It is always great when God answers prayer. We were thrilled to see Him provide land at Euro 2500 less than we had expected. This week I prayed for a "small thing." The Sunny Point church wanted to clean up the property. We needed to remove the brush, grass and bushes present. They will leave a few trees until the building is pretty much completed. We had three days of glorious weather without rain.

So I prayed for Saturday not to rain. The day began beautifully, but we could see clouds beginning to form. The work team began on Suriname time (later than officially scheduled). Three brush cutters were working away. About 15-20 persons were present. About 1/3 of the land was already cleared when we arrived at noon with our donation - about 50 or so mangos. The mangos were quickly taken and eaten. We headed for downtown for a brief special outing. And then the rain came. Not just a little rain - but buckets of rain. Or as we would say in the USA, it rained cats and dogs. As we headed home the roads started to flood. So the work on the property was only partially done.

Because we are in a tropical rain forest area, with about 200 inches of rain per year, drainage is important. The new property has a deep gutter around the front and two sides, which connects with a drainage ditch to a nearby canal. You cannot drive onto the property without putting in culverts and covering them with dirt. They were ordered yesterday, and despite the rain, the large culverts did arrive. Furthermore, the water quickly drained into the gutter and out to the canal. This is a big blessing, and a way to see directly that the land is high enough not to require further filling with dirt. Our first church building was in a swamp, and we brought in 238 truckloads of fill dirt, and 10 or so truckloads of sand on top of it. The work will continue next week, praise the Lord.

Bible Institutes: We completed the second module of both the regular and advanced Bible Institutes over the last couple weeks. The regular students will be taking their finals in two weeks because they had more weeks of lessons than the advanced students. I started the sixth module for the advanced students - with studies in dispensationalism, and then practical application in the book of Matthew.

I have been actually quite pleased with the thoroughness of the regular Bible Institute in covering basic Bible teaching and doctrine. The advanced program has been filling the gaps which I felt should be covered. I have been working on next year's program - which will be the last year as well. I plan to cover prayer and revival in the first module. There will be three book studies - on Acts, 1 & 2 Corinthians for the second module. And for the third module, I plan to introduce apologetics, as well as giving a basic overview of church history. The section on church history needs to be done; I have completed the other modules already. I have also been pleased with how well the students are grasping the materials, and how well they are doing in their classwork and exams as well.

The independence of the four churches has been waiting for an approval of our statutes from the Efraimzegen church. Brother Ro Talea is scheduled to present to them tomorrow. He was delayed repeatedly by having to attend international meetings for the government. We pray that the statutes will be approved and sent to the government for official processing.

We rejoice with our son Marc Patton who will be flying to the USA with his wife next week courtesy of Trinity Baptist College of Jacksonville, Florida. He will receive an honorary doctorate at their graduation. Congratulations! We pray that the trip will go well despite the recent air travel problems with volcanic ash in Europe.

Prayer requests:

1. Health and strength for the tasks at hand
2. Our own spiritual growth
3. Safety driving
4. The Lord's blessing as Carolus Palata works on organizing the main church as their new pastor. There are always adjustments with a new pastor.
5. Soulwinning
6. Continued impact of the radio and TV ministries and Bible Institutes
7. My learning additional computer skills, especially with the Mac computer