Dear Friends,

Janice and I once again send you greetings from Jakarta. Right now Indonesia is in the midst of electing a new government. The parliamentary elections are now completed. Basically, the elections demonstrated that most Indonesians desire a secular government to run this country. The country will now go to the polls to elect their president. It appears our present president will be reelected. However, this time the president will have a solid secular vice president and a secular coalition that should control the parliament. Strange, in America we move left and the churches groan. Here we move a bit from the far right (read Islamic extremism) and inch toward the left and the churches rejoice! Politics is always interesting, but God's work is much more important. Let me tell you the good and bad news about the work here in Indonesia.

Janice and I spent the first week of April in Nias. This was the first time for Janice to make the trip to Nias. I had, of course, told her everything would be wonderful: a beautiful tropical island vacation, wonderful folks in the churches, and great accommodations. For the most part it was a success. There were a few bumps in the road like the horrible night at Harus Damai (Always Peaceful), but Janice got the full Nias experience including the normal earthquake (5.2 on the Richter scale). I haven't yet convinced her that we should leave Jakarta and move to Nias, but I'm sure she will be ready to make more trips to help with the ministry there.

The work in Nias continues to take up much of my prayers, time and resources. I preached for the ground breaking of a new building for the work in Bothalaka. We had a good service. The church is small and needs guidance. Pastor Yarro from the church in Gunung Sitoli comes and helps them about two times a month. One of the men has grown in the Lord over the past couple of years, and he is basically leading the work. He teaches the Sunday school, teaches the adults and preaches for most services. He told me that lately with the material we have been sending, the folks don't go to sleep as quickly! Ah, any little success is appreciated.

There are four other little works like the work in Bothalaka that I want to see grow. They all have folks in them that need to grow. My desire is to see these churches grown into good New Testament Baptist churches that love the Lord and that are able to reproduce themselves. Besides these churches there are six other churches that have pastors and are struggling to become mature churches. Starting these works has been relatively easy, please pray with me that the Lord will grow these churches. The tough work yet remains.

Our semester at the Bible school here in Jakarta is quickly moving along. I have some really good students at both the Mampang and Palmerah campuses. At the Mampang campus we have a student that came from the work in Hilidohona in Nias. He struggled at first with the language and looked like a real zero, but now he is moving right along. At the Palmerah campus, we have several really good students, all from our churches here in Jakarta. It has been a real joy to teach them this semester. Pray for these young people that they will commit themselves to doing God's will in their lives.

During the last couple of weeks I have worked to renovate our computer lab at the First Independent Baptist church. With assistant pastor Daniel Budiantoro's help, I have installed a linux thin client server with 10 terminals. The main server also provides all clients with the moodle educational portal where we will provide online Bible lessons. Lord willing, over the next few months Pastor Markus and Brother Daniel will work to make a wide range of Bible courses available for the Bible school students and also their church members. Right now the service is only available at our Mampang campus, but Lord willing, we will ultimately host the courses via the internet.

Our churches here in Jakarta continue to face many challenges. At the Cipulir church, one of the main families got upset and left the church, taking several other people with them. The good thing (or is it a bad thing) is that they did go and join another one of our good Independent Baptist churches. A good result of the split is that the church has got real active in evangelizing an area where we have several Sunday school students. Pray for Pastor Pri and the folks at Cipulir that the Lord will send them some new folks.

Pastor Raso of the Cileduk church asked me not to come to the church for a while as they are again having trouble with their community. The main complaint of the community is that the bule (a racial term for white people) still comes and runs the church. Of course, I've never run the church, just tried to help them. Pray for Pastor Raso and folks at the Cileduk church as they continue to serve the Lord in a difficult area.

I want to remind you that we plan to be in the States from September 2009 until April 2010. We hope to visit each of our supporting churches during this time. If you have a special time that you would like for us to be with you, please contact me. Contact me at tjcford@gmail.com or 417-429-0398. If we have already agreed on a date, you should see a confirmation of that date at the bottom of this letter. We are looking forward to being with you folks.

Janice and I are both fine. While in Nias, everybody thought Janice was a lot younger than me. They kept asking her age – it got really irritating to me as they thought she was some young thing. Hey, I don't look that old. My joy was to tell them that she is older that I am! Ladies if you want to look young, drink coconut oil and live in the tropics.

For your faithful financial support during difficult times and for all that wonderful prayer support, we are truly thankful.

In Christ,