August 6, 2013

What a thrilling thing it is a watch people grow in their faith. Discipleship is obviously a healthy component of any growing church, and we are thankful to see the way that God is growing our church, not merely numerically, but spiritually as well.

Our Thursday night discipleship class was delighted to welcome two new members on Thursday night – Josiah and Marquist. Josiah is one our newest members, and Marquist has been growing rapidly since he received Christ. Lord willing, Marquist will be entering Bible college this fall to major in criminal justice. He has already made some serious decisions concerning relationships. We are happy to see the development in these two young men.

On Friday, our ministerial intern, Matt Dillon, conducted our teen activity. Pastor Krampert and Christy were out of town for the wedding of Christy’s brother, and this gave Matt an excellent opportunity to run the activity on his own and preach. The Lord blessed the outing, and two teens prayed to receive Christ as their personal Savior.

Also, on Friday Ralph Hopkins and I were able to visit the family of a bus kid who had been quite a disturbance during Vacation Bible School. We want to spend some Fridays with him during the summer so that we can help him on a more individual level. During our visit, Ralph was able to lead the entire family to the Lord. Amen!

On Sunday, we were able to witness two more baptisms as Brook Sirois and Fernando Corvalho took their public stand for Christ. These were our 33rd and 34th baptisms of the year, and Brooke had several visiting family members in attendance to witness her baptism. Praise the Lord!

We were also privileged to welcome Xavier Rodriguez as well as Josh and Jenn Silva into membership. Xavier is 19 years old and was saved many years ago through our bus ministry. Jenn is a recent convert who followed the Lord in baptism several weeks ago. We are excited to welcome her and her wonderful husband Josh to our fellowship.

The painting of the auditorium and the reconstruction of the platform are now complete. The old carpet in the auditorium was ripped up last night. We are thankful for the ten-man team that got this project done in a fraction of the budgeted time. The installation of the new carpet will begin later this week. The new choir chairs arrived yesterday. Things are moving along nicely.

We were privileged to have Ethan Champlin report on the work in Suriname on Sunday night. GRIBT has been involved in this ministry for more than two decades, and it is exciting to see the fruit that is placed on the church’s account through faithful, sacrificial faith promise giving.

We thank you for your continued prayers and support of this ministry. Your labor of love will not be forgotten.