Dear Brother and Sisters in Christ,

I pray that all of you are being blessed this holiday season. We still have one more holiday, which is the Chinese New Year on the 22 of January. All is well in Batam and the work continues without hindrance. We are thankful for the peace that allows us to proclaim the gospel of Christ through out the country.

BATAM CHURCH OF CHRIST
The local church in Batam is doing well. I have been blessed for my efforts these last ten years as the church is maturing in leadership and spirituality. The leaders have organized everything so well that I now have time to focus on other things like the school and our church expansion program. We have two worship services in the morning and evening. This last week we had around 100 attending these services. In the last few months the church has experienced a number of marriages among the single members. The family strength of the church is amazing as when we first started they were all single. In fact the families now outnumber the single members. The Sunday School program is run by the women of the church and they are teaching the younger girls how to teach and organize this program.

This New Year Eve both congregations in Batam met together for a fellowship meal to promote unity in the church and had an attendance of around 150 brethren. This fulfilled one of my many prayers, which is Batam will become an example of unity, love, and hope for all other churches to see. The leaders of these two congregations arranged this fellowship on their own, which made it even more fulfilling to me.

We want to thank all the brethren from the Church of Christ at Pasir Panjang, Singapore for bringing over gifts for the children. I have never seen so many radiant smiles as they received these presents. Thank you and God Bless.

BATAM BIBLE COLLEGE
The construction of the college building is progressing well and we are praying that it is completed on schedule. Right now we have twenty students registered to begin classes on the 3rd of February. The students will be coming from Sulawesi, Papua, Sumatera, Java, and Nias, which will encompass all the areas where the church exists in Indonesia. We need your help to sponsor the scholarship program and to make it a success. You can sponsor the training of a minister for only $100.00 per month for twenty-four months. This will result in spreading the gospel though out this entire nation of 220,000,000 people.

The need for funds to finish the construction of the Batam Bible College facility still exists. This has been a work of faith from the beginning so we have arranged financing but still need to pay the loan of $80,000 back. Please give generously to this, as it is the foundation for developing the church in all of Indonesia. Thank you.

Please send your checks to:

Madigan Avenue Church of Christ
463 Madigan Avenue
Morgantown WV 26501

and designate them for student scholarship. Thank you.

MISSION TEAMS
SOLO - CENTRAL JAVA - After only one year the mission to Solo, Java the heartland of Indonesia has produced excellent results. They now have two groups meeting every Lord's day in the morning and evening. The morning group meets at a location called Joyotakkan. They have baptized twenty five there and average around thirty for worship. The evening group meets in a location called Palur. They have baptized thirty-eight and average around forty for worship. They are sending six men and one women to the Batam Bible College in February for training so that the mission team can move on to other locations.

While visiting this last December I was blessed to be able to teach and baptize one of the guests who attended worship service the day that I preached there. She was a widow who had been baptized in the Pentecostal church years ago but had grown enough spiritually to accept the word of God and obey.

DURI SUMATREA - Brothers Heryanto and Jannes Banjarnahor are doing a good work in this new mission point. They were sent out from Batam in August 2003 and have established a group who assemble to worship according to the pattern of the New Testament. In fact the group has built their own simple building to worship in. Brother Herbin Simanjuntak the evangelist at Batam visited them and reported that they have around twenty-five attending worship each Sunday. They have baptized one man but he moved away because of his work. We are planning to hold a seminar in Duri on the 24-25 of January to promote the church there. We will be preaching on the Distinctive Nature of the Church based on Brother Ed Whartons course at Sunset International Bible Institute. Hopefully this will give them a boost and establish their credibility, as we are fairly new in comparison to the other denominations.

As you can see the method of developing and sending out local mission teams can be most effective in a relative short time. It takes two to three years to train the men in Batam Bible College and then after working a period of time with a local congregation, they will be sent out by the church to plant churches throughout all of Indonesia. Church planting and development takes the whole church working together so we invite you to become partners with us in taking the gospel of Christ to all of Indonesia.

Your servant in Christ
Winston Bolt