Travis got his first taste of song leading today at the nursing home. He did good! Overall today we had a pretty good day at church. Considering the poor weather combined with the holidays the crowd was fairly decent. We also had one saved and baptized. Have a Merry Christmas.

One Wednesday night a month we started having some of the younger kids start playing an offertory. This was the first one and Rebekah was up first. She actually did pretty good. We went soul winning Thursday night and had 22 saved in very cold weather. Praise God for 26 faithful folks who went out!

This is Missionary Ben Smith who preached on our last Sunday of "Give Me a Vision" missions month. He did a great job preaching Sunday morning. It was really neat that we had a Sudanese man trust Christ as Saviour since Brother Smith is a missionary to South Sudan. Our Faith Promise commitments were the highest they have ever been. Please pray for Brother Smith as he raises support to get churches started in South Sudan. Gotta love missionaries!

We just finished the new tile floor in our auditorium platform. It looks great. Just needs a little trim board put on the front and it will be ready for Wednesday night service. Special thanks to my family for sacrificing our entire holiday today to help me get this done. Also, special thanks to Brother Looper for working all day today and Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Then I don't want to forget Brother Lorenzo Williams who worked all afternoon carrying buckets of water. Thanks to all these people we will have a great floor. Amen.

Bro. Bud Painter at "I Love America" Sunday 2012

My Father went home to be with the Lord this morning around 6 a.m. Unfortunately, he never fully recovered from the ventricular arrest he suffered in January 2013. He had some other health problems that arose over the last seven months and had been in a hospice unit since June 26th. I want to thank everyone for all of the prayers that were made for us. My dad was a faithful church member to our church. He was more than just a father to me, but also a great friend. Though he will be greatly missed, he is in glory from now on and forever more!

Today's services were good. Although in my grief I struggled inside, I was able to teach my class and preach this morning. In all honesty I do not think most could tell the great grief or sadness that I was suffering from. I am a very duty driven person which I get from both my father and my mother. For example, mom called me at 6:10 a.m. to tell me about dad, then she asked if she could teach her class today. I told her she could if she felt up to it. She said there is no place she would rather be. I felt the same way. Our lives revolve around church and we feel it is our duty to be in our places. My father was the same way!

In our services today we had 8 first time visitors and 3 of those trusted Christ as their Saviour with two following the Lord in baptism. I was excited about it and it felt good having something to do to distract me. I pray that tonight's service will be something special. Thank God for heaven!  

We celebrated our 11 year anniversary as a church this past Sunday. I preached a message called "Anniversary Kisses". Pierre here came forward and got saved at the invitation. He also followed the Lord in believers baptism. It was a great joy to be able to do what we seem to do best. Leading another soul to Christ! That evening the church folks gave me a surprise honoring. It was a great blessing. I look forward to many more anniversaries.

Mrs. Rashidi and Mrs. Painter were both looking very colorful on Mother's day. We had a good Sunday overall with several adult visitors. We had one public profession of faith made with four getting saved in our Junior church. There was good spirit on Sunday night as well. Thank God for mother's. Truly one of the highest callings in this life is that of motherhood.

This is a wonderful story that I would like to tell you about. Ameil here took care of my Dad in the rehab hospital for several months. During that time, my mother led her to Christ. She came for "Half Dead Sunday" which was the final Sunday of our Good Samaritan Sunday school campaign. Her husband Angok who has been working for the United States military in Iraq the last two years came and got saved during the invitation. Both of them got baptized Sunday. We never know why God let's somethings happen to us, just like the tragedy that my dad went through. However, my mother has led a lot of nurses to Christ and several have visited church, because of it. Perhaps he was wanting the Gospel to spread through the medical community a bit more than it has been. I don't know, but I know that God never makes any mistakes. This family will be back next Sunday, thank God for His blessings.

Here is some of my wife's visitors for our Sunday school campaign. All of them led to Christ yesterday. They are also mother's and wives so they attended our home and family class. We had two baptized this morning with eight public professions of faith.   We were able to reach our soul winning goal for the month by having 204 saved. (Goal was 200) Praise God our teenagers helped us meet this goal by making a big push Saturday. Thank God for soul winning teenagers.

This morning my wife and I had the privilege of meeting all these Karen folks from Thailand. We already knew one of them and was following up on her. I was able to lead the rest of them to Christ with Mu (striped shirt) interpreting for me. Praise God for an opportunity to reach these folks. Praying for the opportunity to start a special service in their language for these type of people. They have such a sweet spirit about them.

All of these kids did a wonderful job of playing in the piano recital last Saturday. Pictured above is Bro. Gaiser with his son James, who was the youngest to play at age three. Then you have my four daughters who also played. We had a good Sunday with several visitors last Sunday and we had one baptized. Praise the Lord for his many blessings.

This is Du Nguyen from Vietnam. I had the extreme privilege of meeting him tonight and leading him to Christ. The weather was very winter like tonight with freezing windshields. However, God was very good to me and my seven year old daughter who was my soul winning partner. (Also, my picture taker!) We talked to exactly three people tonight and all three trusted Christ. Over all we had 25 soul winners out tonight and 12 saved. Not the numbers we had hoped for, but good considering the weather. Praise God for our faithful members who come out soul winning year around no matter the weather!

Here is my wife with three of her visitors for Sunday school. These ladies are Karen from Burma. My wife met them out soul winning a few weeks ago. Thank God for soul winning. We had a good Sunday overall. We had lots of visitors and 3 baptized. Lincoln is the 14th largest refugee center in the United States and 5th largest melting pot. (Meaning variety of nationalities.)

This is Mu Htee (little girl to the left) and her parents who have been coming to our church for over a year. This past Sunday was the start of our Sunday school campaign and on this week Mu Htee's parents brought some friends of their's that just moved to Lincoln. The man to the far right is Bro. Gaiser, one of our altar workers, who was able to lead the man next to him (Saw Eh) to Christ during the invitation. Saw Eh was a Buddhist, but has now asked Christ to be his Saviour. Praise God for His saving grace. His sister Ka Oo (lady behind small boy) was already a Christian. We had one baptized on Sunday morning and another baptized on Sunday night.

God gave us a good start to the New Year. Nothing super fancy or big, but a good day. Three professions this morning with an average crowd. One of them followed the Lord in believer's baptism. On Sunday night I preached a message about holding onto the rope. I believe it was one God laid on my heart and pray it was received in the spirit of which I preached it. God bless and happy new year!