For the Church here, August was a time of growth. Six new souls were added to the Kingdom. Four young people were baptized during the second (teenage) session of our camp which was held August 3 - 13. Forty-six campers and 14 counselors attended this session. There were more wanting to go than we had room for. This second session of camp was not plagued with as many problems as the first session, although a number did get sick with colds and sore throats. Our thanks to the Herrin and McLeansboro Churches in Illinois and the Metro Church in Denver for providing support for the two sessions of camp this year. We made contacts with many young people, some of whom are now coming to church, as well as some of their parents.

During part of August, most of the leaders were gone, so Jim spoke each Sunday. He also restarted his ministry training classes for Vasya and Sasha, which meet 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. They are now studying the Pentateuch, 2 Corinthians, Church History, and Acts. Also, he started a study on James on Monday nights for a small group. From his individual studies, two of the people he was studying with obeyed the Gospel. The first, Ksinia, was brought by Sveta Andreeva and is the Administrator for her aerobics business.

The second, Lena, has been a long-term project. Four years ago, Lena's husband, Igor, came to an English course Jim taught. Lena also began coming to the English class about 3 1/2 years ago. Although invited to church every week, they never came for several years. Last fall, they began to study the Bible with Jim and come to church each Sunday. Each Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM, they would come to our apartment straight from work in order to study the Bible. They are both engineers, but work at different places Because they would come and study two hours, not having eaten dinner, LaVonne began to prepare dinner for them each week. In December 2002, Igor went to South Korea to work for a year, so they can afford to buy an apartment. They live with their almost 6 year old son in a one room apartment. While we were in the States, Lena continued to study each week with Phil & Beckie Payne. When we returned the 1st of March, we resumed our Wednesday night study with Lena. Being an engineer, she wanted to understand everything. She would read a book of the Bible each week, and then come with questions each Wednesday. She read through and discussed almost the entire Bible before she was ready. We were thrilled to watch her being buried in Christ in our bathtub. Pray for her and for Igor, that he will continue to study again when he returns from Korea.

LaVonne is continuing with remodeling. She has finished the painting and varnishing, and now we are having our bathroom (toilet) tiled. She has been very busy this summer with all this.

She is looking forward to resuming her study group in September. The Tomsk group will be studying Matthew, in conjunction with a group in Austin, Texas, led by our mentor, Karen Alexander. There may be others from around the world who will also study the same passages at the same time. We will then correspond with each other about what we've gleaned from our studies. We are all anxiously looking forward to beginning these studies together.

We appreciate all of you for your prayers and support of the work in Tomsk. The Lord continues to bless His people in Tomsk, and we are blessed to be here to serve.