Ron Graham’s Report
— for Jul-Aug-Sep 2015
This page reports my voluntary ministry activities for the information of those who take a special interest in my work.
Dear Brethren... This report covers the third quarter of 2015.
Preaching at Bundaberg
During July, August and September, I presented 18 Sunday lessons in Bundaberg. These included 11 sermons, and 7 Bible class studies. In the Bible classes we completed our study of the parables of Jesus.
Special Meetings
During September, there were special meetings at Bundaberg. Ken Craig (from Alabama USA) and John Maddock (from Canada) spent some time with us. John did some preaching and Ken spoke on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th about “The Big Picture of the Bible” —which is all about sacrifice. Ken used excellent power point charts. All told there were four hours of presentation.
A number of young people of sober mind attended, and six were baptized. Some of these people had been visiting with us previously for a while.
Website simplybible.com
In the quarter, I added 5 new pages to the simplybible.com website, and two new sets of slides to accompany the lessons. I also added several new Bible crosswords and revised the existing ones to fit nicely on mobile phones.
Social Media
Susanne has been maintaining the facebook pages. The simplybible page has exceeded 700 likes. Susanne has produced many photo images with encouraging Bible verses on them. She posts these regularly on facebook pages. Not everyone loves facebook, but the pages Susanne works on are directing traffic to simplybible.com and creating interest.
Upgrading computers
I upgraded my computers to Windows 10 and ran some checks to ensure the website behaved properly under this new operating system and its new "Edge" browser. I also acquired a modern mobile phone so that I can observe the site's behaviour on small devices. More than half of the visitors to simplybible.com come on mobile phones. It is quite an art to make the website present well on all devices —phones, tablets, kindles, ipads, personal computers, televisions and what-not.
Website Usage
The figures for page views over the quarter continued to be high. For July 99,928, for August 98,693, and for September 103,000 (source Awstats). That's an average per month of more than 100,000 pageviews.
Countries Reached
Google Analytics lists the following pageviews for the past month. This will give you some idea of simplybible.com’s outreach "into all the world".
PAGEVIEWS SEPT 2015
| USA | 46,652 |
| Australia | 7,558 |
| India | 5,139 |
| Philippines | 4,991 |
| UK | 3,817 |
| Canada | 2,177 |
| Kenya | 1,986 |
| South Africa | 1,985 |
| Netherlands | 1,624 |
| Nigeria | 1,130 |
| Singapore | 1,113 |
| Thailand | 601 |
| Malaysia | 526 |
| New Zealand | 468 |
| Germany | 438 |
| United Aram Emirates | 344 |
| Jamaica | 339 |
| Indonesia | 299 |
| Zimbabwe | 239 |
| Ireland | 235 |
| Trinidad & Tobago | 228 |
| Hong Kong | 221 |
| Bangladesh | 217 |
(Many other countries under 200)
Vanuatu Update
The church at Bundaberg purchased more Bibles and is paying the postage. We will include more Bible lessons. Of the lesson folders we sent, Sali distributed some to church leaders up in the mountains and the extra Bibles will go there. Sali mentioned again that the people were delighted to receive the Bibles because they are in simple English which they can understand.
It bears repeating that the Bibles were requested by chief Sali, and not sent on our initiative. Sali also requested “teaching from the church of Christ”. That is a strong sign that there is interest in true Christianity.
Thank You Again
Again may I say how much I appreciate those who keep on helping me in the Lord’s work. By joining me in the ministry you enable things that I could not possibly do on my own.
Love and best wishes in Jesus.