I hope each and every one of you had a great Christmas and have a great New Year. God is so good to us. (All the time). 2005 was a year of first for us and God did great and marvelous things that only He could do. We got to see around 300 people come to know the Lord thru personal evangelism and more from ministering opportunities. We saw two young men surrender to the mission field from the Philippines and one surrender to preach. Now a new year is here and we all have a new opportunity to serve and love the Lord with all our heart, mind and body. Matt.22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is a new year to do the things that we didn’t get around to last year. A year to step out in faith and do something for the Lord that He has placed on our heart that we just haven’t done.

I am almost finished with the book that I am writing on the "State of the Church". I hope to be finished with it sometime in February. I pray that it will fire up the Lord’s churches to reach out to a lost and dying world that is in desperate need of a savior. I believe it is need for our pastors to read as God has put this burden on my heart to write about this subject.

God answers prayers. We have been praying about 3 countries that God has laid on our heart, to be able to minister to the people in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. God is truly at work opening doors for us. We plan to go into Cambodia this summer; we have people that will take us into that region. We are still praying about Vietnam. But God is opening the door to Laos and that is exciting. As you know, we are self-support missionaries and God has given us the vision, and desire to be used in raising up Filipino’s to go to foreign fields and plant churches for our Lord. God is doing just that. On this trip we had two young men who surrendered to the mission field and need direction in how to go about it. God brought us together. One young man is looking to go to Japan and plant churches. God is taking care of this as we speak because a good friend of mine (a Filipino) told me he was going to Japan for 2 years to work. This guy whose name is Edwin is a soul winner. He is just a layman but has started two missions in the Philippines already. When we get there full time we will be the missionaries to these missions. He told me that he would help the young missionary going to Japan. The young missionary is named John and he will get his degree from a Bible College in March I believe. They will be tent makers meaning that we will help them to get to the field but when they get a job we will cut down on the support until they no longer need supporting and can make their living by working and still plant churches. Every trip we take we help these men and show them how to start house churches. We show them how to reach out and get people to come to these bible study groups. One thing I have learned is that if we would just teach Jesus and the Word of God all else will fall into place. But there is a catch, and that is, we can only support these men through the support that comes in to Potters Clay Ministry. That’s where the ministries tithes and offerings go. Without you the vehicle grinds to a halt. And I know that there is a lot of competition for your support. But I do ask those that do not support us to please prayerfully consider us. We do not ask for much. We do ask for a lot of Prayer. However if just 5 individuals from each church would "faith promise" with us for just $20.00 a month (15 20oz coke) I could go in January of 2007 instead of September. Are if the churches that do not support us would pick us up we would be able to do the same thing. Okay enough about support, but I would like to thank the churches and individuals who do support us. You do not know the encouragement it gives Diane and me to know that you believe in what we are doing in our Lord’s service.

The other man, Sante, surrendered to the mission field in China. We are trying to get him set up to go to Bacolod to learn to teach English so he can go in as an English teacher. He already has a degree but that will not get him into China so he is going in as an English teacher. Sante is 30 years old, married and has a family. He is a solid Christian who is well grounded in Baptist doctrine. He is experienced in church planting and in mission work and is ready to do what God has called him to do and I do understand that.

I flew out of Shreveport on the 28^th of November and landed in Manila on the 29^th of November. I had a doctor and a youth minister with me and the one of the doctor’s bags did not make. We got it the next day but it had been taken apart by customs and they (somebody) took his camcorder out of its bag. They also stole his charger for his camera so he only had a limited battery supply to take pictures with. We left Manila early on December 1^st and went to Baguio City where we had a medical mission planned. Doc saw about 150 patients and then I got to speak to them one on one to soul win them. I lost count around 30 professions of faith. That is not including the ones that had two or three together. I just count that as one. But we had a very profitable first day. We had Jehovah’s Witness there and we spent about two hours with her and she got right up to the point of accepting Jesus but she just wouldn’t. She had tears running down her face and she was under conviction but she would not surrender. We answered all her misconceptions about heaven, hell and the other things they show and showed her scriptural evidence that what she believe was false what the bible said was the truth. She spoke very good English so it was easy to talk with her. Her name is Pricilla. Pray for her and I hope to see her this summer and win her to our King. John, the young man who is lead to go to Japan, will be following up on her and some others that we witnessed to. We witnessed to people from the Provinces of Ifugao and that is what they spoke. I had an interpreter to help, however I did speak and win a young man in Ilocano. That was so great winning someone in their own language. That was exciting.

I would like to finish this Newsletter by thanking Bro. Rocky Goodwin and Bro. Mike Goodwin of EIM for donating money for over 80 Ilocano Bibles. We took them to the mountain tribes and the people that received them just glowed from joy. Some of these had never had their own bible. There are many more that need bibles. They need Jesus and it is our job to carry the gospel to them. And with the help of EIM the door opened and made our job easier as those that got bibles got saved also. Amen to our King.

I will tell more of the mountain ministries next month. Thanks so much and Diane and I thank you with all our heart and pray for our trip this summer as we will try to stay 4-6 weeks. Thanks again. Bro. Duane and Diane Arender

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