Where we serve
Missionary Team
Israël-Luc and Agnès Godfrey
Matane, Quebec
Current ministry:
Israël-Luc and Agnès Godfrey began their pastoral ministry in Matane in September 2002. Since 2008, Maurice and Vicky Cloutier have joined them in leadership. In addition to ministering to the church in Matane, the two couples are working to establish a daughter-church in nearby Sainte-Anne-des-Monts.
Family:
Israël-Luc and Agnès were married on August 22, 1998. They have six children.
Spiritual background:
Israël-Luc is the oldest of five children and grew up in a Christian family. He enjoyed a good relationship with his parents and was particularly close to his father who pastored a church in Montreal. When Israël-Luc was 13, the family moved out of the city and his father began a ministry with Parole de Vie Bethel (Word of Life) in Lennoxville.
Israël-Luc remembers accepting the Lord as his personal Saviour at the age of 4. One day his father called him into his office and asked Israël if he wanted to ask Jesus to forgive his sins. Israël understood what this meant because he had learned about it during family devotions and from Sunday school. He recalls, “We prayed together and since that day I was convinced I was saved. Whenever I had temptations and difficult times in my life, the memory of the day I gave my life to Jesus always came back to me, it reminded me that I belonged to Christ and motivated me to choose to do what was right.”
At age 17 Israël-Luc was baptized and enrolled in the one-year program at Word of Life. Once he started regularly reading and studying the Bible his desire to know God and to serve him grew.
Agnès also grew up in a Christian family and attended church with her parents in Chambly. She accepted the Lord when she at the age of seven or eight. She had a quiet adolescence and was baptized at age 15. Agnès says, “I made a commitment to give the Lord my whole life, all my desires and all my ambitions, knowing that He could lead me to serving in a full-time ministry some day.” Agnès spent a year at Word of Life Bethel in 1995-1996 where she met Israël.
Ministry experience:
As Israël’s relationship with God deepened, his heart was transformed with regard to ministry. Growing up he had resented the stress his father and family experienced, but now he says, “This frustration I had with ministry was changed into a love for lost souls and an ardent desire to see local churches accomplish their mandate.” Israël then approached the elders of his church Église Baptiste Évangélique de Sherbrooke and asked them to train him for ministry within the church. He served there as a pastor-in-training for four years.