We have had a very busy month! We hosted a vision team from Emmanuel Baptist, Billings, the last week of September, then we spent a week in Boston as a family, and have been hosting a couple from Lifeway Church of Billings for the past two weeks.
During that time we have seen the Lord continue to work in and through our home. The children continue to come to our house daily, and just this week April started the "After School Bible Club" in our home. We are very excited that Muslim parents are allowing their children to attend! One Muslim family from Pakistan seems very open and receptive - please pray for their salvation. Today April (and Leanne, from Billings) will be spending the morning with the Muslim mother learning to cook Biryani in their home. Another neighbor, Pam (white Canadian), is also very receptive to the Gospel and is allowing her children to come to church with us every Sunday, as well as to Awana club and our after school Bible club. Her kids are getting tons of exposure to the Gospel! Pam has also agreed to meet with April weekly for private Bible study in her home. Please pray for a harvest and that a house church will be birthed right here in our home or neighborhood.
Jeremy and Zack (from Lifeway, Billings) have spent a lot of time passing out Bibles in the Floradale Park area near downtown Mississauga. They were able to connect with a lot of people, but there is still a strong resistance to the Gospel. We have not received any phone calls or emails yet in response to all the Bibles we've passed out. We are thankful for a Vietnamese believer, Tem (he attends our regular church in Mississauga), who happens to live in one of the apartment buildings there. He was able to connect us with a couple, Steve and Diane, who agree that we need a new church in the area to reach out to the Asian population. Steve and Diane are believers and live in Tem's building. We met in their home and they agreed to help us reach their neighbors and get a Discovery Bible Study going. We are very excited about this and are praying that we can begin to connect with people more easily now.
Jeremy's health seemed to be improving over the past few months, but then took a downward turn over the past three weeks. The pain is nothing like it was last year, but he still has episodes every three or four days, and recently he has been hurting much more often. Just this morning he began to pass blood again, which only fuels our fears and anxiety concerning his health. The parasite doctor has been out of the country this month, so all our appointments with him have been delayed.
Here's how you can pray:
Pray for the salvation of our neighbors, especially the Pakistani family and Pam's family. Pray that our house will be a lighthouse in this dark community. Pray that the after-school Bible study will thrive and that many children's eyes and hearts will be open. Pray for a continued receptivity to the Gospel in our neighborhood.
Pray for a church to be started in Floradale Park. Pray that Tem, Steve, and Diane will be able to connect us to many people and that a Discovery Bible Study will develop soon. Pray that the Bibles we've given people in the area will make a difference and that we'll get some response.
Please continue to pray for Jeremy's healing. Pray that the new testing being done will reveal something more concrete for the parasite doctor. Pray that Jeremy will be able to get the new parasite meds soon and plead with the Father that these new meds will bring the healing that Jeremy needs. Pray also that all of his damaged organs will heal quickly. Pray against fear and anxiety.
Continue to pray for April as she struggles with thyroid issues and the responsibility of homeschooling four boys each day.
Pray for Jeremy as he travels to Billings to speak at the annual missions celebration at Emmanuel Baptist Church in November 3-7.
Hitting the Streets with the Skrips!
We have been very blessed to have Zack and Leanne Skrip from Lifeway Church of Billings spend the past two weeks with us! Jeremy and Zack spent much of their time doing street evangelism and passing out Bibles, as well as exploring other areas in the city where we hope to start more churches. Zack had some amazing opportunities to talk with Muslims and Hindus and share the Gospel. He's actually quite natural as an evangelist! Leanne was an enormous help to April in homeschooling and was able to connect with many of the neighborhood children who come through our home every day. They have been a great encouragement to our family and have opened our eyes to some other creative ways to connect with our target group, reminding us of the great need we have for a ministry team to come alongside us. They will be missed when they head back to Montana in a few days! 
