A couple of days ago I was sitting down for a cold drink after a gruelling tennis match with one my younger Turkish friends, when he paused and said, "There is something I've always wanted to ask you. Why exactly do you live here in this God-forsaken island when you could be living it up in the West?" It was an honest question, that I'm sure many want to ask us but don't have the courage to do so. It was also a great invitation to tell him all about the love of God that compels us.

Indeed times are tough in the Middle East and everyone is looking for the next chance to leave which makes them all the more curious about why we are so committed to staying.

Just this morning my wife received a text from her Persian assistant Bana telling her about her time with one of our Afghan gals last night. She has been coming to her for counseling and has begun to show more and more spiritual interest.

Last night she divulged that she had been seeing dreams of Jesus as if he were God. This confused her as she only knows him to be a great prophet. After a lengthy and fruitful discussion she agreed to read the New Testament for herself. Pray for Hafi and the other girls in our At Risk Women ministry, several of which are now secret believers.

Many of them have been attending our meetings regularly and are beginning to be more bold about expressing their faith in Christ.

The local fellowships are picking up speed again. The English fellowship seems to always be bursting at the seams. The Turkish group is also picking up steam with some new-comers. We continue to lobby the local municipality for the use of one of the ancient churches.

They've told us that they want to repeat the Christmas Bazaar of last year so we are beginning choir practice tomorrow. After some discussions the municipality agreed to grant us use of one of the restored churches within the city walls for our choir practices. The mayor is very congenial towards us and we keep praying the Lord will open more doors and hearts to him.

The ongoing earthquake relief work in Antioch is bearing more and more fruit. After 20 months of serving and sowing seeds the fruit is everywhere.

New families are now moving into the Kaya Project which is outfitted with 12 small houses. We have more construction to do on that land even as we continue building tiny houses for families in the region on their own land. Lord willing I will meet up with a team from the assemblies in Antioch next week. Pray for the continued grace and guidance of the Lord in managing this project.

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention the ongoing work in Bulgaria with the Timothy Bible School we helped to start a few years back. They are now having monthly lessons with a dozen or more regular students. I am scheduled to visit them in December to teach the final module on the book of Revelation and Eschatology.

The local family, Mitko and Mikerem continue serving the many attendees sacrificially in their own home. He reported to me recently that although the students are encouraged to contribute financially to the program, and many do so as they are able to, they are now scraping the bottom. If anyone is interested in supporting that Bible program let me know and I can help to facilitate that.

This month we had the joy of hosting my brother Christopher and Genesis, as well as finally getting to meet our newest nephew in the Mattix family, little Luther. Chris is working on church history docuseries called the Unbreakable Church. It was a joy to be able to take him around some of the historic places in Cyprus where much of these momentous events got started. I was also privileged to be able to contribute some of the material.

Those interested in learning more about this amazing project can look it up at the link above. The rest of our family is doing well. We continue to praise the Lord for the great privilege we have of serving him here in the Middle East. We are also immensely grateful for your faithful prayers and support making all of this possible.