Celebrating Pastor Randy & Julie Foster's New Season of Ministry

Sunday evening February 18, 2024, Pastor Randy Foster's family, friends, church family and ministry partners gathered to celebrate his transition to Pastor Emeritus of Heartland Baptist Fellowship. The evening started with a magnificent dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and mixed green salad. The food was excellent and so was the fellowship. As dinner concluded James Horton led the congregation in a season of praise as we rejoiced together over all God has done.

After dinner and praise, we viewed various video clips from men Randy has ministered to and with in Zambia as well as various missionaries HBF supports. After that we had time of recognition where we recalled Randy & Julie's faithfulness as ministers from the first days of their ministry until this present day. Pastor Brian Hedges shared scripture from Philippians 2 concerning the impact of the ministry of the Fosters. Upon the conclusion of the presentation, retirement gifts were presented to Randy and Julie. Among those gifts were a genuine sharp two-edged sword similar to the ones Randy had bestowed upon the Heartland Bible Institute graduates complete with his life verse 1 Timothy 1:12  And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; engraved on the blade. The church also gifted Julie a travel backpack for their various travels complete with sundry gifts tucked away inside.

After the presentation of gifts Deacon Lance Yoder, Pastor Jeremy Bonnesen, Pastor Bob Hall, Betty Arney and Missionary Doug Pearson all offered gracious words of remembrance, appreciation and praise to God for the ministry of Randy and Julie. At the conclusion of their presentation we prayed over Randy and Julie and enjoyed wonderful sheet cake as Randy and Julie visited with throngs of people who desired to thank them for their faithful service, congratulate and encourage them in their next steps in ministry.

Heartland Baptist Fellowship has been blessed to have Randy and Julie serve on our Pastoral Team for sixteen years. Randy and Jule have been a tremendous blessing and have been integral to the establishment of many ministries including Heartland Bible Institute, Security Ministry, Word First Bible Publishing as well as many other ministries. One of the ministries Randy and Julie resurrected after a difficult season of attrition at HBF was Vacation Bible School. The fruit of that effort was the salvation of Randy’s Grandson Liam five or six years ago when he was in elementary school. Liam trusted Christ as Savior at one of the VBS events but recently decided to consecrate his life to Christ as a 14-year-old, having Pastor Randy baptize him the previous Sunday. Upon baptizing Liam, Pastor Randy thanked the congregation for working VBS and ministering to his grandson which led to his salvation and baptism. The truth of the matter is that we would not have had that VBS if Randy and Julie had not sacrificed significant time to invest in getting it off the ground after a two-year hiatus. That is an example of the humble servant leadership Randy and Julie have consistently displayed to all over the past 18 years at Heartland Baptist Fellowship.

We all thank God for Pastor Randy and Julie and look forward to all God has for them in their next season of ministry.