God blessed us with a wonderful day both in spiritual blessing as well as physical. I enjoyed preaching this morning on the Ethiopean Eunuch from Acts 8. Afterwards our church came over to our home where we baptised Nathan and his wife, Mali. These young parents have been saved this year. Praise the Lord. We are excited to see what God is going to do in their family. They will be joining our church this evening.

Meanwhile, another believer who had not yet been baptised decided to follow the Lord in believer's baptism. And so, we are all meeting back at our home before our evening service so that we can baptise Margaret.

The weather today was outstanding and almost hot as we waited to start our baptismal service. Logan played a stanza of Amazing Grace on his bagpipes and then we sang a stanza. I shared from Romans 6 the beautiful pictures of believer's baptism by immersion. Our old man dying with Christ. Our new man rising to walk in resurrection power with Jesus. Afterwards we went back to the church for a fellowship meal. We are going to repeat this meal tonight after the evening service. These are special days and we thank God for His grace. 

Please pray for Nathan's military service. He's been given orders to take a 5 week course down in England starting this Wednesday. He'll also be doing a 15 week tour of duty from September to December. Please pray that God will help us help him and his family through this time and that the spiritual growth will continue.

Thank you for praying with us about our desire for a permanent church location. We have now heard back from the closing date.

To make it simple, I'll paste below my email to our church family,

Dear church family,

Well, we have followed the Lord down a path of faith and God has allowed us to find some closed doors. 

Our solicitor notified us with the following statement, 

"Unfortunately, your offer at the closing date was un-successful."

The word, "unsuccessful" seems negative when all we want is what God wants. In reality success is "finding the will of God and doing it."

Paul tried to go into Asia and Bythinia, before the Spirit of God led them to Macedonia.

I'm thankful that I can honestly say I'm not disappointed although I long to see God's answer to our prayers.

Stay encouraged - God is faithful,

Pastor

Well, I hope I can focus on my studies now.  My "impatience" allowed me to find out through email that the seller of the church building hopes to have an answer today. God is still God and God is still good no matter whether the answer is yes or no. We are committed to thanking Him (In everything give thanks) either way. We only want this building IF it is the will of God and we know that He can either open this door or close it. I will certainly update this page once we have a definite answer.

Meanwhile, God allowed me to put out 200-250 Gospel flyers this morning. It was an interesting morning as it was hot when the sun came out and cold when it went away. I had a couple short opportunities to engage with people in conversations about God. The best was with a young man who was preparing to smoke outside a flat. His paper cigarette is destroying his physical life (great expence, poor health etc.). The Gospel paper I gave him can give him eternal life and set him free from vices like cigarettes. Please pray for the power of the Gospel to be unleashed in our area and that we'll see young men like this trust Christ.

Thanks for following along and praying.

Well, I'm sorry for neglecting to update this page this week. I think that may be a first, except for when we have been away on holiday. Unfortunately, I don't have an update on the church building yet. We continue to wait on the Lord.

Outreach was normal this week. I put out flyers on Monday. Tommy helped me put out flyers on Tuesday. I went over to Don's and put flyers out on Wednesday. Katie and I did door to door on Saturday. God did give some divine appointments. 

We enjoyed a good Sunday. We had a returning visitor this morning which was a blessing. He said that he will see us next week. I really hope that he faithfully begins attending our church.

Please pray for God to clear our men's schedules at work for His day. Two men were impacted by having to work today.

I enjoyed preaching on a passage that makes a wonderful statement about resting in God.  Isaiaih 30 "Their strength is to sit still."  (Uploading to sermon audio just now, but already on our facebook page (Free Baptist Lothian). Please listen in sometime and then pray earnestly for the power of God in the preaching of HIs Word at our church. We desperately desire His enablement.

Be assured I will update this page very quickly once we have any word on the church building. Thank you for your prayers.

