The Baran Family

We were at Grace Baptist Church for their annual missions conference.  It was a blessing for my wife and also for myself to be with her family. Pastor Troyer has been a great help to us throughout the deputation trail.  The mission conference made an effort for the people to really get to know their missionaries. Each night there was time for the missionaries to fellowship with the church folks.  For us it was nice to see everyone again and just spend time with them.  With all of our travels it isn’t often that we are able to stop by.  My father-in-law jokingly said in order for them to see us, he has to schedule it.

Our next missions conference took place in Rome, NY.  We were greatly encouraged by the group that came faithfully each night. The church was nearly full during every service!  As missionaries we had a difficult time trying to find a place to sit.  Another blessing was that we met many new believers who were being discipled by other church members. It was exciting to see a church that was thriving and still holding strong doctrinally.

We were privileged to be with Faith Baptist Church for their opening service at a new location! It was a blessing for us to witness.  We were amazed to see how the Lord has blessed them with carpet, church pews, a piano, and many other necessities. We were also blessed to be reunited with some old friends we knew from our home church.  Pastor Eimers was a big encouragement to us.  Despite major health issues he still remains enthusiastic and faithful to the Lord’s work.  His burden for the community was very evident.

We had a Wednesday night meeting with Old Paths Bible Baptist Church this week.  We were greatly encouraged by the amount of people that wanted to talk to us about the Philippines.  The first time I had met this church was actually on the mission field. At the time I was attending college in Texas where we often took missions trips into Mexico.  The Lord again crossed our paths in New York where we met multiple times for street preaching in Buffalo.  It is wonderful to have so many friends in the ministry.