French Project Update # 2

Original letter written on May 19, 2008:

Hello Family and Friends!

As Paul would say: Grace and peace to you all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!! Below is an update from the past 10 days of project. "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice!!"

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The Week in Review

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The past 10 days have seemed to me to be as long as a month in my longing for you all with "the affection of Christ Jesus" (Phil 1:8), but also have so quickly passed as I find God has been pouring into me so much certainty, assurance and steadfastness as well as much growth, that I long for each day to continue on so I can get as much out of it as possible.

I arrived safely in Montreal on May 10 and was whisked away for a 3 day orientation retreat near Mont Tremblant. During those 3 days our team of 10 students (2 guys, 8 girls, everyone from campuses either in Ottawa, Toronto or Montreal) were equipped with the resources we needed to be prepared for campus and other forms of evangelism. It was also a great time to build team friendships and get to know one another as our complete team has 10 staff too, so 20 in all.

I played Scrabble in French and realized I am terrible! LOL

We returned to Montreal on Monday evening and then started ministry on Tuesday. Our days so far have seen us meet for worship, teaching, prayer and inductive bible study in the morning at a local church and then we take the metro to our assigned campuses (mine being the University de Montreal) with our assigned teams. The project director designated me to lead our University de Montreal team as the staff only come with us occasionally to do the campus evangelism.

Our time on campus consists of approaching students in cafeterias and such and asking them if they would like to do a spiritual interest survey, we tell them who we are and then discuss the survey questions and almost always get to elaborate on the questions. This is not the only approach to evangelism on this trip, but for on campus, it seems to be the most useful too so far.

We have also partnered this week with two local ministries, one being a food distribution ministry for the homeless and the other being a street evangelism outreach team.

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2) Praise Report

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In all three outreach areas that we participated in this week, Campus, Food ministry and Street Evangelism, we saw 8 people give their lives to Jesus! God is BIG!

Personally, the Lord allowed me to lead one mature student at the University de Montreal not only to a surrendered life to Christ but also a life daily reliant on the Holy Spirit. At the food distribution, I approached one young man as he ate and we spoke of having hope in life and where he found that. His life had been shattered when his father committed suicide 4 years prior and he had been the one who found his father's body. That evening I didn't have any survey or tracts or tools as I wasn't expecting to be leading this guy to Jesus, but by the grace of God the Holy Spirit gave me the words and we prayed together and when I opened my eyes I saw Dave's eyes (that's his name) and they were bright and wide and he had this huge smile on. I didn't have anything to give him besides my own personal French Bible, but it was a blessing to do so and he was so grateful.

The COOLEST part is that both of these experiences were in French and it was evident that the Holy Spirit had so powerfully already gone before to woo these people's hearts to Him.

There is so much more I could tell you, but I will leave it at the fact that Montreal is thirsty, Jesus is the answer, we have only 2 more weeks here and there is so much work to be done. I believed that the Lord was moving, but to see it first hand and to see the openness has grown my heart and encouraged me immensely, not to mention the entire team as well as the ministries we've been working with.

All week it has been so easy to approach and talk to people here. I think the shortest conversation I've had so far is over 30 minutes.

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Prayer Requests

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-that my personal time with the Lord would be so rich

-that we would be able to use people's openness to share with them Christ's message while relating it to their personal situations

-that our burden for the lost here would grow even stronger

-that we would be aware of the spiritual warfare here and use the weapons God has given us to fight and be strong in the Lord and the power of His might

-that prayer and intercession would be a main priority as we realize the reality that only the Holy Spirit can change a mission field and bring revival

-that our French would improve continually

-that our team relationships would be positive and further the gospel here rather than be a distraction

-for Christina and Dave who decided to follow Jesus this week, that they would respond to our contact and follow-up efforts

AND lastly, that as we see people come to the Lord, that we would be able to effectively connect them to local church bodies here so that they will grow up in the Lord with a loving family of believer's around them (there are local staff here on the team that are also connecting with these new believers so that they have local contacts).

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Final Greetings

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I give thanks to the Lord constantly for you all and your faithful prayers for my team and I on this project. The Lord is moving, He is guarding me and building me up, and His kingdom IS advancing here in Montreal. Thank you for helping further the gospel and showing your obedience and love for Christ as well as your care for me as a fellow brother on the French mission field.

I also hold you all in my heart and request for you to send me updates on what I can pray for. Just because I am here does not separate me from praying from my family.

Que Dieu vous benisse/ Blessings from God on you all

In Him,
Jonathan Brower