We had a delightful weekend with Fausto and Maria Pia D'Amelio. (Pronounced, "Dah-mail-yo") They came back to our home on Friday and flew back to Italy today. If you have a church ministry in Europe, I highly recommend this couple for your consideration. It is my hope that God will allow our church to add them to our missions family.

The D'Amelio's will be starting a church near where Fausto grew up. In Italy as in Scotland, most Independent Baptist Churches are pastored by American missionaries. It is a great joy to meet a national couple called of God to establish churches in their home nation. Please pray for God to raise up committed men in Scotland who are called of God to the ministry and to church planting.

Before they left, Fausto and Maria Pia helped me start distributing our new church flyer. We're excited about this flyer. It has our church information on the front and the Gospel on the back. Please pray for God to greatly use this simple invitation and Gospel witness to open doors and hearts for God's glory.

Well, this has been a very busy, but productive week. We were able to get our utilities sorted on Monday. On Tuesday I met the contractor at the church and went through the building. Wednesday Don Dillman and I were able to get out to do some outreach. Thursday an Italian national church planter and his wife (D'Amelio's) arrived in Edinburgh. I collected them at the airport and they stayed with our family. 

On Friday we drove up to Aberdeen to take the D'Amelio's to their first meeting today at Open Door Baptist in Aberdeen. We also received 51 very nice chairs from that sister church. We arrived back just in time for our first youth activity on our church property. Also on Friday electicians and roofers viewed the property. :) 

God's been very good to help us with our busy schedule. Lord willing, life will somewhat slow down this week.

Our attendance was down this morning. One man in our church has a lung infection and I know that some children are also ill. Please pray for their soon recovery. Next week is our missions Sunday with the missionaries.

I preached a message from Ezra 8 on how to have a successful physical and spiritual journey. This passage has really encouraged my heart with regard to what God has led us to do. It was a joy to share it with our church.

Thanks for your prayers! We definitely need them. :)

We are already feeling at home in our building as we had our first services this morning. God is so very good to His children. It's been a journey of faith and we have seen God lead every step of the way. We know that we have MUCH more to follow Him through, but it is a blessing to have arrived at our church home location.

I enjoyed preaching on a great story of our Great God and a man of faith, Jonathan. Jonathan didn't think God was limited because he didn't have an army. He didn't think God needed an army to do something great.  Jonathan and His armour bearer went up in the will of God and wrought for God.

The Lord gave us good attendance and an adult visitor as well. That was a blessing.

Thank you for your prayers as we continue to get settled into our church home. We'll begin making refurbishment plans this week.

Our church property is clean and ready for meetings to start. We set up in the front hall as we make plans to renovate the back hall for our church auditorium.

I am very excited (and thankful to God for His goodness) to tell you that Southside Free Baptist Church now owns the Pentland Inn property in Loanhead. It is amazing that God provided for our church to purchase this property with cash. ONLY GOD could do a miracle like this and we acknowledge His incredible goodness and magnify His name.

We began cleaning the property this evening. Please pray for wisdom as we get the church building ready for our first day of ministry this coming Sunday. Thank you for your part in this miracle whether by prayer, interest, encouragement or financial participation. God's people have been the conduit of God's blessing to us and we thank each of you as well. 

Here is an update I just sent to our church. Thanks for praying as we complete the purchase of our new church property.

Dear SFBC church family,

We love Barry and Cheryl Webb and will miss them until next time God brings them our way. Yesterday our family drove the Webbs to Hartlepool England to meet Pastor Jonathan Vanderhurk for their meetings in Peterburgh, England. We enjoyed one last day of fellowship.

Today, we had an exciting Sunday despite my wife being unable to attend due to illness. We had 3 adult visitors and a child visitor. We also had a young lady back in church after a 2 year absence. Two of the visitors were from another country but it was nonetheless good to have them present this morning.

The young mothers in our church did well adapting to not having children's classes and we made do. Please pray for a quick recovery for Katie as we all not only miss her, but miss the ministries she fulfils at our church. 

I preached this morning on, "Resting in Jesus" from Matthew 11:28-30. The Lord opened my mind to some things in a familiar passage that were helpful to me and I trust helpful to our congregation. The text is the passage that begins with.... "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."

Many of you have enquired about the property. Lord willing, we will be in it by the end of this next week. Everything is agreed. However, our solicitors need to agree a date for the completion (closing) on the property. Your prayers for God's grace upon entry are much appreciated. We will need to do a thorough cleaning, figure out the best set up for church, get works scheduled, sort the utilities, pick up the property outside,.... etc.

Thank you for praying with us and for us!

We enjoyed a great 2nd and 3rd day of HBC. Counting teens we had 24 and each of the last two days about 20 in attendance. It was fun to have our church involved in getting children out for the events.

We have seen a couple decisions for salvation among the young people. Both of these were children who have heard the Gospel through our ministry. It was great to have them make a personal decision to trust in Jesus.

We have two more evening meetings before the Webbs depart. We love the Webbs and have enjoyed getting to know them better and better through the years. This is their 3rd time in Scotland with us. We met them in the States close to 20 years ago. If you need an evangelist for your VBS or church meetings, I highly recommend them.

God has blessed our meetings thus far and we are enjoying having Barry and Cheryl Webb with us. Our attendance was good all day and it was a special blessing to have a friend of our's out for the service for her first time. We met her knocking on doors about 3 months ago. We're so glad she came and hope to see other guests out this week as well.

We have the audio from the service last night, but not the video. Brother Webb preached a good message on where we find joy from Psalm 16.

Our first day of Holiday Bible was fun with with 10 children present. Each one is planning to come back tomorrow and we know of some visitors who are planning to attend as well. There were two first timers today. We are excited about what God is doing. Thanks for praying.

It's been a good week to get out with the Good News. I put flyers out on Monday. Don and I put them out today as well. We didn't have any new conversations, but one really good follow up appointment with someone I've known for many years. It was good to catch up.

Yesterday, Logan was my helper as we went into Edinburgh street preaching. It was good to be back at it. Please pray for God's blessing upon our evangelistic endeavours. 

Barry and Cheryl Webb are ministering at Open Door Baptist in Aberdeen this week. Tonight is their final service. On Saturday I'll meet up with them to bring them down to our location for our week of meetings. Thanks for praying for God to give us a great week.