This past Thursday night we faced cold, and blustery conditions. However, we had 23 soul winners come out for our weekly church wide soul winning time. With snow falling in the dark of night we went out and saw 16 precious souls come to trust Christ as their Saviour. This is a good bunch of people that God has given me to lead. Our city needs them and I need them. We had a good weekend despite lower attendance numbers. We saw one follow the Lord in believer's baptism. We finished the year with 73 following the Lord in believer's baptism. One of our lower years, but still very good. We did produce our biggest year of souls being saved with 2,083 of them this past year. Every number represents a soul. Souls are important to God, so souls should be important to us too! This next year is going to be the year we start reaching some of the unreached neighborhoods of our town. We have some neighborhood left that we have not yet taken the Gospel to their doors. We are planning on changing that this year. Please pray for us this next year as we accomplish this tasks.

I have been so busy that I have been neglecting to put out a blog the past couple of weeks. We have had many things going on since my last blog. We had our State of the Church banquet on December 7th and our Christmas party on December 14th. God blessed both of those events in a special way. Then we got hit with a blizzard this past Wednesday which caused us to move our evening service up one hour and forced us to cancel soul winning on Thursday night. However, we rebounded nicely on Saturday by having 11 saved. Then this morning we had 1 saved and two baptized. One of them baptized this morning is pictured above. His name is Jesse and he just moved here from Indiana to take a new job with the Veteran's Administration. We had several visiting families this morning also, as well as another adult lady baptized. Everyone of them was special and significant in their own way. Thank God for His dear Son Who was born in order to die for us. Have a great Christmas!

We had a teen activity this past Friday night. We played a little basketball, at least a form of basketball. We bought a machine with two baskets and four mini-basket balls. The teens had a blast as we ate Cici's pizza and played a double elimination tournament. My wife and I both played. Of course, I won. I did however, have to make my way through the loser's bracket after being defeated by an 8th grade girl. It was a great time of fun and fellowship.

 This weekend we had a decent crowd. There were three that followed the Lord in believer's baptism. We had a great spirit overall. I preached a message on Sunday night called "And Bartholomew." It was a message about being good helpers. Bartholomew was seemingly insignificant as not much is said about him other than being listed as an Apostle. I preached on the fact that even though nothing is said about any great feats or accomplishments, he was surely a great helper to the others. May many in our church be willing to fill the helpers role.

This is Jessica, one of two people baptized this past Sunday. God gave a great morning today. We had 113 in attendance, which was excellent considering several regulars were out of town. I preached a message on the "Valley of the Shadow of Death." The response was excellent. We had several hands go up for salvation and there were 8 public professions of faith made altogether. Praise God for His Holy Spirit conviction and saving power. Looking forward to tonight's service.

We had a good day today. Good crowd and lots of visitors. Offerings were very high as well. We had one man who is a retired engineer that recently moved here from Virginia come forward to join our church. We discovered that he was unsure about his salvation, so he made sure and followed the Lord in believer's baptism thus making him a member of our church. Praise God for His many blessings.

This is me pictured with Say Nay Moo from Burma and Mya Lin from Thailand. Both these men are Karen. Say Nay was here as a second time visitor and Mya Lin was a first time visitor. I met Mya Lin over a week ago and had the privilege of seeing him pray and ask Christ into his heart. He came forward today and made a public profession of faith. I thank God for the opportunity He is giving us to reach people from all over the world right here in Lincoln.

This is Lar Lah, a Karen lady from Thailand who I met on Saturday. I had the opportunity to lead her and her brother to Christ at their apartment. My wife then picked her up on Sunday and brought her as a visitor to Sunday school. Our theme for the month is "If the Foundations Be Destroyed." We put a real emphasis on it this Sunday and will continue to do so on Wednesday nights. We had 114 this morning with four making public profession of faith and three following the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise God for His wonderful blessings!

Brother and Mrs. Rashidi listening intently during
the Home and Family Class this past Sunday.

Brother and Mrs. Rashidi after they figured out
my wife was taking their picture.

