Blog Post
Spring 2020
Brian Stegner • May 14, 2020
As I sit down to write this quarterly report, I am finding it hard to comprehend that it's only been three months since I last did this. It feels more like nine months ago, a year even.
And what a "year" it's been!
The very first time I read about this "new virus" in Wuhan, China, I remember thinking to myself, "I will always remember this moment as being when I first learned of the virus that destroyed the world." I briefly pictured what it would be like to live in a post-apocalyptic scenario...and then I went on with my life because my brain is always having random thoughts like that and I've learned to ignore them.
Thankfully my brain was mostly wrong and we haven't experienced a total meltdown of society, and yet we are
in the midst of something historic, something that is going to leave a lasting mark on the way that we do life across the globe.
But the amazing thing in the midst of all of this is what we're seeing Jesus do through the Internet during this time. It appears that unprecedented numbers of people are hearing the gospel and responding. And of course it's hard to know how accurate any statistics ever are, all the more so as we're all confined to our homes and families, but in as much as researchers are able to verify anything they say, God appears to be on the move. Just like the gospel initially spread along those reliable Roman roads, the gospel now is reaching new areas and new hearts through the superhighways of the the online world!
I'll detail more in a moment about how our own local ministry is going, as well as a family update, but first here is an update on where we're at in terms of our support raising project:
Support Raising Highlights
First of all, I just want to say thank you to all of our supporters. We have not had a single one drop out during this uncertain time, and for that we are very grateful, both to you in your faithfulness to us and our ministry, and to Jesus in his provision for our family. However there still have been a couple of recent challenges:
2. Our online business lost another 20% of its revenue over the last couple of months, which forced a staffing move that we had been seeking to avoid: As of a few weeks ago we had to let our manager go (who was also our very last "employee") and migrate the business back into our home. It was just not possible for us to pay him a full time salary anymore, and we had not yet managed to become fully funded to work full-time at the church, so: our new arrangement is that I am working three days a week with the church, and two days a week running the business as a self-employed person. While this means a significant cut to my additional "volunteer" hours at the church as well as a split in my focus, it does represent a sustainable income for us while we continue to work towards being fully funded for full-time ministry work. That would allow us to again hire out some of the business work and free me for more ministry hours each week. A blessing in the midst of all of this is that our children now have the opportunity to work with us and are each putting in many hours each week. Our homeschooling efforts now extend into personal finance: learning about giving, saving, and investing, as well as starting to save up for college (it begins...).
As a result of the above two realities, we've re-targeted our short-term fundraising goal to be fully funded for those three days a week. Thanks to several one-time donors that helped get us started in our first year, we are funded through the end of this year, but are only 87% funded on an on-going basis. We are looking to raise annual commitments of an additional $450 USD a month
(equal to about $600 CAD at the current exchange rate).
And that's one thing that has been really positive in the last little while, the USD / CAD exchange rate is EXTREMELY favorable at the moment:
That means for any of our donors in the U.S., your gifts are going a lot farther than they normally would when they're converted into CAD. So as a practical reality for those of you who tend to give annually,
now is a great time to make that donation and have an extra 10% thrown on top by the exchange rate.
Want to help take a bite out of that monthly target? Contact us!
Ministry Highlights
Obviously everything about ministry has changed in the last couple of months, but just prior to when things got crazy we had two last moments of normalcy on one weekend:
First, we had another one of our baptism parties and saw several people from both our French & English congregations be baptized. This included two brand-new believers in our English church, both of which are coming out of an occult background. Severine has had the joy and opportunity to invest time into both of these young women's lives (one pictured above under praying hands, one below), but overall we're just awed by the work of Jesus to free people from spiritual bondage of the most aggressive kind.
Severine also provided translation for the event (French into English), which was a first for her! :)
The aim of this protest / moment is to draw attention to how their business model supports human trafficking, and specifically the trafficking and abuse of minors, all in the hopes of it coming under regulation. It's way past time for the government to start taking this issue seriously. You can learn more and sign the petition at traffickinghub.com
But then after that eventful weekend COVID-19 really hit and, sadly, this was the last time our church was all together. We had no idea. :/
Like everyone else, we had to very rapidly adapt. So many things were put on pause as we worked out the technology side of keeping the church connected despite a total ban on gathering. The anchor point for both our French & English congregations has become the Church Online Platform. You can can check each of them out below (English & French):
If you notice and are wondering about the three different logos on their video, our French congregation has combined efforts with both our French house church team in the west island (Le Clocher) and the re-plant we're involved with in the suburb of Verdun (Eglise de Verdun).
As an English congregation we use the above online platform for daily morning prayer as well as our weekend "gatherings" (and set up for Sunday morning operations never looked so strange):
That's me trying to manage both our broadcast platform and the live feed on Facebook, while displaying it for our family to join in worship. Based on the analytics from each, just on the English side we're reaching something like 150-250 sets of eyes each Sunday morning, plus additional views as the content is watched later. If ever you want to join us to see a live broadcast, you can go to the link listed above at 9:45 AM EST. We just started a new series based on the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality:
It's a topical study, but still very grounded in the Bible, and already we are beginning to see some of the positive effects of opening up on this topic. If you've not read the book or studied this material, you can join with us! Videos of the past weeks are available on our website here:
Speaking of which, this time has also allowed me to complete some long-awaited updates to our church website:
And of course we Zoom quite heavily for staff huddles, meetings, Elder Board meetings, and all of our local city groups.
In sum, I have spent many long hours in the past weeks to help provide technical builds and support, as well as act as a clearinghouse for communications via social media and email. But it's all worth it as we've seen Jesus work in usual ways to reach people who would otherwise never darken the door of a church. We've had fourteen people indicate they've made a decision for Jesus in the past five weeks through the online platform. The anonymity of that system makes it hard to confirm / follow up with these folks but if even half of them are legitimately making this kind of decision, we are thrilled. Our hope is to draw them into the light and towards an outdoor baptism this summer (if the law allows).
Pray for these new believers that Jesus will complete the work he has begun within them!
Family Highlights
A few months ago I found this video we took of our kids the day before we left for our move to Quebec:
That's Severine and the kids from a few weeks ago when we went on a family hike (to try and stave off going stir-crazy in the house after so many weeks of social distancing!). We've tried to get outdoors each week to either go hiking, walking, or biking. That has sometimes involved picking creative destinations:
Hm...I'm just noticing how huddled we look in both of those pictures...here's one where you can actually see some of our faces:
Mother's Day gaming this past Sunday. :)
Seriously though, as homeschoolers we've experienced significantly less disruption than many other families and don't have too much to complain about. I've been able to continue to work and Severine has been able to continue to homeschool the kids. We do very much miss our friends and family and are greatly anticipating the day that things go back to normal (even if that's a new normal, we'll take it). One of the hardest things has been figuring out how to care for Severine's mom who lives alone in the city and is high-risk for COVID-19. Severine very carefully visits every two weeks, bringing groceries, home cooked food, and (properly distanced) human contact.
Thank you for your prayers for us, and please let us know
how we can be praying for you during this time as well!
Blessings
Brian, Severine, Kate, Ben, & Emma :)
P.S.
Severine hasn't gotten tired of painting yet:
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