We had a great blessing this summer, which really refreshed our spirits—my wife’s parents came for a visit! We had the best time playing Rook and virtual bowling, going thrifting, and spending time together. My mother-in-law got to be a part of a discipleship lesson my wife was doing with a lady, and my father-in-law went soul winning with me multiple times. Up to this point, we hadn’t seen them in two years!

In July, we had several activities for our youth group that were such a blessing. First, we went on a trail hike at a local nature preserve. It was fun showing the teenagers one of the beautiful trails that I discovered during the most difficult days of our lockdowns. We had a blessed time of seeing God’s creation and some time together in the Bible. Later, we invited all of our teens to a “Youth Conference Watch Party” to view the FBC Hammond Youth Conference. Next, we participated in an all-day Youth Tent Revival Meeting in Peterborough, Ontario. All month long, we were blessed with a majority of our youth group in attendance, which included a new addition, but at the Tent Revival, we had a big spike in new teens coming! This was a huge blessing to see so many teens come with us.

In August, we got to help in a Vacation Bible School at a sister church in Newmarket, Ontario, which we usually take part in every summer, COVID time notwithstanding. In the morning, I was able to help them with the VBS. Many of our families brought their children, perhaps even more than I’ve ever seen come in my time here at the church. Daily, the children learned Scripture, heard Gospel preaching, learned a missionary story, and were filled to the brim with enthusiasm about Jesus and His Word. In the evenings, the same church puts on something for the teens called the Teen Event. Several of our teenagers came, and some new teens came as well. This year, I got to be the team leader of one of the teams. It was fun trying to act like I wasn’t almost 40 years old, and though we didn’t win, we had a great time bonding through activities and the preaching of the Word of God.

We’ve tried to make the most of the summer and complete lack of restrictions to knock as many doors as possible. Our church participated in the “Fill America/Canada” campaign, where we banded with hundreds of churches across America and Canada to focus on giving out Gospel tracts, and the combined efforts of our church totaled over 2,500 tracts given out in a two-week period. In our last letter, I wrote to you about Alex, whom I finally got to witness to, but unfortunately, I’ve not been able to find him at home since. Please pray that I can get in contact with him and have the assurance that he is truly saved. In my personal soul-winning time, I met a Jamaican lady named Cathy, who was very friendly and was open to hearing the Gospel. I set up a time to come back with my wife so that we could sit down together with her, and at that meeting, right there on her front porch, Cathy got saved! Pray for her husband, who needs to be saved as well. Another person I met is a man named Anvar. He is a Muslim man from Kyrgyzstan (the first person I’d ever met from this country). He is very open to talking with me, though he is confident that he will be able to outwit my arguments for the Gospel. The main problem isn’t whether I’m up for going toe to toe with his false religion; the main problem is the language barrier. His English is only good enough to have general conversations, not the deep ones we’ll need to have to preach the Gospel to him. He speaks Russian as well as his native tongue, so please pray that I’ll either get a Russian translator who’ll consistently be able to go with me or I’ll be able to use Google Translate without it messing things up in some embarrassing way.

His servant and yours,

Brian Hebert