosaurs, not evolution. This was a huge stumbling block for Mr. Wanuch. Here is his thrilling testimony …

From the wood stove to the Cross!

My wife Joan and I have six children, five sons and one daughter. I am a native North American Indian. I was born and raised in Northern Alberta, Canada; my father was a hunter and a trapper, and there were eleven children in my family, six girls and five boys.

My fondest memories are those of us sitting around the wood stove at night as mother read us stories from the Bible by the light of a coal-oil lamp. We had no electricity, no running water, and no insulation in the walls. In the winter, temperatures could reach -60°F. All the water in the house would be frozen solid in the morning. The harshness of our environment caused our family to be very close. We depended on each other. As a family, we were also very religious, and from an early age I studied from and about the Bible.

As I went through school, I was forced to try and mix God and evolution into the same picture. I was taught in school that dinosaurs and the earth were millions of years old. I was captured and fascinated with these huge animals since I was in grade four, and the study of dinosaurs became a life long hobby—I found out everything I could about them.

Trapped in evolutionary thinking

As the son of a trapper I saw a lot of blood and death. I understood first hand “survival of the fittest” so it was easy to see that was the way it had always been.

Then there was God and the Bible, which did not agree with what I was taught. Try as I might, the pieces just would not fit together. How could I trust a God who said one thing, while the school system taught something very different? I was caught with my arms spread as far apart as I could get them with “Evolutionary Science” in one hand, teaching that the earth and dinosaurs were millions of years old, and in the other hand was the Bible with a God I could not reconcile into that timeframe. No one had the answers.

So I had to choose one or the other; both stories could not fit into one hand, therefore, both could not possibly be true. I could not have blind faith. I would always doubt the reality of God—the gap was too large. Under those circumstances, the best I could do was hope (secular hope) that God was real, but my knowledge, my head, stayed true to what I was taught. Despite that conscious, reluctant acceptance of evolution, I yearned for God to be true.

Dinosaurs—missionary lizards!

Then a few years ago God took me to a talk about dinosaurs. There in 90 minutes, a fellow by the name of Mr. Ken Ham took “Evolutionary Science” and “The Bible,” and threw evolution and the millions of years out the door. Then he followed that up by taking the dinosaurs and weaving them into a biblical timeframe of thousands of years in a way that made remarkable sense. God’s Word was true after all! God had shown me “Creation Science.”

Creation science made God real for me and placed my hopeless hope into the road of saving faith. That night when I walked into the door, Joan could not believe the change that had taken place in me. I was flying ten-feet high because “GOD WAS REAL.” Our lives have never been the same since.

However, that isn’t the end of the story. I still needed the gospel straightened out, and for that task, God brought [a couple] into our lives, and through their patient careful chronological teaching, I was taught the Holiness of God, then the reality of the separation caused by Sin, which led to the Old Testament blood atonement provided by God’s grace. An atonement covering for sin through the blood of a substitute sacrificed Lamb, and then finally to the final sacrifice, God’s Perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ and the complete removal of Sin, which returned fallen man back into a right relationship back with God.

Because time, evolution, and dinosaurs were such a stumbling block for me, and because of the freedom I knew from understanding the truth, I had to know more, and I had to tell others. Amos 3:8 became my life verse, it says, “The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” which means “now that I know what I know, how can I not tell others.” If evolution had me in bondage, it must have trapped others as well—there must be more people out there trapped by the same stories and ideas that had held me captive.

Therefore, I got many of the Answers in Genesis resources. Through the use of their books, video and audiotapes, I studied and learnt, and now I tell others, I teach as I was taught and I do that in churches, schools, and homes. I was right: there were and are many more people walking through life as I was, with their arms spread as wide as they could get them. A “Lie” in one hand and the “Truth” in the other, but which hand is true?

The Bible says in Romans 1:22, 25: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, … Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”