God is so good! I was just mentioning to Laura how good God has been to us and to our family. It has been over 20 years that we have been sending out prayer letters, and I love starting them all out with “God is so good.” I just cannot believe what God has done for Laura and me and the kids over the years, and I don’t think we can praise Him enough. We want to thank Kim Marsack with FBMI, who has diligently proofread our prayer letters for the last 20 years and has helped me sound somewhat intelligent on paper by making sense of my thoughts and sometimes my grammatical errors.
In September, I got to drive to the NBF (National Baptist Fellowship) in Sydney with Missionary Jeff Hallmark and his wife Regina. They had a tremendous time meeting missionaries and national pastors here in Australia. There were many of the brethren that I had been able to work with and help in attendance. The Hallmarks were able to do a little sightseeing. I showed them the Sydney Opera House, and they in turn took me to Outback Steak House (there are only three that I know of in Australia). There is a famous story (worth Googling) of a man witnessing on George Street in Sydney, and we were able to walk that path almost 90 years later.
God has also used me to make four trips to the airport, a two-hour drive away. First, I took the Hallmarks for their trip to Canada; then in that same week, I picked up Bro. Neil Smith, an Aussie evangelist, to preach our Ten-Year Anniversary at Calvary Baptist Church. Praise the Lord, he did an excellent job, as he usually does when he preaches for us. Then, I returned him back to the airport on Monday, the 13th, and I picked up the Blanchards on the 23rd for their return from furlough. I want to thank you for all of your prayers, especially as the road mileage over the last several months has been accident- and incident-free.
In the aged-care facility in Warragul, I have noticed God blessing exceedingly. It was a miracle that they asked me to come and start a chapel service there weekly. Then they bought us a very nice keyboard for us to play hymns in the chapel. As I was going up to Sydney, they called me. I expected it to be negative, but I was surprised when they asked me for three King James Bibles for their palliative-care carts; Beams provides Bibles for us for such a thing as this, which is a huge blessing.
Just recently, I had two visitors come to church as a result of witnessing and letterboxing—it still works. Please pray for a young man named Wil at Fulham Prison. He has not yet trusted Christ as his Saviour, but I got to give him the Gospel. He was telling me how being ostracized in the prison and from his family for reading his Bible was affecting him. I told him it would be a shame for him to go to Hell after suffering so much because he never trusted Christ as his Saviour.
Sincerely,
Ron Back
Missionary in Australia
