We appreciate your prayers, and we are praying for you too as you struggle with the winter weather. The climate has certainly changed the world around. Here in Suriname, the rainy season finally seems to have arrived almost two months later than expected, with milder temperatures mostly in the 80s.

Happy Chinese New Year! The year of the rabbit! This is the newest national holiday in Suriname. The new government has added five national holidays to an already full schedule. We have Christian holidays with first and second Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. We have Muslim and Hindu holidays. We have one day for the original American Indians. The Chinese have been migrating here by the thousand over the last several years. They run many of the stores. Now they have their own official day too.

Our neighbor behind our house is Chinese, and built a large, elaborate house. After a short time living there, he now lives somewhere else, and it appears that he uses this home only for parties. We arrived home at 10 pm after church last night, and their party had already started, ending some time after 3 AM. In tropical lands, often parties are in the late evening and into the night. The people are generous with their loud music, sharing it with the entire neighborhood. Fortunately this party was quieter than many. Our house did not shake, and we were able to sleep through most of their festivities. They only shot off fireworks twice.
Andoe Kampoe: Liz and I had exceptionally good soulwinning last Saturday. We saw a total of five people make professions of faith. Then on Sunday morning a group came by bus to the main church. They have to leave early. We have had a bit of opposition. They have had loud music three weekends in succession. This Sunday afternoon Kalow Palata will preach in our service there.

Church Independence: We have been striving for the churches to become independent for about five years now. Our goal is similar for the goal of parents for their child. We want our churches to be self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating. We are fortunate to have Ronald Talea as our deacon chairman. He is under-director of the bureau of statistics in Suriname and is involved in statistics at an international level. He has been doing the footwork and paperwork for the church statutes. Each time he has gone to the appropriate bureau, they want a few minor changes. I am praying that no further changes will be necessary - and that the main church will be approved. As soon as that happens, we will simply duplicate the materials changing the name and address of the church and the church officers as appropriate for the other three churches.

Sunny Point building: We are scheduled to resume building on Monday, and pray that this will indeed occur.

Bible Institutes and discipleship: Our first section of the last year of the Advanced Bible Institute is completed, and the students did very well on their exam. We begin a new module on Tuesday. We are working on consolidating most of our teaching materials at the main church as we nationalize. We were pleased to have 3 students complete a correspondence module on the basic Bible Institute last Monday. This is part of the process of nationlization.

Teaching and preaching schedule for our three month mini-furlough: My teaching schedule is basically complete. We would appreciate your prayers for my preaching schedule, that the Lord will open doors where we might be a blessing.

Birthday: I had a very nice 73rd birthday. Liz and I went out to eat, and she made treats for the Bible Institute students as well although they were taking their exam. We thank the Lord for strength and health to serve Him, and pray for more years to serve Him together.

Prayer requests:

1. Strength and health for the task
2. Our own spiritual growth
3. Safety on the road
4. Independence of the four churches
5. Unity and growth within the churches
6. Andoe Kampoe
7. Sunny Point building completion