Praise God for another wonderful Sunday at Lincoln Baptist Church. We live from Sunday to Sunday around here. Enjoying each and everyone of them to the fullest. However, it is what we do in between them that helps make them so enjoyable. We had fourteen in our Home and Family class this past Sunday. We had just recently started it back up after having to stop it for awhile. It was running around 20 to 22 when we had to stop it, so we are working at building it back up to that and of course even higher.

I am very excited about this class because there is such an attack on the home and the family these days that we must have churches with classes like this to help counter attack the enemy. I am also excited about the wonderful job that Brother Jager is doing with my old Sunday school class. He is helping me reach more adults and that is a tremendous blessing. We must reach adults as well as the youth.

This past Sunday we saw four public professions of faith made. I praise God for this. Even though none of them followed the Lord in baptism, we can never underestimate the importance of a soul coming to Christ. I truly believe several of them will get baptized in the next week or two. Praise God for them.

One last thing that excites me is the theme for this next month. "If the Foundations Be Destroyed ..." This is the day and age that we must emphasize doctrine, because it also is under attack. I look forward to teaching on Wednesday nights about the simple doctrines that are being trampled by the Devil. Praise God for the King James Bible and the victory we will have with it by learning true doctrine!

This is Christopher who got saved several weeks ago when I was out soul winning on a Thursday morning.  I was unable to find him at home until this past Saturday morning. When I did, he told me and my partner that he has been so blessed since that day I stopped him on the street. He said, he was without a job and that very day I led him to Christ he got a job. He said, he had lost his license and since that day he got his license back. He said, he had no car and since that day he had a car given to him. He said, God has not stopped blessing him since that day I stopped him on the street. Praise God for personal soul winning! He was so excited that he got baptized in his full suit. I tried to stop him, but he told me that he has a new life now, so he will just get a new suit. He almost dove in he was so excited! We had three baptized total and have more Faith Promise money committed than we have ever had before. We have $200 a week committed so far, which is just fantastic for a church like ours. Praise God for His wonderful blessings. On the lighter side, I wanted to mention a story from this past Thursday night soul winning. Two of our men while out soul winning talked to a lady at the first door they went to who said, "I used to to go to Lincoln Baptist Church, then Pastor Painter said, 'If you don't like the preaching, you can just leave.' So I left!" The two men left and laughed up a storm about it. Yes, I do sometimes make that statement when I preach, I guess someone really took it to heart. Ha! Praise God for this great country we live in that allows us to preach our convictions and stand for truth. I always do so without apology, but sometimes we can get a laugh out of it all too!

 Today we took Brother and Mrs. Gaiser on a trip to the Durham Museum in Omaha. They won our campaign Sunday school contest for bring the most visitors to Sunday school in September. They are pictured below at the train station. I also caught my wife enjoying a soda at the soda fountain shop. (above) It was a fun afternoon. We enjoy having a good family like this one in our church. They do so much for our church. From the nursery to ushering to teaching Sunday school to so much more. It is so refreshing to have faithful dependable people that you can count on as a pastor. I thank the Lord for all of our wonderful families that we have at Lincoln Baptist Church.

We just finished our missions conference and it was an absolutely fantastic time. We got to enjoy great singing and preaching by our guest. Pictured at top is Pastor Richard Haley who was our main conference speaker. He did a fantastic job. Then we had Missionary Jared Zapata pictured below with myself and Brother Haley. Brother Zapata did a wonderful job preaching on Monday night and with his presentations on Sunday. I would highly recommend him to any church looking for a solid missionary to take on for support. On Sunday we had a good crowd of 129 and we had five public professions of faith made. It was a great weekend and conference.

 This Sunday we saw a change up in our Sunday school department. We resumed our Home and Family class which was on a four week break. Then we had Brother Jager (pictured at the top right) teaching the Joint Heirs adult class. Finally we had a brand new teacher in Bro. Gaiser (pictured below) teaching the Overcomers teen class. It is great to have such faithful men like these two that can be used to help teach. Both of these men are of the finest quality and a great blessing to our church. Unfortunately good men and dependable men are hard to find. However, God has blessed us with some. We had a decent attendance with 104 in Sunday school, it is little below our average, but still decent. We also had one convert baptized. Next weekend starts our missions conference with the theme of Regions Beyond. We are excited about our incoming guest and I for one am looking forward to being stirred up about missions.

