Former Portage la Prairie resident Naomi Striemer performed and told her story in Winnipeg today. She talked about her multi-million dollar record contracts, and singing with Carlos Santana in her song "Cars". She says she made a major decision while living right here in Portage.

"I grew up in Canada, and I actually lived in Manitoba from the age of 10 to 15. So, it was kind of a pivotal time period. And I was actually deciding that I wanted to get into the music industry when I lived in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. And this is when I was kind of facing a decision if I was going to get into Christian or pop music."

Striemer notes she grew up in church and decided to use pop music to reach the unchurched.

"I'd grown up in the faith, I'd grown up in the church. For me I thought I could go out and reach people. I think a lot of people have that idea they're going to be ambitious, and make this a ministry. So, I decided to go pop all the way. I ended up moving to the U.S., signing a big multi-million dollar recording contract with Sony records. I was 18 at the time. It was just kind of like my dream coming true."

She notes things didn't go as planned.

"I had no idea that that's not life. It's just an extraordinary situation. So, I had this multi-million dollar deal and I traveled around the world to make this big pop record. I ended up making that record. It didn't go as I had planned. I remember being very disappointed and blaming God for what had happened. The next thing I know I'm making a huge record, bigger than the one before. And I 'm working with the guitar legend Carlos Santana. We ended up having this brief number 1 single. All the media was obsessed with it. A huge thing, but I never really felt it was real. I had this sort of sixth sense not to rejoice too much, I guess because of the lack of huge success with the former project. And sure enough, with the circumstances that happened again, it didn't go as planned."

Striemer says it was after that when she changed directions and became a Christian singer songwriter.

She told her story and performed this morning at Miles MacDonnell Collegiate, for an event organized by Joy Fountain Church.