Greetings from Ajax, Ontario, Canada. We have had two special weeks. Two weeks ago, we spent the week in Crown College in Powell, Tennessee. We were in a lovely guest house just across the street from Temple Baptist Church. We enjoyed our services there both on Sunday and Wednesday, as well as chapel services. We renewed contact with Dr. Grinstead after the Wednesday chapel service, He is from Oxford, Alabama. He had provided us with two rebuilt vehicles, one in Suriname, and one in the USA. His church buys salvage vehicles and rebuilds them, and then sends them to missionaries at their cost for materials - labor is freee. The 1994 fifteen seat van is still (barely) working in Suriname; it is in Moengo now. I would have liked to spend a bit of time with him, but I was busy teaching a block course on World Religion and Worldview at the graduate level to nine graduate students. I thoroughly enjoyed our time there, though it was very busy. I realized that some of the materials needed to be updated and corrected, and Liz was busy correcting their daily exams as well. They are considering possibly putting the material online. They would like us to return for further classes in the future.

We left in the early afternoon on Friday, and drove until 9:30 at night about 500 miles, stopping about 20 miles north of Toledo. We had prayed about where to stop, since we did not have an idea of how far we would travel, but were able to find a very reasonable and adequate room for $50 plus tax. The following day we crossed the bridge in Detroit to Canada. This was a challenge as the regular exit was closed, and we drove around several streets to get to the crossing. Then we drove another 260 miles to Ajax. I was amazed at the size of the towns along Lake Ontario as we approached Toronto. Toronto is huge - must be close to the size of Chicago, and Route 401 is jammed with traffic even though it is 5 lanes wide on both sides. I thought that Ajax was small, but it is a town of 100,000. Toronto, like Chicago, has a huge number of different nationalities.

Faithway Baptist Church is the largest independent Baptist church in Canada. They run about 500 on Sunday morning, and have well over 30 nationalities. We talked to people from Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, the Philippine Islands, etc. We really enjoyed the two services on Sunday. We enjoyed an excellent Sunday school lesson and message by Dr. Bowler, the assistant pastor for the morning service, and another excellent message by Pastor Robert Wall in the evening. We have known Pastor Wall and his wife for years when he was at Fostoria Baptist Church, and he and his wife also came to Suriname.

The block course was a broad spectrum missions class for the entire school. Most students took the class for credit, and most of those who did not take it for credit audited the course. The subjects included: Why Missions (a challenge to missions), Biblical Theology of Missions, Cultural Anthropology for the Missionary, Missionary Adjustment on the Field, Spiritual Warfare, and the Persecuted Church. It was a very intense week. Although we had used the material before, much needed to be revised. There were more students (34 for credit), and Liz was constantly busy correcting lessons. We had a great time and enjoyed our contact with the students. We were grateful for a very attractive prophet’s chamber where we could retreat and work which was right in the church building. There is also interest in our returning in the future. One of the students, who is very talented in technology, took a video of the entire 20 hours of teaching.

Tomorrow we will return to the USA, and attend two churches on Sunday in Saginaw and Bridgeport. We will drive to South Bend on Monday. We have one additional church meeting in Ann Arbor on Wednesday, and then we will be local for our last two meetings before heading back to Suriname on November 3rd. We found out that sometimes the airlines have been cancelling flights. We would appreciate your prayers for our packing up and our departure. We continue to pray for the financial needs of the Sunny Point church project, and look forward to seeing the progress of the building as well as the church on our arrival.

Prayer requests:

1. Spiritual growth
2. Our health and strength for the ministry
3. Safety driving this last 1 ½ weeks
4. That we might be a blessing, and that the word of God might impact lives
5. The churches in Suriname - their growth, outreach, and spiritual impact
6. The church building in progress at Sunny Point - both the work and finances
7. Our ministry in teaching in Bible colleges
8. Our flight to return on November 3rd, and for all our luggage to arrive.