This morning felt a bit like Mother's day. We had 3 visiting mother's this morning. One was from Africa. One was from Italy. Another was Scottish, but visited with her family, who were visiting her from Canada. It was a blessing to have them there. (Next Sunday is Mother's day in the UK.)

We had good attendance, as the above indicates, and enjoyed a good time of worship and fellowship. I preached this morning from Exodus 17 on being, "Battle Ready." The story is of the first battle Israel faced after the Exodus from Egypt.  Please pray that as individuals, as families and as a church, we would take this message to our heart. God has a path to victory and Moses and Jushua established the way.

Tonight we are going to reminisce a bit as a church family and have a singspiration. Our family moved to Scotland 15 years ago, departing on 23 March and arriving on the 24th. God has done SO MUCH in the past 15 years and I trust His name will be lifted up this evening. Thank you for praying for our church. God IS working in answer to your prayers. (That truth is very consistent with what we studied this morning - Joshua battled physically - Moses with His rod uplifted battled as an intercessor.) Thank you for upholding us before God's throne.

We're thankful for the sun shining outside and the SON shining today at our church. We enjoyed a good time of fellowship and a good time in the Word of God this morning.

God blessed us with a visiting father and two older children from the United States. Another daughter is a student at Crown College and she is currently with their college located in England. It was nice of them to stop by and worship the Lord with us.

This morning I preached on, "Fuflilling God's Purpose." Our text was from the end of Isaiah 43 and into the beginning of chapter 44. Before I preached I sang a solo with a hymn text that I really appreciate, the song is called, "Follow Me." If you'd like to hear it, it is recorded along with the message this morning. You can access it by clicking the link above. (These are always just uploading as I type these updates and may not be available immediately.)

This past week was a great week. Our new monthly care home ministry and ladies' Bible study went really well. On Tuesday I enjoyed a day of prayer with some other ministers. We meet bi-monthly to do this and have done this for many years. Our hearts are definitely knit together from our prayer times. The door-to-door opportunities yesterday were exceptional. Please pray especially for a newly married couple that Mac and I met. We spoke about the Lord with them for 25 minutes and were thankful for their sweet spirit.

God's good. Thank you for your prayers.

God blessed us with a great ministry day. On top of our normal ministries of 3 services, we added an afternoon service today at a Care home. This extra ministry is something we have been praying about and it was exciting to see God open a door for this monthly ministry. We haven't had a care home ministry since 2020 when covid shut everything down. This is primarily for our young people, but we had some adults who also wanted to join us. We had 12 residents and 8 of us. After singing some hymns I shared the story of Naaman.

This morning, the message was on, "Finding Jesus" from Luke 4. The idea was, If you want to find Jesus, you have to look where He can be found.

God blessed this past week. We designed a new sign to go on a corner of our property. This is the corner of a brick wall that was knocked down by a lory. My boys helped me take down a section of the wall and the area will be landscaped with grass. The new window was also installed in our guest room. Also, door to door yesterday was a blessing and we had some great divine appointments.

Tomorrow, our ladies' are excited to begin monthly ladies meetings. Please pray that God will greatly use this in the lives of our ladies. Thank you for your prayers.

Scotland has beautiful Spring flowers and the bulbs are coming up and there are already some beautiful Spring like flower beds. This morning was also sunny and clear which made for a nice ride to church.

We have a church minibus that takes about a 50 minutes circuit to collect some people for church. We're thankful for God's provision as this vehicle allows some to come who otherwise would not be able to do so.

Our Sunday School attendance was pretty strong this morning and the morning service was fairly well attended. This morning we revisited our church theme for 2025 - Crucified with Him. I preached this morning from Romans 12:1-2, "Crucified with Him unto His Likeness." 

Tonight, Brother Tommy from our church will be sharing a challenge and then I will be leading our church in the Lord's table. We observe this ordinance on the first Sunday of each month in our evening service.

This week is somewhat normal, other than some work projects getting going again at the church. (On Wednesday we have a window being replaced.) Next Sunday, we will begin a youth monthly care home ministry with an afternoon service at a local care home. The Monday following, Katie is beginning a monthly ladies' Bible study. Please pray for the power of God as we seek greater opportunitites for our church family to serve the Lord and to serve one another.

God blessed us with a full evangelism week. On Monday, a man from our church joined me for street evangelism. He handed out literature while I preached. On Tuesday, my two youngest boys, Nelson and Mac, helped as we put out Gospel literature in Penicuik a village about 4 miles from our church. On Wednesday morning, Pastor Don Dillman came along as we put out literature in the same area.

Wednesday night we continued our stuy on the life of David with a lesson on making Biblical decisions and not making emotional decisions. David's emotional decision opened up the door for heartache into his home.

