The Baran Family

Our next missions conference took place in Newark, Ohio at the Newark Baptist Temple.  We were happy to be among friends again in our travels.  My wife and her brothers had attended the Christian school that the church provides when they were much younger. It was at this school that Elizabeth asked the Lord to be her Savior as a ten year old girl.  We thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the missions conference! It was a blessing to see the people and their heart for missions.  During the week, I was also given the opportunity to talk to the Christian school students in a chapel service.  I pray this younger generation will give their lives to Christ and serve Him wherever He wills!  Time is running short and only what is done for Jesus Christ will last.  One young man did surrender his life to the Lord during the conference.  Praise the Lord! 

We were in Franklin, Pennsylvania to be a part of our first missions conference of the fall! I have known Pastor Foote and the Franklin Baptist Temple for many years through the local Tri-State meetings that my church attended when I was a teenager.  It has been a blessing to see the Lord use the Foote family over the years.  Pastor Foote’s father is still an evangelist to this day and now, Joshua Foote, a nephew of the pastor is going to be a missionary to the country of Africa.  What a testimony!  We were also excited to meet a young man from the church that is going to Burkina Faso to be a missionary.  Needless to say it has been an encouragement for us to meet folks who are willing to serve the Lord at home and abroad.  We must not stop sharing the gospel with this lost and dying world!

Well, we’re happy to report that our second shipment of boxes is on its way to the Philippines!  These personal items should reach Cebu before Christmas.  For my wife and I, reality is really starting to set in especially now that our home here is beginning to look a little bare.  Lord willing, in just six short months we’ll be in the Philippines. These are exciting times for us!  I’m looking into ticket prices for our future flight and our paperwork is on its way to being completed.  Please continue to keep us in your prayers!  The devil would like nothing better then to see us fail.  However, these attacks have come only because the Lord has allowed them.  God is in control and He will get us to Cebu in His timing.  Everything that is happening now is just preparation for our future.

Pastor Drew Stewart and Calvary Bible Baptist Church in Rochester, New York had us come and present our burden for the Philippines during their Sunday services.  In honor of September 11th we took the time to remember that fateful day and all the lives that were touched.  We were reminded that even in the midst of tragedy good things did happen.  The story was told of a lady who worked in the World Trade Center but wasn’t there that day because she was giving birth to her baby girl.  Now she lives in the Rochester area not too far from the church.  To this day people credit the child for saving her mother from the terrorist attacks.  Truly the Lord’s hand was in it.  It was a special day for other reasons as well.  At one point in his ministry the pastor was a missionary to Ireland.  As he was telling me this I was shocked and suddenly remembered that he had even visited our home church!  I still have his prayer card!  Pastor Stewart went on to tell me that as he traveled on deputation there would be times when he was asked to sign a young man’s Bible.  This inspired him to turn the tables and so occasionally he would ask young men who wanted to serve God to come and sign his Bible.  He then proceeded to open his Bible and point at a signature.  There in his Bible was my name alongside with my church.  As a fourteen year old boy I had signed that man’s Bible!  At the time I had no idea that someday I would be a missionary.  I just knew I wanted to serve Christ.  Now here I was, a twenty-six year old missionary looking down at my signature. I was shocked!  I don’t even remember signing the Bible, but there was my handwriting in Pastor Stewart’s Bible.  God is so good!  I could hardly preach after that I was so amazed.  What a blessing to see God work in my life!