Dear Friends,

Janice and I send you greetings from Jakarta. After nearly six months of traveling, we have arrived back home in the mist of Indonesian presidential elections. If one of the five presidential candidates receives fifty percent of the vote tomorrow (July 5), then Indonesia will have a president. On the other hand, if none of the candidates receive fifty percent of the vote, we will then have two more months of campaigning among the top vote getters of tomorrow’s election before the final presidential vote in September. We do appreciate your prayers for the situation and the ministry here in Jakarta over the next couple of months.

The churches here in Jakarta seem to be doing fine. This morning, Janice and I were with Pastor Hadir and the folks at the Sunter Jaya Baptist Church. There were 13 adults attending and we had a good service with them. Last week we were with Pastor Raso and the folks at Cileduk Baptist Church for their third anniversary service. They had over 40 adults for the service. Over the past couple of months three adults have professed Christ through the ministry of Cileduk church. The last two Wednesday evenings we have been with the Cipulir Baptist church. The church is doing good with several new folks now attending the church.

Over the next couple of weeks, one of the churches we will be with is the Cibubur church. Since you folks have given $11,000 over the past months toward a building, Pastor Yusuf and his folks have set up a building committee that is putting together a plan for constructing their building. I would ask you to pray for a couple things concerning the church’s plans. First of all pray that they will not run afoul of the local community. Recently, several churches here in Jakarta have been threatened and some (none of our Independent Baptist churches) have even been attacked by local mobs. As the Cibubur church starts their building, it will surely draw some attention. Pray that the Lord will protect this church. Secondly, pray that the finances will be used wisely. Even though it looks like we will get a good exchange rate, inflation will eat up much of the church’s buying power. Some of the members are going to need to sacrifice for the church to get into nice facilities.

The week before we arrived home, seven more students graduated from our Bible school. Once again these students are heading off to either start new churches or work with existing ministries. The Bible school continues to grow with several new students ready to enter when classes resume in August. Pray for the students that have stayed over the break as they are all involved in ministry with our different churches here in Jakarta.

Once again, Janice and I want to thank you folks for the warm reception you gave us while we were visiting our churches in the States. We had a wonderful time with our churches, and we just cannot express the joy it was to be with you folks that have so faithfully supported the work here in Jakarta. On our way back to Indonesia we traveled to Bulgaria to be with our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren in Sofia. While we were there, I had the opportunity to preach several times. Also, we traveled with the Swann’s on a ten day visit to Turkey. We were able to visit many Biblical places, see the ruins of great nations, and ponder the meaning of the present day situation in the Middle
East. Finally, after a long grueling journey, we arrived in Jakarta, totally exhausted, but thrilled to be back where God has called us to minister.

The Swann family and Janice in the Arena at Efesus

For your faithful prayers for the ministry here in Jakarta, we are truly thankful.

In Christ,