It was a blessing this morning to have another older man from Ukraine visit with us. He's living in the heart of Edinburgh, but took bus out to our area this morning. He joined us for lunch as well. Please pray for God's grace for the many displaced people from the war. It's sad to think that they have to rebuild their lives in another country where many of them do not speak the national language.

This morning was kind of sad. Our college students who have been with us for the last two years, had their last service with us. Please pray for the power of God for Daniel and Emily. Their future plans include one another. :)

This morning in the AM service I preached a topical message on, "Godly Standards." Convictions or standards used to be normal verbage for believers. It seems in our day that this has gone out of vogue. Hopefully only the verbage has changed and not Biblical positions, but I think in many cases both have changed. Please pray that God will ground our church is good convictions.

NOTE: There is a new sermon widget on the home page where you can access our latest church services.

I've been out with flyers three times this week. On Monday, I was pretty wet when I got back to my car. I didn't have any opportunities on Monday to speak with anyone.

On Tuesday Tommy got out with me. We had a couple good chats. One man had just accepted Christ last month. That was encouraging. We also met a woman who has recently lost her husband of many years. Please pray that we can follow up with her as she was tender to the truth.

Today I was out with Don in Livingston. We had a couple small opportunities. One lady went to a Baptist Church when she was a child. She remembers her mum's baptism. Please pray that our conversation will encourage her to come out and visit the Almond Valley Baptist Church.

Thanks for praying. God has greatly encouraged us and is giving us guidance in the work we are doing.

Daniel and Emily (college students from Northern Ireland and the Republic) were back this Sunday after five weeks away in placements for the Faith Mission. They both graduated from the college yesterday and their families were with them in church today. It was a joy to get to know both of their parents and Emily's siblings. They all came over for lunch at our home and spent the day with us. It was a refreshing time. Daniel preached the PM service as well. We recorded his sermon and I'll have it uploaded in the near future.

Benson has been leading our singing on Sunday PM's for quite some time. Today he became our full time song leader and led for both services. It was a blessing for me to have him take that responsability. He also sang a duet with me this morning, "Day by Day." If you'd like to hear it, I left it on the video and audio at the beginning of this morning's message on sermon audio. 

My message this morning was from Acts 5, "Faithful Through Persecution." God gave this text to Katie and I the night we saw the article which appeared in the newspaper. It was our regular reading in our devotions that night. If you are facing some persecution, it's a great text to meditate on as the Apostle's were faithful through the persecution.

Please pray for wisdom and power as we move forward in God's will and work. You are a great source of strength and encouragement to ourselves and our church. Thanks for praying.

We enjoyed a really fun children's fair (Gala Day) in Loanhead today. Loanhead has always had a great children's fair with good family activities. Our church has enjoyed participating in it for several years. Several in our church family came out and helped.

Our group had archery (suction cup), bean bag toss, and badge making. Badge making is a big hit every year, but all of the activities were running non stop with very little lag for several hours. We had some small rain showers but that didn't seem to hurt the event.

God gave some special divine appointments with people we know. It was fun to catch up. Thanks for praying for our day.

(The image was taken after we had set up.)

I knew that I was going to be going non stop this past week and it was a blur. We had our Wednesday night service and then left Thursday morning for the men's camping. We got back on Saturday and had a great Sunday with Pastor Edgar including a fellowship at our home. On Monday we went to Blair Drummon Safari park to celebrate Benson's 18th birthday and our 22nd wedding anniversary which was on the Friday of the men's camp out. Yesterday morning I was dropped off at the airport at 6:15 to fly to Ireland for some prayer and fellowship time with Pastor Les Hill. I returned home last night at 11 PM. 

I praise the Lord for good friends in the ministry. I really needed the time yesterday with a fellow minister to strengthen my hands. We also did some evangelism yesterday afternoon. Pastor Hill's son, Josiah, and I knocked on doors, while Pastor Hill knocked other doors by himself. We had some great Gospel conversations. Please pray for fruit from our labours.

