OCTOBER 2015 NEWSLETTER

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

October, 2015

Dear Friends and Family;

As we look over the vast field of Quebec, our hearts are still stirred at the profound need of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is spread out in front of us! It has now been 20 years since we began this marvelous journey in this Mission Field. Our first 6 months were spent in Sister Larsen’s little apartment in Ville St Laurent. It was late that night, Oct 27, 1995 when we put our suitcases down, and crawled into bed for a few hours of much needed sleep! Early the next morning we got on the metro to head downtown Montreal to the Unity Rally!! It was a very exciting, and yet terrifying season for us! On Oct 30, we sat glued to that little black and white television, watching and praying as the voting results of the QC Referendum came in. This was a significant opening to these next 20 years!! So many times we have felt that intense “waiting period” pressure that has driven us to our knees!! God has always been faithful!

We could never have made it through this rugged spiritual terrain without you, our faithful prayer partners. Thank you all so much for caring enough to take the time to pray and support us in the many ways you have. We’d like to take this opportunity to give you a brief update on our current activities in this mission.

Victory Bible Camp

We were blessed this year to have a very good enrollment of campers in our two weeks of Children’s and Teen Camp. It seems that the spiritual temperature is continually rising for these camps, and we are so blessed to see what God is doing in the lives of the workers along with the campers. For the Children’s camp, our ministry team took turns speaking in the night services. The counselors were exceptionally high-spirited, and motivational each day as they worked with the children. For Teen Camp, we were extremely blessed to have Pastor Terry Kennedy here as our night speaker. He and his wife were such a great blessing to our camp!

Each night God moved through him to stir the hearts of the Teens. Friday night, the Spirit of The Lord moved in such an awesome way! So many were filled with the Holy Ghost; some gave their lives to Jesus for the first time; many wept in His presence; and some even fell on the ground as the waves of His Glory swept into the tent! We are truly blessed to witness these life changing times in the lives of our teens! 

A few years ago, after being in a Camp meeting much like these ones, I opened my Bible to this very applicable passage: (Luke 10:24) “For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” This applies again this year, and we thank God! Please keep these young people in your prayers.

We thank God also for the new “physical” changes to Victory Bible Camp. Due to your passion for souls, we were able to put in 3 new windows, all new siding on the chalet, along with a beautiful new patio door where there used to be only a window! It is brighter inside, with better air flow, and looks really nice outside! We also have new kitchen taps! We are so thankful!

Victory Harvest Church

We thank God for the faithful ones in our Church. The Soup Kitchen has been operating for 10 months now, and they are doing great. It is a wonderful opportunity to serve the needs of our community. We have seen some new ones come in through the Soup Kitchen, and have baptized some of them. We see a great hunger for the things of God in this Town of Brownsburg. This area of our ministry (the Church) is in great need of workers. We are asking God daily to send us laborers. 

For the first couple of years here, our Church was all in English. Now, we have switched to a bilingual service like we had in Laval. We are thankful for David and Sylvia Lyons who come often to help us with music and translating. However, we need help with Sunday School Teachers, and overall discipleship of the new ones. There is great potential for many other areas of ministry in Brownsburg as well. This is an urgent prayer request!!!

Our Growing Family

Our little family of 4 that moved in QC 20 years ago is now made up of 6 adults, and 6 children! These children range in age from 3 – 10 and are like little lights in our lives. It’s hard to believe that 5 of these little ones are in school! My, how the times goes! It was so neat to have all of them at Camp this year. Estelle was able to be more involved with the activities at camp this year because Abel has grown so much since last summer and readily got involved with the activities. Parents were thrilled with the craft she sent home with their children’s photo on it! Michelle is very involved with camp as well. She does a large part of the administration, music, puppet training, and many of the activities. We are so blessed to have such a multi-talented and passionate family around us. Please keep each of us in your prayers as we see transitioning in progress with jobs and ministries. God is good!

Working/Financial

We are presently working 5 evenings a week at a cleaning job in Montreal. We are 68 kms from our job. It only takes us 3 – 4 hours each night to do the work, but it does take up our evenings. That makes it impossible to have a mid-week service at our Church right now. We are believing that it is just for a season that we will need to work every evening. Since the Church income is very small, we are not able to receive any income from that. Esther has had some problems with her back this summer. We are waiting for the MRI results, but the physiotherapist believes it is a herniated disc. Please keep her in your prayers. Our God is able!

This job is really a help to us financially, but does not meet all of the needs. We are willing to work jobs like this, but would much rather be putting our time and energy into the work of God. Again, we ask that you pray about this with us. Along with Jesus, we say (Luke 10:2) “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.”

We encourage you to continue investing in this ministry. The track-record over the past 20 years has proven that God's hand is upon it! We are thankful for all that you have done, but we really need you today!

Thank You for your time today!

Steve and Esther

pastorsteveroach@gmail.com