News coverage the last couple of weeks have been dominated by reports of several large icebergs floating off the southern shores of New Zealand. The icebergs have floated up from Antarctica and are causing quite a sensation. The icebergs are indeed beautiful and have been an incredible reminder of the diversity and magnitude of God’s creation.

Our first Sunday at GNBC there were four children in attendance. We now have as many as sixteen each Sunday. One eleven year-old boy walks to church by his own initiative. The rest of the children come with their parents. We would like to divide the class into two smaller groups and need wisdom for organizing additional adult help. We also need to make the space we have available more suitable to our requirements…a lesson we learned well at Morning Star! The children’s class is adjacent to the hall where the main service is held. The kitchen connects the two, and there are large windows with no covering. You might imagine how difficult it can be to keep the children extremely quiet in their class…or to try to teach when the sermon becomes animated. We have decided to purchase 4-inch foam, cut to size, to insert in the servery windows of the kitchen. This will give us the option of using the kitchen as additional nursery space when needed. We might also be able to add singing to the children’s class, which we are currently unable to include due to the noise issues. The attached photo shows our little people in the back of the children’s classroom trying to be quiet so that they do not disturb the main service on the other side of the wall or disturb the children’s class just behind them in the same room!

We would appreciate your prayers for the church family as we prepare to teach through and adopt a constitution. This is always a huge step for a church plant, and we desire to see a core group of members committed to each other and the Word of God. I am currently using the Sunday School hour to teach people how to study their Bibles using an inductive Bible study method. Some have commented that the homework is painful and hard work. Yet, they are digging into their Bibles and it is oozing out of them. Conversation around the services is now often centered on what people have studied, and it is so exciting to see them meditating on God's Word and sharing what they have learned with each other.

Please pray for me personally as I seek to balance endless ministry opportunities with meeting the needs of my family. This last week I found myself struggling to be content with my secular job, where I was doing a physically demanding and intellectually boring, endless task. I’ve asked the Lord to help me be content so long as He intends for me to support my family in this way.

In the Beloved One,
Scott Silsbee

P.S. If you are interested, Lori has recently begun a family blog initially intending to deliver family news and provide a window into our attempts to balance two cultures in one home. See www.silsbeefamily.spaces.live.com