Arrival of Autumn
This is our family's favorite time of the year! The leaves in Southern Ontario are ablaze with the brilliant and fiery colors of red, orange, and yellow. The days are gradually getting colder and the skies are often overcast. It makes you want to sip a Tim Horton's double-double in a local park or watch the rain fall outside while eating a warm bowl of Vietnamese pho (beef noodle soup). Just outside the city pumpkin patches abound, and there are hiking trails along the Niagara Escarpment which take you through thick forests of colorful hardwoods and by huge, cascading waterfalls. You will often come to a bend in the trail (or even the road) that causes you to pause and worship the Creator with abandon because the scene is so absolutely awesome. This really is an amazing place to be during the fall season!
As the weather changes and the temps drop, I am also compelled by a sense of urgency to get moving. Just like a squirrel in a hurry to store up acorns before the snow falls, I realize that time is running out to connect with people on the streets. Floradale Park was bustling with activity only a few weeks ago, but now it is a bit more lonely and desolate. South Asians, as you can imagine, do NOT like cold weather. I sense they are already retreating into their homes in the high rise apartments and only walk the sidewalks when heading to or from the bus stop -- and they are usually hurried by the rain or a brisk, cold breeze. Connecting with them in public is becoming very challenging.
I sat just last week in Floradale Park, asking the Lord to please open a door. I've passed out literally hundreds of Bibles in the past few months and have had dozens of opportunities to share the Gospel with people along the sidewalks in the Floradale area, but I still hadn't connected like I had hoped and I didn't seem any closer to starting a new church. I was discouraged and beginning to feel like I had failed once again. But then the Lord tossed me an acorn.
The next day I was connected (via a Vietnamese friend) to a family living in one of the high rise apartments overlooking Floradale Park. I called and they said they were very interested in seeing a new church planted in their area and even agreed to host a "community Bible study" in their home! He even said he knew of several people in his apartment building that he thinks would be interested -- some are believers and some are not. A door had literally been opened for us!
Our plan at this point is to continue to pass out Bibles and connect with people on the streets every day, but we will also focus on reaching people through the natural network of relationships in that high rise apartment. We will be studying our way through the Gospel of John together, eating meals together, and developing new friendships. Our prayer is that a genuine church will be birthed from this open door very soon!
Please pray for Steve and his household as his apartment serves as a launch pad for a new church. Pray that the Gospel will spread quickly through his apartment building and that many people will receive the Gospel with open hearts. Please take time daily to fuel this new development with your prayers!
EBC Vision Team
We are very blessed to be developing an official partnership with Emmanuel Baptist Church, Billings MT -- a church with a reputation for being missional and dedicated to partnerships. The Emmanuel family has come alongside us unofficially for years by providing missionary housing while on stateside assignments as well as strong prayer and financial support at times. We know many of the families in the church, so there is also a strong relational connection. We are excited about the recent development of this partnership and look forward to the next several years of working alongside each other.
In late September Emmanuel sent a small vision team (Michael Laird and Troy McInnis, pictured above on the "Go Train" in Toronto) to come to Toronto and see our work firsthand. We spent five days together exploring the greater Toronto area, praying together, and discussing what a partnership might look like. I believe it was a very productive trip. They were able to witness the massive ethnic diversity for themselves and think through the challenges of planting churches in such a messy and complex community. How do we reach the hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists that are constantly pouring into our city from around the world? Michael and Troy sat in the living room of Pakistani church planters and picked their brains. They met in coffee shops with white Canadian pastors who face this challenge daily and listened to their stories. They went away pondering how Emmanuel -- a church from Montana -- can come alongside these men and their churches and join them in the task of making Christ known here in Toronto. Michael and Troy also passed out Bibles on the streets and encountered the lostness directly. Due to previous experience on the foreign mission field, Michael and Troy were able to talk with Jeremy about strategy and pray with discernment over our family and ministry. It was a very encouraging time for us!
Emmanuel will be flying Jeremy to Billings this November to participate and speak at their annual Missions celebration (Nov. 3--7). During that time they will officially begin the partnership. Dates are already being set for short-term mission teams to come to Toronto this coming year. What a blessing to be connected to like-minded laborers who come alongside us in the harvest fields!
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