THE LITTLE DOVE UNIVERSAL FAITH SANCTUARY
“THE SANCTUARY”

The Sanctuary is headed by Rev. Donna Rae. Donna Rae has been on a spiritual path since childhood. Her family was part of the Gospel Hall Church in Toronto and she attended at a local Baptist Church. In summers she attended a Christian bible camp. When she moved to Vancouver, she joined the Mennonite Brethren Church and attended studies.

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In 1994 Donna Rae was living in Vancouver and operating the West Coast Center for Natural Healing as a Wholistic Therapist and Master Herbalist. She had already taken a vow of poverty and during a spiritual meditation she was directed to close down the clinic and move to Medicine Hat. A garage sale gave her enough money to make the move and she started a small clinic on 3rd Street, downtown Medicine Hat. She was living in a camper at the time. Several years after, she was directed to purchase a small church on 8th Street SE, and the “Little Dove Sanctuary” was born. She applied and received her Bachelor of Divinity degree.

Rev. Donna made some friends through teaching courses at the new clinic. They incorporated a non-profit company under the religious societies act, called “Little Dove Universal Faith Sanctuary”, which is just as easily referred to as “Little Dove” or “The Sanctuary”. This was not to be a religious church for any particular denomination - spirituality comes from within, not from the external, they did not want to exclude anyone.

For the first few years, they used the Sanctuary for vegetarian pot luck dinners, spiritual studies on whatever anyone wanted to investigate, for meditation sessions, and hands on healing evenings where other alternative health practitioners were invited to come and help people for free.

After several years, we were approached by a Taiwanese Master who have us direction to open a “Holy House’ to study the “Tao”. This was great fun and we operated a Holy House for many years.

On one of Donna’s spiritual trips she ran into some Tibetan Monks who helped set up a Tibetan Healing Room at the Sanctuary. They made a ‘crystal pyramid’ shaped with crystals and magnets that you can lie under for balancing your energies. A room in the Sanctuary still exists for those wanting to use it however, the crystal pyramid has been put aside and replaced with a crystal light bed.

Other healing and spiritual tools were acquired over the years:
Tuning forks Tibetan brass bowls crystals we enjoyed learning how to use these to balance the energies of the body.

Several years ago we opened a free clinic on Saturdays at the Sanctuary. After several years it became apparent that people didn’t need spiritual guidance so much as they needed to understand the purpose of the body was to house the ‘holy spirit’ inside. Without a body, you can have no spiritual experience and people seemed to not understand the importance of keeping the body healthy and clean for the spiritual experience.

It then became our purpose to become more of a teaching clinic, guiding people as to how they can help themselves overcome whatever difficulties they may have.

In May 2006 the Natural Healing Clinic moved from the much crowded clinic on 3rd Street into the Sanctuary. The Holy House was taken down to make room for the clinic.

Many people have asked us if we get involved in anything like ‘witchcraft’ or mediumship’ type activities. We do not. We are interested in elevating the consciousness to a higher plane of enlightenment and understanding that our creator gave us everything we need, within our very matrix. The law of case and effect cannot be changed, and we are causing a lot of problems in our life, and reaping the effects.

We have enjoyed the teachings of all the saints over the years. They have all said the same thing -- you have all power and knowledge within, and God is not some being out in the Universe, it is right within you. Everything you do with your life is crucial to your eternal existence. It is all about consciousness.

We understand that the purpose of this lifetime is not to accumulate wealth, houses, families, and careers. We came here to find out and understand who we really are. In the process of that journey, we may need to have different religious experiences, have different careers, travel, have families. We develop a non-judgmental attitude of allowing everyone their experiences and lovingly try to impart how they may protect the temple (the body) that houses their holy spirit and how to become detached to the pain and suffering that is so prevalent on our planet. How to take responsibility for what we create and how to work with our challenges.

OUR GARDENS
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The “Sanctuary” was first acquired in 1998. It consisted of a very old small church and a parking lot.

We decided wherever there was ground, it would be used for gardens instead of parking. Ponds were dug out, sunken gardens were put together. Fruit trees, herbs of every description, flowers, and old bricks were used to define walkways.

It has grown and changed here and there over the years; the energy and the environment is lovely.

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The Sanctuary has appeared on garden tours, public open houses and private garden parties.

During the summertime we often find someone sitting in a particular part of the garden meditating. When approached they say “I just felt a magnet draw me to this place and I had to come and sit and just be here”. We love it.

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OUR CURRENT PROJECTS

We have never had a grant from the government or any other agency. We believe in working for our funding. Currently, we have several projects we are involved in:

NATURAL HEALING CLINIC. It began in 1994 initially downtown on 3rd Street SE. It moved to the Little Dove Sanctuary in the spring of 2008. Visits and consultations at the clinic are free. Donations are taken by others to help us with expenses and for testings.

SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE CLASSES. From time to time as we feel directed by ‘Spirit’ we will have non-denominational classes for those interested in spiritual advancement,
healing and protection.

WEEKEND TEACHING PROJECT. From time to time we teach self-help classes on weekends. They range from emotional healing to herbalism, sound therapy, crystal healing etc.