Montreal-North Prays for a Bank
August 2011
One of my favourite parts of editing Thrive is that I receive emails containing exciting news – evidence of God’s fingerprints. I always enjoy the emails from Robert and Jackie Charpentier of Église Baptiste Évangélique de Montréal-Nord. They are full of “Nuggets of Joy” that the Charpentier’s experience in their ministry. I’ve become familiar with some of the names over the past year and have been excited to read about professions of faith and baptisms and outreach events.
Most recently, their nuggets of joy have included a prayer request.
On April 11, Jackie Charpentier wrote:
Praise the Lord for a new record. We were 188 people in total at our 2 services yesterday. The necessity for a bigger building is getting more and more pressing. Our present rental facility measures 20' by 34'. We are talking about the possibility of having a third service. There is also the possibility of buying a former bank, very well situated just 4 corners away from us and that would double our seating capacity. It costs $675,000. We have $50,000. Already one church has pledged $1500 towards this project. We bless the Lord for this. We are waiting upon the Lord!
On June 6, Jackie followed up with this:
We greatly rejoice in seeing God's good hand on his Church in Montreal-North. We are giving ourselves even more intensely to prayer, desiring to see the glory of the Lord being manifested in our midst by his granting us, in his goodness and almighty power, a new meeting place that would belong to us. Here are 4 thrusts to our prayer effort for this building project:
1. We will be having prayer groups throughout our area. All will be meeting with the common goal of imploring God's blessing on the purchasing of a former bank situated not too far away from our present location.
2. We have a sign-up poster on which those that want to go to the site of the bank and pray there can indicate their commitment by writing their name, the day and hour of their praying for this building project.
3. We are having a second week of prayer from June 7th to 13th every evening from 8 to 9 p.m.
4. We are giving you the occasion to commit to praying at home for our building project once a week till the end of the summer. If you would like to take up this prayer challenge, please just click on "Reply" to this e-mail and we will bless the Lord for every person who joins us in this prayer project.
And on June 20, this “Nugget of Joy” was passed along:
Praise the Lord! In the last weeks, the Lord has provided $ 409,500 in gifts and loans (mainly gifts) for our building project. How the Lord is faithful! How he is good and worthy to be praised! We rejoice in seeing the hand of blessing of our God on the work here in Montreal-North. The seller of the building is asking for $675,000. We praise the Lord for all he is going to do. With the taxes, the permit, the architect, the renovations, etc..., we would still need $200,000 to $300,000. We wait on the Lord to provide the remaining finances. Please do exalt the Lord with us for the $409,500 and also intercede with us for the remaining necessary funds.