Where we serve
Missionary Team
Réjean and Danielle Joly
Charlesbourg, Quebec
Current ministry:
Réjean and Danielle were accepted as missionaries with the Fellowship French Mission in April 2000 to plant a church in the Quebec City area. On September 24, 2000, the new church held its first Sunday morning meeting with a committed nucleus of 25 adults and 12 children from the mother church in Beauport.
The week after the first Sunday meeting, the church held an evangelism camp to introduce the gospel and the presence of the new church to the neighbourhood. These special events led to dozens of professions of faith and many new contacts to follow up. The Charlesbourg congregation bought a commercial building on a main street and received outside help to renovate it into attractive facilities, providing good visibility for the church.
Family:
They have three adult children, Isabelle, Samuel, and Esther.
Spiritual Background:
Réjean grew up with three brothers in a Roman Catholic home in the Montreal area. He was just 12 years old when his mother became mentally handicapped following an operation for a tumour, and became unable to care for her family. His father was often absent, working long hours to provide for his children and pay for the care his wife required.
Réjean describes his adolescent self as timid and self-centered. He questioned the meaning of life and especially suffering. He often felt lonely, anxious about the future, despite putting on a brave face for his friends. Not finding much hope in human beings, he searched for solutions in the world of the occult. He bought books, tarot cards and a Ouija board. He also experimented with transcendental meditation and occult séances among other things.
When time came to choose a career, he followed in the footsteps of his eldest brother André who had become a radio broadcaster. The required training helped him to become more extraverted and interested in others. Upon completion of his courses, he was hired to do a morning show at a station in northern Quebec. He took his occult books and paraphernalia with him and soon his co-workers were consulting him about their futures and to communicate with spirits.
Then at Christmas time in 1974, his brother André arrived at a family gathering with a Bible and a whole new way of looking at life. He gave each family member a Bible. To Réjean he said, "You will find happiness in this book, I encourage you to read it."
Réjean read it and discovered God's message of love. Gradually he found he enjoyed the Bible more than his other reading material. After a few months of hesitation, he contacted an evangelical pastor in the Gaspé region where he then lived. A Brethren pastor and his wife came for a visit and Réjean accepted God's gift of salvation later that same night while he was alone rereading the Gospel of John.
Once he became a Christian, Réjean discovered that occult practices are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord and abandoned them totally. Danielle, who was not yet his wife, accepted the Lord one month after Réjean. They were baptized on September 7, 1975 and married the following week. Almost from the beginning of his new life in Christ, Réjean felt a call to ministry. He went to Institut Biblique Béthel in Lennoxville, Quebec from 1978 to 1981.
Ministry Experience:
Réjean and Danielle are mature Christians with considerable ministry experience. Réjean is a gifted evangelist and has been involved with evangelistic activities with Aujourd'hui l'Espoir for many years. He began serving the Lord as an itinerant evangelist in 1981 in Brethren circles. Among many other activities, he has hosted a variety of Christian radio programs in the Quebec City region since 1981.