Despite pandemic delays and restrictions, Randy Collins saw God use the 2021 London Celebration with Will Graham to bring together the city’s Christian community and boldly proclaimed the Gospel. And he didn’t want to lose that momentum.
“It was front and center in the city,” The London resident and businessman happily recalled.
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More than 1,500 people attended the 2021 Celebration outreach weekends in London and Sudbury, Ontario. Another 5,800 watched online in Canada and around the world.
We praise God that almost 350 people, in-person and online, responded to Will Graham’s invitation to accept and believe God’s offer of salvation through Christ—the “founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2, ESV).
Randy used his experience as co-founder (with wife Audrey) of Hully Gully, a major sports retailer, to help raise funds for the London Celebration. He served on the outreach’s finance committee. And it was that connection that spurred him and other committee members to create Reboot, an event designed to encourage men in the region.
“Being involved in the Celebration caused a lot of us to put our sticks on the ice, so it definitely carried over,” Randy explained. “I believe in getting stuff done, because faith without works is dead. Sometimes, talk is cheap. Put it into action and go from there.”
Reboot took place in March and involved about 400 men gathering for a day of worship and discipleship at London Gospel Temple—ironically, the site of the first Canadian Promise Keepers event. One of the Reboot speakers, 700 Club Canada co-host Bill Markham, invited everyone to come forward and dedicate their lives to Christ and 100 men responded.
“We want to see men’s ministry revived in the London area and that’s going to happen, unless the Lord tells us to stop,” Randy said.
Randy’s own spiritual journey started as a teenaged farm boy near Windsor, Ontario. His family attended church, but “openly declaring Jesus is Lord is not something that happened in our congregation.”
That started to change when Randy contracted African trypanosomiasis (better known as sleeping sickness), a disease spread by ticks that causes long-term headaches, weakness, joint pain, sleepiness, weight loss, fevers, and more.
He was hospitalized and during that stay, a pastor visited him and, in Randy’s words, “made Matthew 11 come alive.” This part of Scripture includes Jesus’s invitation for tired, burdened people to come to Him and find rest.
Later, while he and Audrey attended a Youth For Christ gathering in Windsor, the Holy Spirit touched Randy’s softened heart and he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior.
“A lot of people thought I’d become a religious fanatic,” he remembered. “But I’m not ashamed of the Gospel. If we can’t proclaim Jesus is Lord, then we must be ashamed of Him.”
Audrey later accepted the Lord at an evangelistic rally. They were married and in 1969 and started farming in the southwestern Ontario county of Huron.
But God had other plans. Just three years later, Randy and Audrey started selling and servicing snowmobiles out of a double garage at the farm.
Up until then, Randy confessed, “The only thing I’d had experience with selling was hotdogs at the Leamington Fair. But we had faith in God and some people had faith in us.”
They sold their herd of 35 milk cows in 1972 and rented out the farm so they could concentrate on this new venture, called Hully Gully (named after a favorite song, Hully Gully Baby).
The Collins’ love of snowmobiles grew. All five family members participated in snowmobile races, with Audrey becoming the top 1972 lady driver in the Midwestern Ontario Snowmobile Racing Association.
Eventually, Hully Gully sold five brands of snowmobiles, holding many charitable events and raising more than $100,000 for health needs in the region.
Later, Randy and Audrey started selling motorcycles, ATVs and boats. Today, Hully Gully has 50 employees and about $20 million in annual sales, all out of one location.
“We were blessed to be a blessing,” Randy said, picking up on the legacy of the Greater London Celebration of Hope. “You can’t out-bless, out-love or out-give the Lord, so if you want those things, start the ball rolling.”
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