Dear Friends,

Janice and I send you greetings from Jakarta. We are fine here in Jakarta. Over the past couple of months the ministry here has continued to roll along. Let me give you a brief summary of the news from Jakarta.

For the most part the churches here in Jakarta are doing good. Over the Good Friday weekend, the Ciledug church had a family retreat. They invited me to preach and also teach on the family. Teaching on the family is a tricky business in a foreign culture, and I have carefully avoided illustrated homilies on the family by sticking to the few definite Bible verses that can be covered in a relative short sermon. However, as the issue of polygamy has been a hot issue here in Indonesia lately, I decided to try and expand my horizon by making up a two hour lecture on the home. Normally, I can't wait to get up and preach, but I was a bit shaky on presenting this lecture on the home. However, it went well and the question and answer session afterwards was a lot of fun as there was a lot of give and take. This church is growing even though they are located in a hostile environment. Please continue to pray for Pastor Raso and the Jemaat GBII Kasih Karunia Ciledug (Grace Baptist Church of Ciledug).

The Cipulir Baptist church refurbished their building over the past couple of months. Praise the Lord, all went well with the community. They completely rebuilt the roof and interior of the church building. This church is also growing though located in a difficult situation. Pastor Priyanto and the folks at Cipulir are getting ready to send Yonatan (pictured), one of the Bible school graduates to open a new work in Kalimantan Barat. Basically, they will take on the full support of this young man. This work is full of young, growing families now. Please continue to pray for Pastor Priyanto and the Cipulir Baptist Church.

Two of our Independent Baptist churches here in Jakarta have started or will be starting major building projects over the next few months. Pastor Yohanes and the folks at Eben Haezer Baptist church in Cijantung are well into their building project. Also Pastor Markus and the folks at Mampang will be launching into a building program to build a multi story building in order to provide parking space and a nice new auditorium. Pray for these churches that they will not run into major problems with their communities.

Pastor Munjait of the Pelumpang Baptist church suffered a stroke the last week of April. He was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, but he is now home. I know he and his wife would appreciate your prayers for his health.

The Bible school will be finishing up this first semester the middle of June. I have had a good semester teaching the students. On June 17th, we will have a graduation service with about 10 students ready to graduate. This will probably be our last large graduating class for a while. The Bible school enrollment is significantly down this semester and the prospects for new students is significantly diminished also. Pray for Pastor Tambunan, the head of the Bible school, as he has gone through a long period of sickness this semester. We would especially appreciate your prayers for the Bible school at this time as it is going through a time of transition. I do want to keep you up to date on the different projects that I am involved with so you can pray and give:

• Land for the kindergarten in Batam. The land has been bought and paid for. I provided $1,100 and the church provided the rest to purchase the land. Praise the Lord.

• Song books for Nias. So far I have provided $700 toward the project. They will need $2000 to get the book ready for printing and to print the first 500 copies. I have promised $1,400 toward the project.

• Water filters and generating sets in Nias. Pastor Saro's village burned up the original generator set that was provided. However, once again thanks to Brother Jim Daley and the Kelview Heights Baptist church, I have been able to buy a new generating set in Medan and it is now on its way to Nias. Praise the Lord!

On the home front, Janice and I are fine. Please continue to pray for our daughter, Jennifer Preston. The doctor feels that she has temporal lobe epilepsy and has put her on medication which has helped her quite a bit, but she is still having some problems.

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

In Christ,