On September 1st 2021, Helena Bergen became CBWOQ’s new executive director. You may reach her at [email protected].

Helena’s great passion in life is exploring the height, width and depth of the wonder of life in Christ. As a young adult, her life was dramatically intercepted and transformed by God and it set her on a lifelong journey of knowing Him, growing in relationship with Christ, and discovering His purposes for her and the Church. A love for God’s Word and His truths was planted in Helena’s heart from a young age, and she has been an informal and formal student of the Old and New Testaments ever since. Helena also loves the study of culture, to understand the factors that shape, move and motivate people, and how these relate to matters of Christian faith.

Another great joy for Helena is her family. She has been married to the same good man for almost 33 years and he can still make her laugh harder than anyone else. They have four beautiful daughters who captured their hearts from the moment they set eyes on them. After the birth of the fourth, they asked God for a son and so He gave them one. They called him Samuel so that they would always remember that this was the son God had given them when they had asked Him for one. So far, the daughters have brought three wonderful sons-in-law into the family and five amazing grandbabies.

Helena has many other joys in life including reading, adding new books to her ever-growing library, adventures in travelling, and all things outdoors like walking, biking, swimming and kayaking. She likes family camping trips and gathering friends and family in the back yard and around the table, but as an introvert, she also needs a lot of solitude and processing/downtime!

Helena comes to Canadian Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec with a passion to equip and empower women to fulfill their God-ordained callings, and to see the development of vibrant and dynamic communities of women across Ontario and Quebec who are marked by deep and transformational knowing of God’s love for them, love for each other and for their communities.

There are many ways in which God has been preparing and shaping her for this role. These include keeping up with her millennial and Gen Z kids and their culture, ongoing involvement in the local church, working with vulnerable and ethnic populations in the non-profit sector, small business start-ups, and a mid-life return to school. Her undergrad is in religious education at Tyndale University and currently she is in her second year at Tyndale Seminary in the MDiv Global Mission and Intercultural Studies program.