Thank you for your faithful prayers. We have had a busy week this week.

Sickness: First, we had a lady who was admitted with a “bladder infection” go into shock - I am quite certain gram negative sepsis. She was moved to the ICU, placed on a ventilator, given large amounts of fluids, vasopressors to keep her blood pressure above shock, and had kidney failure. A number of the church members came and prayed intensively for her. After several days near death, she improved, came off the ventilator and the vasopressors, and started putting out urine. Yesterday she was transferred to the regular ward. We are praying that through this experience we can reach her unsaved husband and daughter as well as several other family members. We have had previous contact with them, and had excellent opportunities for witness.

Christmas dinner: In Suriname, Christmas banquet is a big deal. They may save money for several months to be able to go. This year our people made most of the food themselves instead of catering it - and it was the best meal ever. I was surprised at the number of excellent cooks in the church! One part of the dinner that has taken us time to adjust to is that everyone expects to take extra food home. It is like what you CANNOT do at a smorgasborg in the USA. They will bring their containers and stuff their plates and containers. Liz has learned that when you invite a large group over, not to expect to have them leave left-overs behind. If she wants another meal, she puts it aside ahead of time so it is not to be seen! The meals also start late, and last long. But this was a very enjoyable time had by all.

Christmas service: In the USA, I was accustomed to having Christmas eve services. However, here in the city we found traditionally that the service was on first Christmas night. Yes, they have two Christmases 25th & 26th. The second is traditionally to visit family, etc. So we had our service Saturday night from 6-9 pm, including a 45 minute rather elaborate play by our young people on the Christmas story, as well as a lot of songs, specials, and preaching by John Naingie. Everyone seemed to have a good time. We had a good attendance that night, and a reasonable attendance the following morning for our regular Sunday morning service.

Death and burial: A 25 year olddaughter of one of our preachers in the interior has been sick for 3 plus years without having a clear diagnosis established. She has been in and out of the hospital, and has been in the city for medical care for about 3 months. She felt that she was dying on the day before Christmas, and made very clear to her family and also to the captain of the village that she did not want to have any heathen ceremonies during her funeral and burial. At Ricanau Mofo, there are still a substantial number of heathen, and having a burial there was a guarantee of a struggle to avoid heathen rites. So the decision was made to bury her in the city, and since the church at Ricanau Mofo is a sister church, they requested using our facilities. The service the night before was about 2 hours long, and the singing was exceptional. Pastor Abana of Ricanau Mofo brought the message. Everyone “hung around” talking till about 11:30 pm before leaving. Today we had perhaps 200 in the church for a funeral service from 2-4 p.m. Again, there was a lot of singing, and Jonarthan Champlin brought an exceptional and highly appropriate message. We then went to the gravesite until about 5 pm.

The power of witchcraft and fear of death is not nearly as strong as when we arrived 25 years ago. The difference is especially marked in the city, but also in the interior because of expanding Christian influence as more and more Bush Negros are getting saved.

Other items: Because the builders are family of the lady who died, our Sunny Point building project is delayed for about 2 weeks, and will resume January 10th. One day later, we will resume the Advanced Bible Instutute. I am working at the present on the last module of the year. I hope to be done by the end of the week. We are still waiting for news on the papers turned into the government as far as independence of the church is concerned.

Prayer requests:

1. Health and strength for the work
2. Our spiritual growth, and power in prayer
3. Our main church has had a couple recent attacks. I don’t think that satan is pleased that things are reorganizing and going better
4. Independence of the churches. One person asked why this is important. I will go into more detail next letter
5. Safety on the road
6. Andoe Kampoe - our next service is January 9th
7. Continued impact of the TV and radio ministries
8. Bible Institutes - especially as we move toward more correspondence