This is Beth Houdek, the niece of one of our regular families. She came to church this past Sunday and got saved and baptized. The Houdek family was so happy to see this happen. I thank God for our church being able to be used to reach people. God gave us a good weekend. Overall attendance was a little low, but the offerings were good and we had 2 saved and baptized in our services. I am looking forward to Wednesday night as we start "I Love My Church" month.

This past Sunday was a great day. The Sunday school classes were full and the spirit was great. We had 5 public professions of faith made and 2 baptized. One of the two baptized was Mu Htee pictured here. She was a very special one to me and my wife because she rides the public school bus that I drive. Her and her parents have been coming for a couple of weeks. There are currently about 5 or 6 kids that ride on my school bus that are coming to our church. It is wonderful to have them come on Sunday and get to see them Monday through Friday at work everyday. God is good!

We just finished our bathroom remodeling project this week. We have been long overdue for this. I appreciate all the help that was provided by Brother Gaiser and my wife. Without them I could not have done this project. We had a very fruitful weekend with three adults following the Lord in believer's baptism. The crowds were good on Sunday morning and Sunday night. One of the ladies that got baptized was a sister to one of the other ladies. My wife had gone to give them a Bible study on baptism (at their request) because they were confused about it. They had both been sprinkled and were convinced of their need to be baptized. The one sister had been led to Christ by me, but the other one had insisted she was previously saved. However, my wife felt she was not. Being unable to convince of her need to be saved, my wife requested I go by. So that afternoon I did go by with one of my daughters. I spent over an hour teaching her from the Bible. Finally she told me that she was convinced that works do not play a part and she bowed her head and asked Christ to save her. I was very tired after that, but excited. We get so use to leading people to Christ in five minutes that sometimes I think we forget that there are those who are open, but confused. I am thankful I took the time. Thank God for His precious word.

This is Jorge one of the ones we had saved this past Sunday. He followed the Lord in believer's baptism during the invitation time. God gave us a great Sunday with many visitors and many saved during the invitation. We also had a muslim man trust Christ as his Saviour which is always a glorious thing. On Sunday night we had a visitor from South Korea. It is a reminder every week that we are trying to reach the world from the middle of America. God is blessing us for our efforts. Offerings we very good Sunday and then last night (Wednesday) even better. Not to mention we had several different visitors last night as well. I truly believe our church is getting ready to make a great leap this year. May God bless us as we continue in work of fulfilling the great commission.

I am a little slow in getting to my blog this week. Truth is I have been very busy. The end of the year is one of the busiest times of the year for me, especially since I am actually my own secretary. That means I do a lot of the record keeping and letter typing! To top it off we are remodelling one of our restrooms and I have been heavily involved in that as well.

However, we did have a great first service of the year last Sunday. There were 117 in the morning and 55 Sunday night. We had three professions of faith Sunday morning and one baptized. On Sunday night we spent some time reflecting on 2011 and its accomplishments. One of the biggest things that stuck out to me was the 2,001 salvations that our church had. Wow! That is an almost 900 increase from last year. Of course we have increased our number of soul winners and were at one time averaging almost 30 soul winners out every week. Plus, many of our soul winners are starting to mature and become aggressive soul winners. For example we had 7 soul winners that had over 100 people saved this year, compared to 3 last year. That is pretty good for a little church like ours.

We also recognized two individuals for their hard work. Mrs. Miller pictured to my right was given the Cultivator Award, given out annually to one who is helping our church to grow. She has been a faithful Sunday school teacher for exactly two years and has only been saved for about three years. By the way, she personally had over 100 people saved. That is pretty good! The other award given out is what we called the Ox Award, given to the hardest worker. This award was given to Brother Houdek to recognize all his hard physical labor that he performs around our church. Anything from cutting the grass to cleaning the toilets, you name it and he does it! I thank the Lord for such a wonderful group of people to pastor.