This is Dina who got baptized on Sunday. She was led to Christ by my wife this past Thursday night and came to church this past Sunday. She was one of three baptized this past Sunday morning. We had 35 people saved this week with four making public professions of faith, and three following the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise God for His wonderful blessings. These past four weeks we have had an entirely different spirit in our church. Many of our members have told me they feel the power of God coming down in our services. We have had 13 baptized these past four weeks as well. There have been many visitors every week. There has also been a real feeling of complete unity among our members. These are things we haven't felt for some time our church. Praise God for all of these things! Looking forward to an even better October.

Here are a few pictures from the day. I took a quick snap shot this morning of the bus route that I drive for. We had a good day with 41 riders. Josue Vasquez is the bus captain and is doing an excellent job. Praise God for a church which loves the bus ministry. I spent some time with the teens before evening church playing a little table top ping pong. Here is me playing against one of our fine teenagers Blaise Rashidi. Of course I won, beating Blaise 15 to 4. Blaise is my soul winning partner every Saturday morning and is an excellent soul winner. Both Josue and Blaise have been called into the ministry and will be going off to Bible college next year. Travis Miller also pictured in the middle of the bottom picture has been called into the ministry. He will be around for a few more years before going off to Bible college. Overall we had 6 public professions of faith made and 2 baptized. I am glad I am a part of an independent Baptist church that wins souls and baptizes converts on a regular basis!

This is Roberta who was one of five people who got baptized on Sunday. Her two teenage children were led to Christ on Thursday night by Brother Gaiser, one of our faithful men. Brother Gaiser then went by on Saturday to follow up and led their mother to Christ. Their father had already been saved before and all four came to church on Sunday and got baptized. Then a convert on mine from Thursday night also came on Sunday and got baptized too. Praise God for soul winning. It is the best to reach families!

This is me witnessing to a blind man from Burma this past Saturday. I was able to present the Gospel to him, but he would not receive Christ. Unfortunately, he is Muslim and did not believe Christ is the Saviour. Instead he believed Jesus was only a powerful prophet. Overall we had a good weekend with 46 souls trusting Christ through all of our soul winning efforts. My wife had surgery on Monday afternoon and praise the Lord it was successful. We were also very thankful that the doctor found no cancer of any kind. It was a concern at one time. Thank God for His everlasting mercy and goodness.

This past Sunday we had something wonderful happen. We had two people get saved by way of translators. On one side of the auditorium we had my son leading Yar Chuol to Christ with one of our members Amoit pictured in the middle (top picture) translating the plan of salvation into Arabic. Yar is from Sudan and we presented her with one of our Arabic Bibles. Then on the other side of the auditorium I was leading Mu Hsi to Christ with Mu Htee translating the plan of salvation into Karen. Mu Htee is pictured in the middle (bottom picture) with Mu Hsi to the right. Mu Hsi's mother Wel Come is pictured to the left of Mu Htee. Mu Htee is one of our faithful members from Burma. She is Karen which is a group of people living in the border region of Burma and Thailand. Lincoln is the fourteenth largest refuge resettlement area in the United States bringing in around 4,000 new refuges every year from all over the the world. Lincoln is quickly becoming a melting pot of ethnic groups with our church sitting right in the middle of them. I thank God for the very brief time I had as a missionary to the Philippines before coming to Lincoln. It was used to prepare my heart for the many refuges that would surround me here in this city. Praise God that He always knows what He is doing, even when we don't!

Overall we had a good Sunday today. There was several visitors today including a new couple who just moved to town and visited our Home and Family Class. We also had Cedrick here trust Christ by way of a translator and then follow the Lord in baptism. Cedrick didn't know much English, but could speak French, so we had Brother Rashidi translate for us into French. Brother Rashidi speaks several languages and is a great blessing in our neighborhood with so many different cultures being gathered right here. Offerings were very good today also. Thank God for a soul winning church in the heart of the city.

