Dear Friends,

Janice and I send you greetings from Jakarta. Over the past couple of months the eyes of the world have been focused on America's political process and the present economic mess. Goodness, you couldn't even pick up the Indonesian newspaper without being showered with articles about our new president elect Obama. However, it seems to me that the Lord is more interested in what is going on in His church, and His work. So leaving politics and economics behind, we will move on to the more important things -- God's work here in Indonesia.

Over the past couple of months we have continued to work on the Nias Bible project. Praise the Lord, the 10,000 Bibles that we shipped to Nias the last of August finally arrived and they have all been distributed to junior high schools in North Nias. Basically, this finishes Bible distribution in North Nias. (Total Bibles distributed in North Nias was thirty thousand.) All the Bibles were distributed after a simple presentation of the gospel followed by an invitation for each student to personally receive the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray that the Lord will raise up a generation of young North Nias children who love Him, trust Him, and will spread His word throughout the Indonesian archipelago.

We are now working on printing 19,000 more Bibles which will be distributed to junior high students in South Nias. The process of finding out how many junior high students are actually in South Nias has been long and difficult, but we do hope that we now have a reliable number of total students there. We still lack about $1,500 to finish paying for the last 19,000 Bibles. There will also be shipping charges ($3,000) and distribution charges ($3,000) involved in getting these Bibles into the hands of the junior high students of South Nias. However, God has wonderfully provided the finances so far for this project. Many of you folks have given, thank you so much. Special thanks to Alan Brooks who is BIMI's assistant director for Southeast Asia. Brother Alan brought a group of pastors to help in distributing the Bibles last July. One of the pastors that made the trip has made a video that Brother Alan has used in the churches. The response has been great, it will touch your heart. If you would like to have Brother Alan show the video in your church you can contact him by email at alanbrooksbimi@yahoo.com or by calling 423 504-3132. You can also read about the Bible distribution by going to: www.bimi.org/worldMag/308A6.php and www.bimi.org/worldMag/308A7.php .

We still need you folks to pray and give for this project. We plan to distribute the Bibles in South Nias the last two weeks in January 2009. If you would like to help us, you would need to be in Medan, North Sumatra no later than the 15th of January 2009. Or you can contact Brother Alan Brooks at the above contacts as he is making arrangements for a group of pastors that will be coming to take part in distributing the Bibles in South Nias. Also, please pray that the printing and the shipping of the Bibles will be carried out in a timely manner. Thank you for being a part of getting these Bibles to the junior high students of Nias.

Much of my time over the past couple of months has been spent teaching in the Bible school. Teaching our Bible school students is one of the great joys of my life. However, as I have spent more time in the last few years working with our Bible school students that leave Java to start churches on other islands, I have become more dedicated to instilling a Biblical view of theology and
church planting into my students. Most of our students that leave Java go to start churches in areas which are strongly influenced by failed Christian communities. The theology in these communities is totally syncretistic, yet culturally, strongly separatist concerning the church. (That simply means the theology has little Biblical base but the idea of church is strong culturally.) Sadly, too often, our students are more influenced by the community's view of the church. Consequently, although our students are effective in winning people to Christ, they fall into the old cultural patterns of church building. This becomes a trap for these men as they spend their efforts trying to appease a group of baby Christians by giving them what they want instead of teaching solid Biblical theology. The end result is always going to be more failed Christian communities. The principle is simple, a bad view of the church is going to result in a bad view of Biblical salvation. Pray that the Lord will use me to raise up students that are committed to doing God's work in a Biblical manner.

Our churches here in Jakarta continue to chug along. Right now they are all gearing up for Christmas, one of our big evangelistic outreach times. Pray for churches over this next month as they declare the gospel in the mist of religious intolerance. Pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will be clearly set forth to a lost and dying world.

One again I would like to remind you that we plan to be in the States starting in September 2009 through April 2010. If you would like to have me come to your church for a special date, or for your missions conference please email me at tjcford@gmail.com as soon as possible.

Janice and I are doing fine. I'm so happy the election is over, now we can have some peace in our house. You see Janice just has horrible political ideas – actually I think Janice sees it the other way. Who do you agree with?

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

In Christ,