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.

Thank you for praying for the building purchase. Lord willing, we will get to completion early this next week. God's timing is perfect and we are waiting upon Him. Meanwhile, next Sunday starts a week of special meetings with Evangelist Barry Webb. We enjoyed great visits yesterday with many friends whom we hope will attend these meeting. My family went out in the morning and after lunch to speak with specific people. 

We had a good day today. We still have some illness. Our treasurer has battled a chest cold for 8 weeks. Others of us have some health needs. Please pray for God to strengthen our church physically during these important days.

This morning I shared a topical message on 4 important growth charts for spiritual growth. (Salvation, Sanctification, Surrender and Service.) If you have a prayer list and pray for our church, please pray for God to grow our church in and through these areas.

Tonight is our Annual Meeting as we look back at 2022 financially, and make some decisions for our future. We vote tonight to add a regional name to our church. Everyone is excited about it. I'll let you know soon about that addition to our name.

God gave us refreshingly good attendance. It was a blessing to gather together this morning at perhaps our last Sunday meetings in our original church location. Thanks for your prayers.

The Lord gave us a good Sunday. We are anxious to get into our new property, but are content to wait on God's timing. We're getting close. Lord willing, we'll be in it before our evangelistic meetings which start in less than 2 weeks.

I preached yesterday on our privilige to speak for God as His ambassadors to a sinful world. It's amazing what God's grace has allowed in our lives that we could have such a privilige.

This morning I put out the open letter in a community near to us. I enjoyed a couple really good conversations. Interestingly, both people I spoke with have been protesting the transgender legislation that has come through the Scottish parliament. The one man was 80 years old and single his whole life. He was protesting to stand up for women's rights. These are indeed interesting days.

We are doing things in preparation for our new location. We had a graphic designer put together a logo and some graphics for church branding. I have a Christian builder who's crew is hopefully going to do the renovations on our building. We've printed 10k flyers identifying our new location. We're working on insurance, etc. Please pray for us to have wisdom as we make a lot of decision in the next few weeks. Thanks for your prayers.

PS. Scotland can be calm at times. I snapped these pics on a recent family walk near our home. Tomorrow we are supposed to get winds up to 60 mph. However, some areas are going to possible hit 80 mph winds.

It was a joy to get together with two other men for the day of prayer. Unfortunately three others were not able to be with us. One had car trouble (both cars in the garage). Another was ill and needing to recoup. A third had a meeting that had to take place on that day. 

Thankfully, our prayer meeting isn't dependent upon one another. It is ALWAYS  a blessing to those who are able to make it (and we trust it is a blessing to those who could not attend as we prayed for them.)

Yesterday, Don Dillman and I got back to our outreach together. The Dillmans returned a month ago from a 3 month furlough. It was good to catch up at the day of prayer as well as during our outreach on Wednesday. I got a very positive phone call last night from a man who received the open letter. He had some great questions. I was able to share the Gospel with Him (about half an hour on the phone) and he may visit our church. Please pray that He would do so. Regardless, I'm very thankful for the divine appointment.

This seems like a late date to start evangelism. However, I got the flu that is going around Scotland and I had the extra responsability of caring for my kids (turning the oven on and off) while Katie was away. I don't know that I'd call it cooking, but "heating" might be more appropriate. :)

Now that Katie is home and I am well, I am delighted to be back out in doing evangelism. God has given divine appointments before this. As we walked on Friday, God gave me a great divine appointment with two college age young men. I was able to share some Gospel truth with them.

Today as I put out the Open Letter flyer God gave me 4 short opportunities. I'm so thankful for the privilige of being involved in evangelism. Please pray for the power of God. Tommy and I hope to start up the street preaching ministry next week. Tommy has also been ill and has had a bad cough for about 8 weeks. Please pray that he will get well soon and that God will enable us to get out in His timing.

Tomorrow is the day of prayer and we appreciate your prayers for God to meet with us in power.