This is my lovely wife with Sara and her children. Sara comes to our Home and Family Sunday School Class that I teach. I feel very honored to have the opportunity to try and influence people and their homes for the glory of God. This past week we finished a great revival meeting. We had over 70 saved for the week and two public professions with one baptized. Last Sunday there were two baptized. I praise God for His blessed Word that He has given to us in the form of the King James Bible.

We had our Summer revival this past week with Dr. Dos Rossouw from Longview Baptist Temple as our guest preacher. He did a fantastic job preaching and soul winning. He had one of his personal converts down the aisle and in the baptismal waters on Sunday morning. He preached great messages all week long and had the altars packed every night. We finished the week with 70 saved and three baptized. I praise God for the wonderful results and appreciate the great job that was done for our church through this revival. May it carry itself into this weekend and for many weeks to come thereafter. I also thank God for my good friend Dr. Rossouw who has been just that to me all these years, a GOOD FRIEND. May God bless the work that he does at the Longview Baptist Temple and Texas Baptist College.

This is Tyler who got saved on Saturday and baptized on Sunday. Praise God that personal soul winning still works. We couldn't be more excited to welcome him aboard at Lincoln Baptist Church. He even came back for the Sunday night services after getting baptized on Sunday morning. Overall our attendance was a little low this past Sunday morning. However, it is the hottest time of the year, many are traveling, plus we just got our bus up and running again. We had a three week period of no bus and that has had an impact on the overall bus attendance. Fortunately, we have it going again and I am looking for the numbers to rebound. Despite all of that we had great services all day. I preached on Sunday night on "What are you going to do with Jesus Christ?" The response was great. Next Sunday starts our revival with Dr. Dos Rossouw from Longview Baptist Temple of Longview, Texas. I am looking forward to seeing what the Lord does through this revival.

This is James Phillips who was honored this past Sunday at our church for his military service. He served 36 years in the United States military. We honored all of our veterans on "I Love America" Sunday. We have 8 veterans in our church. I thank God for our country and the freedom we enjoy because of these fine men. Overall we had a good Sunday considering our bus is still broken down. We had 115 on Sunday morning. We had one public profession of faith made during the morning service. Also, we had a new record of 21 in our new Home and Family class that I started the first week of June. We have 27 on the attendance roll overall for that class. We gotten a few new visiting couples coming because of the class. None have joined the church, but some have shown some interest. Praise God for families. I love working with them and trying to influence them for God. It is great, especially when you see them turn the corner.

We arrived back home in Lincoln from the teen conference in Longview, Texas on Friday evening. It was a good week. Many great decisions were made by our teens. I appreciate the great job that Dr. Bob Gray the 2nd does along with all the great people at Longview Baptist Temple. Pictured above is Shaunda who served breakfast every morning at the hotel. I had the privilege of winning her to Jesus Christ on our last day. On Thursday afternoon after the conference ended some of our people wanted to see the town of Marshall, Texas where I use to run my bus route when I was in Texas Baptist College. So we decided to go soul winning for about 45 minutes over there and I took a picture of my group that was with me. Praise God we had 14 saved in that time span. Then our people back home went out and led 15 more to Christ in Lincoln. All said and done we had 15 saved on our trip to Texas. I praise God for his blessings. Looking forward to having a great weekend!

Here is Brother Calvin Scott working on our bus this past weekend. He got saved and baptized in our church in April of 2011. It is a great blessing to have someone in our church that can keep our vehicles up and running in order for us to keep doing the Lord's work! Somebody say AMEN!

Tuesday afternoon I found myself out at Quarry Oaks Golf Course. My son Jonathan works there and he wanted his mother and I to come out and play 18 holes with him after he got off work. I took the afternoon off and golfing we went. It was the first time I had golfed at that course and I must say it is probably the best course I have ever played at. I love to golf, but unfortunately only get to play about 5 or 6 times a summer. God was good to us this past weekend as we wrapped up ten years at Lincoln Baptist Church. Finishing the ten years with officially 11,809 people saved, 1,644 public professions of faith being made, and 953 following the Lord in believer's baptism by Sunday's close. Praise God for His wonderful blessings of the past and for the new ones coming in the future!

