HOT AIR NOT ONLY IN BALLOONS

From spring to autumn there are so many different civic events and festivals that take place throughout the National Captial region that we could be bringing the gospel to that it's not possible to get to them all in one year. One event our evangelism team from Emmanuel Baptist Church had yet to tackle was the annual Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival.

Gatineau is a city in the French province of Quebec which is on the other side of the four bridges that cross over the Ottawa River from Ottawa. Quebec is our neighbouring French province and Gatineau is our neighbouring French town. Attended by the thousands, the balloon festival was an opportunity for us to bring the gospel to our French speaking neighbours via French gospel tracts which we had made up along with French MDB tracts from Living Waters.

Our day went as well as we had hoped it would but ended differently that we thought it would.

As per every outreach we do whenever we set out to do the Lord's work, we pray beforehand. When we are done, we gather around again for a prayer of thanksgiving and to pray for those who received the gospel that day.

Our group of 9 split up into 3 groups of 3 and each group stood at each of the 3 gates to the fairgrounds and handed out tracts to festival attendees  coming and going like Pastor Bob is doing here. You don't need to speak another language to hand out gospel tracts.

But with one third of our troops being fully bilingual, some, like Nicole above, were able to share the gospel with French speaking festival goers in their own language.

An added bonus to this outreach in Gatineau was that we were able to utilize our French "Are You Ready" cross, handmade for us by crossmaker extraordinaire, Vernon Costolo, of Vernon Costolo fame in Georgia. Pictured above with the cross is Elder Denis Pomerleau, a fluently bilingual member of our team answering the question, " 'Etes-Vous Pret' pour quoi?" (You figure it out.)

All was going well until a local candidate for the Parti Quebecois (French separatist party) for an impending provincial election came into the picture. Manning his promo table across the street from the main gate of the balloon festival, he saw people handing out literature at and around the main gate.

The candidate crossed the street after noticing  that people were stopping in their tracks to read what they were being handed.

Curious, he went to Nicole to ask for one. He read the French MDB gospel tract he was given and this guy went from being 'curious' to 'furious' in nano-seconds. So much so, he got on his cell phone and called the police.

In short order, two police cars came to a screeching halt in front of the gate, lights flashing and the officers jumped out of their cars looking for the huge fight between a man and a security guard that was apparently taking place. Why? Because that's what they were told was going on.

The officers approached a security guard who apparently had been in a fist-to-cuff with non other than our brother, Chris Curry, who was quietly handing out gospel tracts near the gate. Then the complainant approached one officer...

...while the other went to politely interrogate Chris. I'm not sure how the guy got out of lying to the police dispatcher about a fight when there was none to be had, but he did make clear the reasons why he didn't like what we were doing:

1) The gospel tract was in the form of a fake Quebec million dollar bill and he didn't want people to think that this religious banknote came from his political party.

2) Since he was not allowed to hand out his political literature at the gate and had to set up shop across the street, he thought it was unfair that we with religious literature were allowed be there, even though security had politely asked us to move a bit further from the gate where we originally placed ourselves.

The long and short of it is that the police, not wanting a confrontation to start, asked us to move further down the street, away from the main gate, to which we complied. But not so much because we had to, which is what Mr Irate Candidate would like to have thought, but because we were done for the day as it was.

After one thousand and five hundred gospel tracts handed out, our team headed over to Pastor Bob's house for some great fellowship and some well deserved pizza.

By the way, the PQ candidate, who was too little too late in an attempt to shut us down, went on to lose his bid for election in his local riding. Hmmm... maybe he should stop lying to get his way. But, then again, he is a politician.

More than a seat in the Quebec legislature, he needs Christ. I hope he kept his French gospel tract. You never know.