God is so good! We enjoyed a quiet family Thanksgiving dinner, as all around us are ramping up for Christmas. We are still getting used to Christmas coming in the summer, but the decorations are still snowmen and icicles! We have several caroling and preaching opportunities in nursing homes scheduled for December for the whole church. We are praying that God will allow us to minister to shut-ins, especially over the Christmas season.
We recently had our first annual business meeting for Calvary Baptist Church, and it was so fun and exciting to have my first deacon be my son, Ron Jr. (Bubba). On December 18, as he keeps reminding me, he will be the “Big 20,” in his words. It is exciting to see our children grow and serve in a local church. Praise God for such a blessing! Also, we started Faith Promise missions at Calvary, and this next year we are planning on over $3,600.00 coming in and going out for world missions. Because of this, we were able to take on two more missionaries to add to the two we already support monthly.
We are halfway through our radio training for 3BBR FM 103.1 for Latrobe Valley, Victoria. God is giving us the opportunity to actually teach a Bible message Sunday mornings from 8:00 – 9:00. The exciting thing is that this is not a Christian station; it is a public station that plays mostly 50s and 60s music, except for that one hour, first thing in the morning, that we will dedicate to Christ on Sundays. We are looking for every opportunity and every way to minister to the people. It seems like this whole year people have just been watching us, trying to figure out when the Americans are going to quit trying to plant a church here. But, by God’s grace, we are not only going to plant and establish an indigenous church, but we are also going to plant more churches in the area in the years to come for God’s glory. Of course, we can only do this with your prayers and support.
My wife and I have been praising the Lord and praying for many of you in America. Some of you have been supporting us since we began deputation over 10 years ago. It is good to know we finally have a decade of serving the Lord with you under our belts, and we are looking forward, by God’s grace, to serving another decade with you all. Thank you so much for the past year’s support, and we pray that God will bless each and every one of you in 2017. Please continue to pray for us to win more souls to Christ, to see more baptized, and to see the church grow in 2017.
Sincerely,
Ron Back
Missionary in Australia