As of this writing, we are starting to come out of the quarantine here in Canada. Things are reopening slowly with much caution, and with things like the Salvation Army Thrift Store opening up now, we feel like hope is springing anew! July will mark the start of our resuming in-person morning services, with some limitations still in place. The months of May and June were full-blown quarantine time for us. Ministry for us has mostly been online via Zoom, a medium I’m sure most of us are very familiar with now. Since mid-March up to today, we’ve done our youth Sunday school class over Zoom. Though I’d rather see our teens in person, I’m glad the day we live in gives us this avenue to continue teaching our young people. Pastor Johnston has started several different ways for us to continue connecting with our church folks and ministering to families. We have four different prayer meetings a week for men, ladies, teens, and one for anyone. At our teen Zoom meeting, I give our youth a “short” devotional challenge; the topics have been on living for God, boldness for God, and being a witness. Truth be told, we didn’t have a specific teen prayer meeting before, and these devotional opportunities used to be only once a month. The virus has grounded us, but in some ways, it has given us more opportunities as well. I’ve also been tasked with putting on a game night every other Friday; this has made for some great times and laughs, which we all need at this time.
One thing that COVID-19 has done for us is give us more chances to connect with our neighbours. Cabin fever has driven us to go on more walks, which we really should’ve been doing anyway for our own health, but I digress. Doing so has given us more opportunities to meet our neighbours and folks living around our neighbourhood. These walks allowed us to meet one of our neighbours named Elsie, whom I think is in her eighties. I’ve witnessed to her and given her some Gospel materials in the different conversations we’ve had together while we were out walking. She’s very talkative, and I pray she will be open to receiving Jesus someday soon. We’ve also met Nicola and Joshua, a mother and teenage son, whom we’re hoping we can lead to Christ and get them coming to Sunday school.
Going on prayer walks in the mornings has become a regular practice for me (again cabin fever), and that time has given me some witnessing opportunities as well. The Lord has placed some “interesting” people in my path. One of those was a woman who called herself Jazora and claimed to be a prophet. Pray for her salvation and her mental state, as she is a very confused person. Pray for Quincy, another man I met while out and about, to be saved.
Knocking on doors isn’t an option right now because of the level of caution people are still maintaining, but that’s not to say that there aren’t witnessing opportunities available. Also, please pray for a project that Pastor Johnston has set in motion to mail out Gospel postcards to 100,000 homes in our area. This has the potential to reach many people, as each of those 100,000 homes, in most cases, has more than one person in it. This is a big endeavour, for which we’ll need to raise a significant amount of money. If you’d like to get involved with this, please reach out to me for more details.
Please keep praying for us as we start to open up again. Things will start back slowly, so pray for our patience. Please pray for our “sidewalk” evangelism; pray that God would open hearts through the seeds sown in their hearts. People may not be willing to accept a tract, but plenty of people are glad to engage in conversation with a friendly person. Please pray that the Gospel-tract mailing project will not only get into homes, but into hearts as well. Thank so much you for your prayers and support!
Pressing toward the mark,
Brian Hebert
