The Baran Family

Our most recent meeting took place Sunday with Pastor McClain and Harvest Baptist Church. We enjoyed being a part of their services both Sunday morning and Sunday night.  In the morning services I was given the opportunity to teach the teens in Sunday School and my wife gave her testimony.  I also preached in the evening and showed our presentation.  The people of Harvest Baptist have watched my wife grow up and are very excited about what the Lord is doing in our lives. Truly missionaries are nothing spectacular.   They are just ordinary people, people you may know, who are serving an extraordinary God.

My wife and I were able to join our church in soul winning at the annual Taste of Buffalo this past Saturday. This is something our church has been faithfully doing for years. Half a million people will attend this particular festival giving us a great opportunity to give the gospel. This was my wife’s first year and she was amazed to see the great number of people. We spent the afternoon there and passed out close to five thousand tracts.  Please pray they will have an influence on the souls who received them.

We pray you all had a wonderful July 4th!  Praise the Lord for our country and how God has used it to reach the world! We spent the holiday with our friends in Springville, NY.  Pastor Friedman and Faith Baptist Church have been faithfully supporting us for a year now and asked us back to give our updated presentation.  They also wanted to meet Elizabeth (of course).  It was great to see the church faithfully pressing on.  Since the last time I was with them they’ve moved to a new location.  They had been meeting in an upstairs apartment but now the Lord has provided a storefront on main street.   Because of this they are much more visible to the people around them.  May God use this opportunity they have to bring many others to Himself.

What a great week!  My wife and I went to Georgia this past week  for Missionary Candidate School at Word for the World Baptist Ministries.  During this time, Elizabeth was officially accepted by our mission board!  We are both excited about this and thank the mission board for all their help.  Also we want to thank our home church for their constant support  in all aspects. The week was filled with intense preaching and classes for missionary couples headed to the field.  God moved throughout the meetings and really prepared our hearts for the task He has given us.  Elizabeth also benefited from the ladies sessions.   There is still so much for us to learn.  By the end of the week we were tired physically but greatly refreshed spiritually.  To God be the glory!