Praise and Prayer for January 8, 2010

Happy New Year to each of our friends reading this update! We are so thankful to the Lord for His goodness and faithfulness to us in 2009 and for bringing us into this new year. Living in an insecure world and listening to sensationalized news reports, one could allow himself to spiral into a state of fear, insecurity and alarm. We cannot begin to fully express our thankfulness to our loving God for being our Father, Keeper, Helper, Guide, Friend, Protector, Provider, Comforter, Lover, Teacher, and so much more. In His Presence, it is with great joy and anticipation that we look toward the future knowing that He has His perfect plan for our individual lives in 2010. It is also a comfort to us to know that, while we may not always like or understand circumstances that we may be in right now or will go through in 2010, we can trust Him to do what is best for us and in such a way that He receives the most glory in each circumstance. May He be pleased to use us to point others to Him and to His Word this year.

Elva Farrell put together a beautiful Christmas collage of all the children that have come to Sunday School in the past couple months.

Among our goals this year is seeing our Sunday School program become more independent. In our experience, we have seen that when programs are built by and revolve around individuals, the programs dwindle and eventually disappear when those individuals move away. This can be disastrous in a church setting, whether it be a church plant or an established church. Our desire from the beginning of our involvement in this church plant has been to try to start ministries that we could share and eventually turn over completely to church leaders and members who would, with God’s help, continue the ministries when the time comes for us to leave. During this past year, the Lord has blessed our efforts to build up the Sunday School ministry here at the Evangelical Baptist Church of Reims. One of our current responsibilities is the scheduling of Nursery workers and teachers and helpers for the two younger SS classes. As we prepare this update, we are making final adjustments to the SS program for the next two months. Although we are losing one of our faithful teachers this month to a work related move, we are thankful for others that have responded positively to getting involved in this ministry. They will have opportunities to help experienced teachers as they train and prepare to teach classes in the future. During this year, we will be looking to turn over more of the administration/scheduling responsibilities to qualified and willing church members.

Praise for:
- a blessed Holiday season and the beginning of a New Year.
- a good reaction from many of our neighbors to the gift of goodies along with a calendar and Christmas tract.
- Josiah receiving his French residency identity papers this week from the French government.
- the opportunity we had as a family to visit one of the shut-in members of our church on Thursday evening.

Pray for:
- the Sunday School ministry, and especially the new individuals that are getting involved this quarter.
- good attendance at our Sango service Sunday, for Jonathan and he preaches and for Cherith as she has the children’s class.
- both of us as we take on and share a new ministry: the accompanying of the morning services.
- Elva Farrell as she anticipates hip surgery on Wednesday.
- the church counsel as it meets Saturday evening, for direction for the church, as they vote for a pastor and select deacons on January 24.
- God’s direction to be clear to us for our next term of ministry (after home ministry in 2011).