Today was Faith Promise Sunday at our church. We looked at 2 Corinthians 8 and I preached a message on being, "Grace Givers." Please pray for God to help us move forward in our missions program. We currently support 3 missionaries at £125 pounds and 1 miisionary at partial support of £75 pounds. Our faith promise Sunday last year allowed us to add a missionary at partial support, but not full support. We hope to get them to full support this time.

Today is the two year anniversary of purchasing our property. We thank God for the great work He has done in allowing us not only to acquire the property but to renovate it. We are going to celebrate God's goodness this evening with a cake felllowship after our evening service.

Thank you for your interest and prayers for Southside Baptist and our family. They are much appreciated.

(We're excited to have a new little Gospel flyer to put into people's hands.)

It's a blessing to see sunshine after a mostly cloudy week! We had guests from the States meet up with us on Friday. They are from Florida and they were rejoicing in any breaks in the clouds. :) It was a blessing to have them with us and show them some of the church history in our area.

God gave us a solid ministry morning. We had decent attendance in SS and good attendance in the morning service. A man visited for his first time. He moved into our area 2 months ago and saw the church service times and then came this morning. He intends to come again. Praise the Lord!

I preached this morning on the coming great day of Victory when Jesus reigns for 1,000 years on this earth. The text was Isaiah 25. It's exciting to think that "upside down world" is going to be turned right side up and that God's people will be vindicated and encouraged by the Lord.

I hope that God blesses/blessed you and your church with a wonderful day like our own. Thank you for praying for our services.

Thank you for praying for our church Valentine's banquet. This was not for couples, but for our church family and it was a wonderful time. The children did a great job preparing the meal, decorating, serving and cleaning up. They also shared 1 Corinthians 13,  played hand chimes, and the teens did a skit. 

We had great attendance and 3 first time visitors. I preached on 1 John 4:7-12, "Love, Love, Love." It was a very interesting consideration as the Word of God teaches that we can not love without God, because GOD IS LOVE. I felt like I learned something as I studied which I partly knew, but never fully appreciated.

Please pray for God to continue to do a great work in the hearts of our church family and our guests. Thanks for your part in praying for this special night.

Thank you for praying for our church Valentine's banquet. This was not for couples, but for our church family and it was a wonderful time. The children did a great job preparing the meal, decorating, serving and cleaning up. They also shared 1 Corinthians 13,  played hand chimes, and the teens did a skit. 

We had great attendance and 3 first time visitors. I preached on 1 John 4:7-12, "Love, Love, Love." It was a very interesting consideration as the Word of God teaches that we can not love without God, because GOD IS LOVE. I felt like I learned something as I studied which I partly knew, but never fully appreciated.

Please pray for God to continue to do a great work in the hearts of our church family and our guests. Thanks for your part in praying for this special night.

It's been a "dreich" start to the week. If you don't know that good Scottish word it means, "depressing, miserable or cold." It's ALMOST been all of that this week. We're not depressed, but we could be. It's not "happy" weather outside, so we must focus on happy thoughts on the inside. :) ("Encouraging ourselves in the Lord.")

I couldn't get out in evangelism, but the Lord has allowed me to push forward on an evangelistic tool. I prepared a sport's card size flyer to use in our street and personal evangelism. I'll put a couple of pics below. I've ordered 5,000 and should have them before the end of the week.

We're also getting ready for our church Valentine's Banquet which begins tomorrow evening at 6:30. I've already heard skit rehearsal this morning for a radio scramble skit that the teens will be doing. As you would imagine, I"m going to preach on the love of God. My text is 1 John 4. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us..."

Please pray for the power of God to awaken the hearts of men to His Gospel and His love. Thank you for praying for God's work in Scotland.

I feel like I just turned around and another Sunday is here. This past week went incredibly fast. I put out literature on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was a study day and ministry night. Thursday, I flew to Ireland and enjoyed fellowship and prayer. Brother Les Hill had two missionaries join us in the morning and three joining us for an afternoon prayer session. We also met up with one of our missionaries, Brother Layton Kelly, who runs New Hope Residential men's home in Ireland. 

There have been many hinderance to our church attendance. Please pray for God's healing hand. One of our young men has glandular fever (mono) and is really ill. Otherwise, there has just been a lot of other bugs going around. We know that everyone struggles with illness (not just churches) but it does seem at times to be spiritual warfare.

One of the greatest thrills today, was having a man back in church who had turned away from the Lord. He came back with a testimony of repentance and desire to follow God. It was great to have him back with us.

I preached on, "When God Appears" from Jacob's conversion in Genesis 28. It was interesting that God's appearance impacted Jacobs - head, heart and will. God is working and there were some open responses in the invitation time. Please pray for God to do a thorough work in the hearts of all of our church family.

This Wednesday we are having a Valentine's Banquet which our children are going to put on for us. People have been signing up and we are trusting God for a great night. Please pray for visitors and for our church family to be encouraged. Thank you for praying for our family and ministry. God is good and we know it is in answer to your prayers.