Our hearts were encouraged today as we focused on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our text this morning was Matthew 28 and the focus was, "Go and Tell." The Angel did. The women did. The soldiers did. And then the disciples did. What an incredible message that spread like wild fire as it went from one to another!

Our attendance was good. We had 2 out of town visitors who were visiting family in our church. We also enjoyed a fellowship meal and then took the kids out for an Easter Egg Hunt. They had a lot of smiles and laughs as they searched for the eggs.

Thank you for praying for our ministry. The Lord gave us a great morning.

In case you are wondering, we are still waiting to hear back on our offer for the church property. I have no doubt that an update will appear here as soon as we know their decision.

Another big answer to prayer came this past week. 3 weeks ago, our family offered to sponsor a Ukrainian mother from Odessa, Evelena, and her son, Mark (15) into our home. Praise the Lord both of their visas have now been approved. Please pray for grace for them as they move over here. Evelena's husband, Constantine, her married son, Michael, and all their family remain in Ukraine. They are members of the Baptist church there. 

We're excited about Easter Sunday. Our church is going to have a fellowship meal after the morning service. In our time in Scotland we have seen two people saved on Easter Sundays. Please pray for God to do a gracious work in every heart as we look at Matthew 28 tomorrow morning.

Penicuik ("Penny - cook") is a very large town. I'm not sure the population is really known as the town is growing rapidly with many new house. But, the number is over 20,000. I've been putting out flyers here for quite some time (several months.) The Lord gave me one divine appointment this morning that I really enjoyed. It was with an older Catholic from Northern Ireland. She has a fun personality. She said, "God bless you" when I departed. My hope is that God will truly bless her through what was discussed.

Tomorrow is another day of prayer in Blair Atholl. We should have 5 or 6 men present. Two are riding up with me and two or three are driving down from the North. Please pray for safety in the travels and for God's presence with us in that place. These are valuable times which I believe are reaping great dividends for Christ's kingdom. We appreciate your prayers for our prayer time.

Praise the Lord, both the young man and the gran with her granddaughter came to our service this morning. What a joy! We had an encouraging morning. We continue to wait on the Lord regarding our offer on the property. We'll see what God has for us. I'm sure I'll update either way as soon as we hear their answer. We're content with whatever God sees fit to do.

I preached this morning on "Steadfast Worship" from Psalm 108. David's heart was fixed on praising God and praying to God. We had a good time in God's Word.

Thank you for your prayers - they are not in vain. God is good to work here as you pray there. 

Katie and I again had surprising results while knocking on doors. Surprising to us... not to the Lord. We witnessed to a young man (20) who has accepted our invitation to attend tomorrow. He's a gracious young man and is going to join us for lunch as well. Also, we met a family who tried to come to church a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately the mapping program they used took them to a previous church location. Please pray that they will find the right location and attempt to visit again. We're so thankful the Lord had us find this out.

Thank you for praying for God to work in our area. We're encouraged by the many things happening in our ministry as God answers your prayers.

We put a bid in on Monday for the church property in Penicuik. Now, we are waiting to see if they accept our offer or someone else's offer. They had a closing date when all offers had to be submitted. The deadline was yesterday at noon. Because the offers need to go before committees we were told that it would take longer. We don't know what the outcome will be, but are confident that God has led us thus far. We'll see what the future holds.

Meanwhile, God gave some great divine appointments yesterday. I had the opportunity to speak with a man for nearly an hour. I also spoke with a young woman for about 20 minutes. Both thanked me for the conversation. It's been interesting lately. That makes three people since Saturday who sincerely expressed appreciation for a conversation about God. I saw God's hand clearly in all three of these opportunities. Please pray for fruit that will remain.

The weather is pretty unsettled which affected outreach today. I hope to get out tomorrow with Pastor Dillman in his area if the weather allows. Thank you for prayiing. These are exciting days regardless of the outcome of our bid. We are confident that God has a perfect plan for our church location.