Today was the ten year anniversary of our church. It was on June 2, 2002 that I came here and started Lincoln Baptist Church. It has been a long ten years in many ways and in other ways a very fast ten years. I praise God for all the souls we have been able to reach and lives we have been able to help. God has been gracious enough to use me and our church. We had 116 today and 3 public professions of faith made with 1 following the Lord in believer's baptism. (Pictured at top) I started a new adult Sunday school class today on the Home and Family. We had 18 in the class which was very exciting. I was also given some very nice gifts from our people today including a very generous love offering. In fact it was the largest love offering our church has ever given a man of God. I want to thank everyone who contributed to this and I want to also say that I could not have accomplished anything without your help. It starts with Jesus, but then the followers are also very important, I thank God for everyone of you.

We had a great time at our church picnic. With about 60 of our folks coming out and all enjoying the food and fellowship. I was even able to lead one to Christ when I wasn't laboring over a flaming grill. We also had a Bocce Ball tournament, of course my team won! It was a fun game and actually the first time that any of us on our team had played that game. My wife loaded up her team with the Bocce Ball pros, but it wasn't enough. Ha! Thanks everyone for coming out and let's have a great anniversary Sunday this next Sunday. Our church will be ten years old!

Above are the scenes of the this past weekend at our church. We had Dr. Steve Johnson here with us preaching Sunday morning and Sunday night. We were very excited about having him. In his Sunday night sermon we caught a picture of him bearing his cross as he preached. We had 122 in Sunday school on Sunday morning and 54 back on Sunday night. We had 97 souls saved for the week and 6 public professions made on Sunday with 5 following the Lord in believer's baptism. Praise God for His great blessings.

The contest winners from our campaign at the Nebraska Baseball game last Friday night. We had a good time with the Gaiser family, Blaise, and my daughter Sarah.

John getting baptized last Sunday morning. He was pretty excited about it!
We had a good Sunday overall with two following the Lord in believer's baptism!

This is Elisa Blackfish who got baptized this past Sunday morning. We had a bit of a low day, I fully believe it had a lot to do with the city marathon. Many people can't get through to get to our church one Sunday a year because the marathon takes the utmost importance in our city. It is always the first Sunday in May every year. It is even bigger than God is in our city, what a shame. Many churches in our area cancel their morning services because people can't get to their church. I refuse to do that, but it is ridiculous that half of an entire city the size of Lincoln has to be shut down because of a marathon.

The last two weeks have been good ones over all. We had a great finish to our campaign on the 29th of April. We even had Dr. Bowen our missionary to Thailand with us that Sunday morning. It was a great honor to have one of my old mentors visiting us. Dr. Bowen use to be one of my instructors at Texas Baptist College and the missions director at our church in Longview. That weekend we had four baptized and finished the month with 282 saved. It was a record month. Then the first Sunday in May we had a record offering. Praise God for all the records!

We started out the week having Pastor Tony Greene from the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle drive our new van that we purchased in North Carolina to us. We then had Brother Greene preach on Wednesday night before we flew him back Thursday morning. He preached a great message called "The Greatest Work." Our people were moved for personal soul winning and 33 came out Thursday night. We then had 48 saved on the soul winning bus, a new record for Thursday night. Amen and Amen!
This past Saturday I found myself attending a piano recital for three of my girls; (from right to left) Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel. We had been out visiting and soul winning all morning and our church had 14 saved that morning. My partner (Blaise) and I alone had had seven. Somebody say, AMEN! Then we stopped at home for a quick bite of lunch and then off to the recital. All three of my girls did an excellent job. Then came my favorite day of the week, the Lord's Day. This past Lord's day we went through our fourth week of our Sunday school campaign. I am excited about our campaign theme which is "Take Me Back to the Main Thing!" Of course the main thing is personal soul winning. We ended up having 83 saved for the week by the time Sunday night came to a close and there were three professions of faith made with two baptized at our services. Praise God for soul winning and a soul winning church.