Dear Friends,

Janice and I send you greetings from rainy, flooded Jakarta . We trust this letter finds all of you folks enjoying showers of God's blessings in the mist of the various storms of life. We are truly thankful for the many blessings the Lord has poured out on the ministry here in Jakarta while at the same time helping us through the constant problems that come with the ministry here.

January is always a poor month attendance wise for our churches here in Jakarta . After all the push for Christmas, folks usually decide to take a rest from church -- sigh! However, for the most part, our churches have done quite well in battling the January slump this year, however, not much can be done when the church gets flooded out. Several of our churches have had to cancel services due to the flooding, and several of our families have had to evacuate their homes due to the floods. Pray for our churches here, and our folks that are dealing with flooded homes!

Pastor Markus and his folks have gone through a difficult time of trial as a group of fanatics threatened to attack their church while they were refurbishing their building. God marvelously intervened in what seemed like a hopeless situation and the work on the building has been able to continue. Just today, I taught my first class in their new classroom. Praise the Lord for His wonderful protection!

Our Bible School began a new semester the first of February. Our total number of students is down considerably -- about 21 students total. However, our pastors in the suburbs west of Jakarta have opened a branch school at Pastor Raso's church. Right now they are only running evening classes but they have 13 students attending from their various churches. Pray that the Lord will bless our Bible school here in Jakarta . Clearly, it is beginning to go in a different direction.

We especially want to thank all of you folks who have flooded our account with offerings for the Nias Bible project. You will notice that the arrow shows that the funds needed to make the February payment on the Bibles has been met. Practically speaking, it looks like we now have enough funds to finish paying for the Bibles. The raising of the funds for this project has been a joint effort of myself (BBF), Dr. Jim Daley (BIMI) and Miss Karen Werth (WBF). I also want to thank Brother Robert Mayer and Brother Allan Brooks of BIMI who actively promoted the offering among their BIMI churches.

Any extra funds that are sent will be used for the transporting and distributing of the Bibles in Nias. Lord willing, in my next prayer letter, I will be able to share with you more of the planning and the expected expenses that will still be needed to transport and distribute the Bibles efficiently. Please be much in prayer for the next phase of this project. It was wonderful the way you folks gave to get the Bibles printed, but please pray that the Lord will guide us in getting these Bibles into the hands of the junior high students on the island of Nias . If you would be interested in having a part in distributing the Bibles, we plan to have teams in Nias during the months of July and August to distribute these Bibles. Come if you can! Most important, continue to pray for this project.

As most of you know, Janice and I spent Christmas with our children in the States. We had a wonderful time, but the whole trip was almost scuttled when Janice came down with chikungunya fever. The day before we were scheduled to leave for the States, Janice almost could not get out of the car. I got her to a medical laboratory and the following morning (the day for our departure) I took her to our doctor here in Jakarta . He immediately diagnosed her as having chikungunya, a mosquito born viral infection that results in severe inflammation of the joints. My immediate assumption was that the trip would need to be cancelled. However, upon learning that we were headed to see our children, this old doctor (who had taken care of all our children) told Janice that he didn't see any reason she couldn't make the trip. The disease had no cure, Janice would simply have to treat the symptoms, and wait for the disease to run its course. I was amazed, flabbergasted, you name it, but I had no recourse, the trip was still on. So, with Janice in a wheelchair, like sheep heading to the slaughter, we made our way to Boston , arriving in the teeth of a nasty winter storm. Over the next few weeks, I shoveled snow, waited on Janice hand and foot, visited all my children and grandchildren, and I have the picture to prove it.

Since our return to Jakarta , Janice is still suffering from severely inflamed joints. She is in a lot of pain. We would ask you to remember her in your prayers.

For your faithful prayers and financial support we are truly thankful.

In Christ,