Israël and Nadia Le Guédard Gaspé, Quebec Current ministry: Israël and Nadia are planting a church in the city of Gaspé, as a daughter work of the Église Baptiste Évangélique de Terrebonne-Mascouche. This ministry began in June 2002 when they began house meetings with six or seven Christians that had no church home. By 2006, there were 20 to 25 believers (including four new converts) meeting for worship every Sunday. Every church member is involved in some aspect of the work, from the welcoming ministry to evangelism. One of the greatest challenges for this new church is to create a place for itself in the community of Gaspé, a city with deep Roman Catholic roots. Family: Israël and Nadia were married on December 26, 1998. They have two daughters: Camille (born January 2002) and Anne-Julie (born October 2003). Spiritual Background: Israël grew up in the village of Cloridorme, about one hour from Gaspé, the oldest of a family of five children. His parents became Christians about three years after he was born and were the first Christians in the village. Israël says, “Following my parents’ conversion, I was involved in a lot of new undertakings: outreach in Cloridorme, a house church with the Christian Brethren, and Sunday school taught by my mother. I spent my teenage years as the only young Christian in a hundred-mile radius.” Israël became a Christian on May 5, 1985 during the visit of a French evangelist. He went to Parole de Vie Béthel (Word of Life) for one year in 1997 and this is where he met Nadia who became his wife the following year. Nadia was born in the Quebec City region. Her parents became Christians when she was still a baby. She attended Église Évangélique Baptiste de Québec and the Christian day school in that church. Nadia gave her life to the Lord during Sunday school when she was seven years old. After attending junior college, Nadia spent one year at Parole de Vie as a student and an additional year working in the office. Ministry Experience: Ministry experience: In 1996, Israël participated in the first evangelism camp with Aujourd’hui l’Espoir in the Gaspé region. He began to have a burden for the city of Gaspé because he saw many people ready to receive the message of the gospel, but no local church to carry on the work. Israël says, “As I began to pray for God to send a Christian worker to Gaspé, I was completely unaware that it would be me!” During his studies at Parole de Vie, he became friends with Israël-Luc Godfrey and shared his burden for Gaspé with him. Today, the two young men are partners in prayer and in ministry in this region. Israël-Luc is pastoring the church in Matane. After getting married, Israël and Nadia lived and worked in the Montreal region and attended Église Baptiste Évangélique de Terrebonne-Mascouche. That’s where Israël became a servant in training under Pastor Louis Bourque and followed a plan to develop his skills in various aspects of ministry including: leading a small group, a youth group, a class for new believers, doing evangelism, preaching and more. All of this preparation was for the purpose of seeing a new church established at Gaspé for the glory of God. In 2002, after four years of training, the time came for the Le Guédards to begin the missionary work at Gaspé. Israël is continuing his theological training with SEMBEQ.