This last year has seen a change of attitude by the community to the church and we feel in some ways we have "come of age". The church is now being asked to participate in community events and more adults than are attending the church’s events in the past. One week the church band was asked to provide music at a function at one of the local schools and the week before that our Mother's day program was opened by the mayor and very well attended. Tom, our pastor, sees this as being a true sign of acceptance by the greater community and we are praying that this will see people accepting God's grace and coming into God’s Kingdom.

We have had many special programs during the term break. For the high school English Week we had help from two volunteers that are here from Australia. For the Vacation Bible School for elementary aged kids, we used the church youth as helpers. We were very pleased at how responsible they were and at how many of the village kids showed up. When you are starting a new church often you end up doing everything yourself. It is nice, now that we are in the second phase of church planting and moving into church nurture we have energetic new Christians that are willing to help.

Last night we had an Italian night with pizza and spaghetti to thank the youth who helped. Like teenagers all over, they can consume enormous amounts of pizza thus the spaghetti to fill them up!

Praise God that now with just the youth we were able to dirty all the plates in the house and made enough noise to indicate we were having a good time. A couple of years ago we had to have the whole church over to get a quorum for a good event.

The kids at VBS enjoyed snacks, games, crafts, Bible stories, coloring and singing. Almost none of them come from Christian homes but we are glad that the parents are willing to let them come. The Bible stories on Christ's death and resurrection gave the core message of the Gospel. Many of the kids came to last April's program and to our Saturday morning program so we are able to have continued contact with them.