Thank you all for your faithful prayers and support. Our teens and several others from Southern Ontario gathered together for our quarterly Youth Rally in May. The preaching was fantastic, and it was so much fun playing goofy games and seeing the fruit of their study of the book of Colossians come out during our Bible Jeopardy. I was privileged to be the game master again, and I can’t say how much I enjoy working and interacting with our teens and even other young people from other sister churches. It’s such rewarding work! We’ve had some great times, and there are many more to come. Our youth group has grown a little since we’ve seen one young man start coming weekly. I attribute that first to the grace and glory of God and secondly to our teen guys who stepped up and befriended a very shy young man. He has not missed a service yet since these guys tried to include him and be his friend. We are currently working to establish all of our teens in regular Bible reading, prayer, and faithful witnessing. For some, these three things seem quite challenging.
Gospel Light Baptist Church had its 21st anniversary on June 23, 2024. In August, we will have been here for 6 of those 21 years. Where has the time gone? Praise the Lord, my wife and I got to lead a couple of souls to Christ in June! Liz led a teenager named Eric to Christ during our midweek soul-winning time. Pray for us as we try to follow up on him. I got to lead a man named Bishop to Christ. I met him while Pastor Johnston and I were out witnessing and handing out tracts at a local lakeside park. I had been “attempting” to witness to another man in a very long conversation that seemed to be going nowhere fast. After I walked away from him, another man, who had apparently been listening to our entire conversation, flagged me down. He wanted to know more about what he had overheard, so I gave him the Gospel too. He didn’t get saved that day, but we swapped numbers and met a week later at Tim Horton’s. It was there that Bishop got saved! I’m trying to meet with him for discipleship, but so far, for an unknown reason, he’s been hesitant to meet with me. Please pray that we can get something established.
Here are some future opportunities to pray about for our ministry. First, we’re starting up a Teen Soul Winning ministry in July that is meant to get teens comfortable speaking at doors, handing out tracts, and giving the Gospel. I’m praying that this will be an encouragement for our teens to take the Great Commission into their own hands. Second, discipleship and a Biblical counseling ministry are greatly on my heart, and I need God’s help as I move forward in that pursuit. I just finished a lengthy set of discipleship lessons with a man, and we’ve now transitioned into Biblical counseling sessions. Pray for me as opportunities open up for me to counsel and disciple some of our younger/single men. Please keep praying for labourers in Canada. I now know of three missionaries who have plans to come to Canada to minister, and I praise God for that. The bittersweet reality, though, is if they were here tomorrow, we’d still need 300 more! The harvest truly is plenteous in this forgotten mission field, and the labourers are few and far between. The world is here—who will reach them?
Pressing toward the mark,
Brian & Liz Hebert