More News from the Francises

During the last month we have made two important trips. Two weeks in Honduras, and one in Chibougamau.

Our trip to Honduras was not useless, but held some disappointments. It was great to see Melodie and Yeffri again, as well as the children in the Home.  Our purpose for the trip was to teach two courses: Homiletics (How to preach an expository sermon) in Tegucigalpa, and Biblical Counselling in Catacamas, Olancho.

There was some confusion over the length of course in Tegucigalpa,, as well as the number of students.  Because of conflicting activities, we only had about 20 students for the Homiletics course, and had to reduce the time to about ten hours. However we had some good participation, and some were asking about a possible return trip to do some further teaching on the subject. We’ll see how God leads in this.

After Tegucigalpa, we traveled to Catacamas, in Olancho with pastor Arnie Andino. There we had less surprises. A little over 20 students, which is what was expected. There were pastors who could not attend, or who could not be present both days, because of their work load. The have to do physical work in order to feed their families, as they do not receive much, or anything, from their churches. In many areas, church buildings are called “temples”, which gives the idea that the building is really the priority, and not the laborers, or pastors. As a result, many pastors are not paid at all, and so they cannot find the time to get further education, and the churches are not as well served. Happily, this is not always the case.

We had a good time in our Biblical Counselling course. The central theme was forgiveness for inner healing. 

We were told we would suffer from the heat in Catacamas. However as we looked at the temperatures they were suffering in Montreal and Sherbrooke, Quebec, we felt cool in comparison!!!

We got back to Canada around midnight July 10^th, and slept in our son Richard’s apartment that night, then drove back to Sherbrooke on the 11^th.

Chibougamau:

On Saturday, July 14^th, we left home once again for the 7-8 hour drive to Chibougamau. About 40 years ago, when I was a young pastor in Chibougamau, we had sometimes babysat a two-year old boy named Patrick in our home when his parents had to travel. We loved him very much as at the time we had no children of our own. When Patrick was about 13 or 14 he decided he didn’t want to have anything more to do with church. He became involved in a lot of things that caused tears for his parents and friends. In fact he grew up to become quite well known in the area. On various trips I had occasion to visit with him. He always continued to occupy a soft spot in my heart.  About a year and a half ago when Lise and I were visiting in Chibougamau, I saw him in town and he gave me a warm hug and said “When I decide to give my life to the Lord, you’re the one who is going to come and baptize me.” I said, “You bet I will!”  Well, toward the end of May, I got his call. Patrick, or “Pat”, put his trust in the Lord in the end of April, and his transformation has been dramatic. I am sure there is not a soul in Chibougamau who hasn’t heard about “what happened to Pat”.   He has been going around all his old friends, urging them to come to Christ.   So this trip was for a multiple baptism in Chibougamau. Lise and I spent the week interviewing candidates for baptism. Pat, his wife Melanie, his brother André, his friend Robin, and his other friend Raoul. Each one of these would have a story to tell.  This past Saturday (July 21^st) we had our multiple baptism in a small lake near Chibougamau (The Lord even warmed the water for us with 30 degrees temperature!). I baptized those five, and then the Pentecostal pastor baptized two others, one of whom, Kevin, was another one of Pat’s friends with whom he had spoken.  We had a crowd of over a hundred on the shore, with five churches represented.   

Patrick

Melanie

André

Robin

Raoul

Both Sunday mornings it was great to see our Baptist church building actually filling again. Praise the Lord!

Now we are praying that a tent-making pastor could move to Chibougamau to do some serious teaching. We were encouraged to see that someone had introduced the Precept Ministries courses, and some of our old believers who hadn’t really been strong on study in the past have begun to use those. So that’s a start!