Just a quick update and prayer request. My son Graham and I are in Surabaya, Indonesia for one more day, and then we'll travel to Jakarta for two more days of training before heading home.

We actually have three things happening at the same time--a graduate level Supervision and Leadership class for aspiring Christian school leaders, training sessions for Christian school teachers, and the Passing the Baton workshop for teachers (here it is called Passing the Torch). The Passing the Torch workshop is being presented entirely in Bahasa (the national language) by Indonesian speakers, supervised by Lili Garcia, one of our Filipino trainers.

This is tremendously exciting to watch--it's the third leg of the baton relay, and the Indonesians are excited about taking what they've learned and passing the baton to the Chinese. The city of Surabaya has a mosque in every neighborhood and the call to prayer rings out five times a day--it is especially fulfilling to see such an intense effort in preparing future Christian leaders in this context.

Please continue to pray for the Indonesians in Sumatra who have been devastated by the earthquake. Thousands have died and bodies are still being recovered. Indonesian school children have been asking questions about how God could allow this pain to occur--opening up opportunities for teachers to share from Scripture. Please pray for wisdom and stamina, and for the growth of the church here even amidst persecution.

Finally, thank you for your prayers for our colleagues in the Christian schools in the Philippines. Fifteen subscribers responded to the plea for financial contributions and we were able to send a check for nearly $3,000 to help. As it turns out, many of the schools were arks in the midst of the storm--safe havens for people whose homes were destroyed. They were ready to serve, and many lives were saved as a result.

Blessings!

Jeff