The Home of HBF The Ministers of HBF Randy Foster, Associate Pastor

Randy Foster, Associate Pastor

Julie and I got to know each other as friends while in high school. After high school, I joined the US Navy Submarine service and Julie attended college. We were married a couple of years later in 1978. We have two married sons; Bill and his wife Brianne and Brian and his wife Courtney along with Avery our granddaughter.     After my Naval service, I attended Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois studying Electronics Technology and worked for an international electronics firm for 21 years before going to Zambia. I also attended Kansas City Baptist Temple’s four year Bible institute in preparation for the ministry graduating in 1999. Julie earned her degree in Computer Science from Rock Valley and had a career as an Information Systems developer for a large pharmaceutical company in Kansas City. I am currently pursuing further studies in Biblical Theology.   In 1990, Julie was invited by a coworker to a lunch time weekly Bible study at what was formerly called Marion Laboratories. Over the next few months, she came to realize that she was not saved and in September 1990 gave her life over to Jesus Christ. The group at the Bible study began to pray for me and in July 1991, I prayed and received Christ. As we grew spiritually we saw God work miraculously in our lives and through many trials we learned to walk in the power of God’s Word.   We both have been very involved in ministry to others including discipleship, evangelism, counseling, athletics, the City Union Mission, local jail ministry and detention homes. I also was involved in the Circuit preaching ministry and attended Shepherd School of Ministry graduating in 1999. As we surrendered control of our lives to God, He used those times to teach us important lessons. What we came to value was the intimacy and the reality of the Word of God and how much grace God gives to everyone who is willing to receive it.   In September 2001 just days before the bombing of the World Trade Centers, we found ourselves in the former Soviet country of Belarus as short term missionaries. There we worked with veteran missionaries to establish the groundwork for the planting of churches in villages throughout Belarus. The work was hard but rewarding and many lives were changed by the gospel there.   A year later in 2002 I had the opportunity to travel to Zambia Africa to visit a ministry there and by the end of 2003 I had surrendered to full time service in Zambia. We forsook all and found ourselves in the Copperbelt Province of northern Zambia where we served with God’s Christian Missionary Service training Zambian men for ministry. I served as Academic Dean for North Star Bible Institute where I directed the preparation of men and women to serve in ministry in indigenous local churches. Julie served as Administrator and Registrar. We were so blessed and privileged to have had the opportunity to invest in the spiritual growth of hundreds of churches in Zambia, Botswana, and Democratic Republic of Congo We ministered to the local people helping them with humanitarian needs, assisting with pastoral training, training them in discipleship, speaking at conferences, and through evangelistic efforts. We also had the privilege of working with US churches in their short term mission’s projects in Zambia. Just as we were beginning to see the fruit of our work, God called us home to become part of the ministry at Heartland Baptist Fellowship.   We are so excited to be a part of Heartland Baptist Fellowship and  we are looking forward to developing friendships with everyone. We know that God has had his hand on our lives from the moment we surrendered to his loving care and guidance and we can see that God has his hand on HBF as well. As we begin our new ministry here we can see how he has knit everyone together in love as everyone has opened their arms to welcome us.  It is our prayer that we will be a blessing to everyone and together we grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the power of his grace.

 

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