Wow! What a beginning to a new ministry! We arrived in Germany on Dec. 30, began serving the church the next day with a New Year's Eve service from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am. And we haven't looked back since.

We jumped into ministry with the International Baptist Church in Cologne in seeking to help the church grow and reach people. God continues to bless the congregation. Calvin and Betty Ann Hogue did a splendid job serving as interim from September through December. During that time the church grew in attendance significantly and stabilized substantially. Several people were won to faith in Christ. I want to thank them publicly for their willingness to leave the comforts of home in California to come back to Germany to help the church they founded nearly two decades ago.

The month of January has been very busy as we get settled into not only living in Germany but in leading the church. Much reorganization of the church needs to be done in order to prepare for significant growth in the coming days. January has meant developing a church budget for 2009. Closely related to it is the development of a Policies Manual to serve as a foundation for the budget structure. The Finance Committee has spent many hours working on these documents in order to recommend them to the Church Council for endorsement the first of February, and then to the church at large for consideration and adoption of a budget in the middle of February. Afterwards comes the process of electing individuals to serve in the various ministry positions, many of which will be newly formed positions.

January has seen the beginning of a series of sermons on "God's Church." For several weeks we are exploring the nature and mission of a church, with strong emphasis upon the basics. For those who have interest, each week brings a posting of several items related to this: Sunday bulletin, sermon brief, background Bible study of sermon text, and photo album of the Sunday worship service. These can be found under Worship Services in the Church Information section of Cranfordville. God has blessed us with strong, consistent attendance in the 60s to 70s through January, in spite of holiday periods, illness, and some bad weather. New people have shown up every Sunday with interest in the church and its ministry.

Wednesday evening has seen the resuming of the studies in the book of James that we began last summer. These are posted each week at cranfordville under Bible Studies in the Church Information section. We spend meaningful time in prayer and then study God's Word. Some who are not able to attend the church study are using the studies in family Bible study at their home by downloading them off the internet source. We are grateful for everyone's keen interest in getting into the scriptures in serious study.

Do pray for the church and for us. The fields in Cologne / Bonn are indeed "white unto harvest" and God is giving us a wonderful opportunity to reach out to the thousands upon thousands of unreached people here.