Greetings from Canada! I hope that your Thanksgiving holiday was a blessing and a refreshment to you. Things have been moving along for us here as we dive further into the ministry. Last month I mentioned that we would be starting a new teen ministry called teenIMPACT, which would be a teaching and training program for our teens before our midweek services. We began that ministry on Thursday, November 8. Our inaugural meeting started with a lesson on soul winning and then an opportunity to go out into the area and give out tracts to people who were walking in and out of stores. I was very pleased with our teens, who gave out just shy of 50 tracts that first night. My goal is to slowly build their confidence so that they will eventually become confident soul winners. This time was different because they had to deliberately go up to someone, get their attention, give them the tract, and invite them to church. Over these past few weeks, we’ve covered several different topics regarding witnessing. I’ve recently started engaging our teens in soul-winning training scenarios, where they have to try to “win” me to Christ, after which I try to help them with some tips on ways to improve, as well as praising and encouraging them in the things they did well. It’s been a fun growing experience even for me. There’s usually some laughter we have to work through during this training time because I probably have the funniest teens in all Ontario to work with. In all seriousness though, I see a desire in them to learn and grow. There’s hope for Canada’s future, and it’s in these young Canadian soul winners.
Last month we also had our very first youth activity with pizza and table games. Our teens had to complete a challenge to be able to attend, and all of our teens completed this challenge. Canadian Thanksgiving holiday is in October, so I took the entire month and taught on thankfulness. During that month, the teens had to complete 16 different acts of giving thanks. The fellowship was great, and it was a good bonding and building tool for our young people, most of whom are scattered in different towns in the Greater Toronto Area. They don’t often get together outside of church times, so this was good for them. We also had a great time going with Pastor Johnston and some of our teens to the annual Youth Conference at Lighthouse Baptist Church in London, Ontario, hosted by fellow FBMI missionary Phil Powless. My wife was even able to help a young lady from another Toronto-area church get reassurance of her salvation. This was a really great trip for us and for our teenagers.
Please pray for Bahar, an Iranian lady we met who is a follower of the Bahá’Í Faith. When one of our teen boys and I witnessed to her, she was very kind, but she didn’t get saved. My wife and I were able to go back and give her a whole Bible in the Farsi language. She had previously asked for a Bible in Farsi since her English is limited; we thank the Lord that we were able to get one for her. Pray that we have another opportunity to witness to Bahar. Also, please pray for my dad. We recently found out that he has cancer. The doctors are confident that it can be treated, but please pray for healing nonetheless. I’m not sure of his salvation, so I’m asking you all to make it a serious matter of prayer. We’ll be taking some time this Christmas to visit both of our families in Louisiana and North Carolina, so please pray that these visits would be blessed and that we’d have safety in travel.
Pressing toward the mark,
Brian Hebert