God gave me two opportunities at the airport last night as well. Our plane was delayed an hour and so I got out my Bible to read it. An older woman beside me after hearing I was a minister said to me, "I wondered how you could be so peaceful. Now I understand." She said, "Oh, you've got your book. What a nice book that is." She was referring to the quality of my Bible. 

I began speaking to her about Peace being found in Jesus and took her through the Roman's Road in the Word of God. Please pray for this lady to be saved. She knows that addictions (cigarette's/ drink) do not satisfy. 

Thank you for keeping up with our work for your prayers for our family and ministry. On Wednesday nights we are doing a verse by verse study through 1 Timothy.  Tonight our text for our Bible study is, 1 Timothy 6:12-14  Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.  I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;  That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Link to sermon from tonight - "Fight the Good Fight of Faith"

God blessed us with a really good Sunday. A friend of ours, Pastor Edgar, preached a great message on the gospel. We were blessed to have him minister to us today and it was a joy to have his mum visiting with us as well. A couple who were visiting joined us for an after service fellowship at our home. God blessed us with good weather and the time was enjoyed by all.

We had another visitor this evening whom I hope will come again. It was a middle aged man whom I met in September last year in Edinburgh. He had just arrived from another country. I told him if he ever needed anything to please let me know. He remembered that and came to me because of a problem he is facing. He didn't arrive until after our service. Please pray for God to meet his need. 

Kay Lee had a great week of camp ministry. A girl in her cabin trusted Jesus as her Saviour this week. Kay Lee was really excited about that. 

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. God is faithful and we are excited about His work in our ministry.

Here is a link to Pastor Edgar's Testimony and Message. He was saved in Edinburgh as a young man.

As you pray for the, "Open Letter to Government" ask God to bless those who curse us. Also pray for people to investigate the open letter for themselves and to evaluate whether a news article accurately portrays the information. 

Here is a news article which takes a contrary view to the open letter to government.

Thank you for praying for the men's campout. We had a wonderful time despite the mess tents getting blown apart on Thursday night. :) We enjoyed our time in God's Word, fellowshipping and had some fun activities as well. Please pray that the work God did in our hearts will continue and that our men and boys will be strengthened.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to hearing from a missionary friend in Canada. Please pray that God will bless Sandy's testimony, update and preaching to the hearts of our church family. 

This has been a busy week, but a fun week. Katie has been doing much to help our friends get settled in Scotland. There has been some progress and I'm thankful she's been able to assist them. They are very thankful to be here and we are enjoying their company as they settle in for God's plan for their family.

Meanwhile, I tried to put out literature on Monday, but was rained out. Yesterday, Tommy and I got a good section of Loanhead finished. Today, Pastor Dillman and I got a fair bit done as well. There won't be too many more times out in Loanhead before it is finished.

The boys are really excited about going camping. We leave in the morning with our church minibus and then will be collecting Pastor Dillman and another man from his church. All told, we'll have 11 of us traveling together. The weather looks promising, if you can trust it. :) We'll be happy with whatever God sees fit to give us. 

There were be 4 devotionals in our time together. I get to share the first tomorrow night. I'm going to preach about the Feast of Tabernacles which the Jewish men were required to attend. Our camp out won't be as long as their feast, but there are some fun similarities. Thanks for praying for our family and ministry.

Praise the Lord, Constantine arrived safe and sound last night. It was a joy to see their family reunited and in church together today. Please pray for their older son, Michael, as he and his wife remain in Odessa. They have other family there as well.

Another blessing today, was a first time visitor who got a flyer. She enjoyed being with us and said she'll return next Sunday and hopes to have her husband with her. 

We had fun in SS as I showed Ben Child's, Papua New Guinea, update video. Afterwards we watched a video of Ken Ham teaching on fossils and the flood. 

I preached this morning from Mark 4:32-35 on, "Connected to God." Mark (15) helped prepare closed captioning for 5 languages (Russian, Ukrainian, English, Spanish and German.) I'm thankful for a new avenue of ministry if we meet someone who speaks another language.

Tonight was also a fun service. Thanks for praying for our day.