If you are often on this page, you've noticed that we haven't updated in a little while. The silence was because ouf family was on holiday (vacation) in the North of Scotland. Because we have a young preacher in our church, we were able to be gone for a week from last Saturday. We had a great holiday and saw the beauty of God's creation. I'll put a couple pics below.

Meanwhile, a couple visited our church in our absence. Thankfully the woman was able to return this Sunday and is planning on coming next Sunday. The man is currently staying in Manchester, England. So, praise the Lord.

I enjoyed preaching a message, "Obedience Necessary" from 1 Kings 17, God's provision for Elijah through the hand of the widow woman of Zarapheth. Interestingly, the impossible command of God to her to feed the prophet, was just what she needed to do to see God provide for her needs.

We are much refreshed from our time away. Thanking God for His goodness and thank you for your prayers.

John O'Groats is the Northern most tip of Mainland Scotland, Great Britain.

Thank you for praying for the new family who have started attending. It was my privilige to sit down with the young father and show Him the Gospel. He prayed and asked Jesus to save him. He is very excited about what God is doing in his life. Please pray for their family. We of course are thrilled at what God has done. I'm so thankful that God had us knock on their door and had us follow up with them. 

Also, we have special speakers at church this Sunday and next Wednesday. A young man in  our church, Daniel (24) is going to be preaching Sunday School, Sunday morning and Wednesday night. Sunday PM is going to be Pastor Dillman. Please pray for God's blessing on these men as they fill pulpit in our church.

God held off the rain this morning and it was good weather for outreach. I put out 250-300 flyers this morning. God encouraged me as I listened this morning to a couple messages by Pastor Jerry Ross. I don't know him, but my daughter recommended a couple messages he had preached at Ambassador. I very much appreciate his heart for the Lord.

God gave me one divine appointment. I passed a woman walking her dog. I actually passed her three times and chatted with her in passing each time. The final time she came past I spoke with her. She believes in God, but said that she has her own beliefs. I encouraged her to anchor her beliefs on what God says in His Word and gave her a copy of John and Romans. She knows our church location and enquired about our service times. I'd love to see her attend.

Our visiting family was back last night and the father has an unexpected (to him) hunger for God's truth. I'm meeting with him tomorrow. Please pray for God to do a glorious work in this family. We're so thankful to have them attending.

We have had windy weather and stormy weather for most of February. Our outdoor signs have been wrecked by the wind with laminated posters blown away and frames bent. Today was calm and sunny - it was amazing. It was a blessing to put out our signs and not wonder if they would remain standing.

It was also a blessing to have a family back with us who have often misssed recently due to illness. Lord willing, we are all turning the corner on these coughs and colds.

I preached this morning from Psalm 111 on "The Lord's Work." We looked at 12 reasons to participate in the Lord's work. 

Our door to door yesterday morning was encouraging as we followed up. I believe we are close to seeing another contact family visit the church. Please pray that God will bring them out. We've enjoyed getting to know them and believe that they will visit. Thanks for praying.

I don't often give a Wednesday evening update.... not sure why... But, we had a visitor tonight. The mother and kids came with the father tonight. Praise the Lord! It was great to have the whole family in church this evening.

On Wednesday, we are studying the book of 1 Timothy. I preached tonight on "A Worthy Goal." (currently uploading, but already livestreamed to Facebook - Free Baptist, Lothian.) God's good. It was good to see an attendance increase for our midweek. We have been praying about that.

God gave me a divine appointment Monday morning as I got out with flyers in a village very near our church location. It's interesting to me that people know the term, "Agnostic." I guess they have thought enough about God to decide that they believe in Him but do not accept who He says He is. It wasn't a long conversation with this young agnostic man, but he did take a Gospel of John and Romans.

Yesterday Tommy (from our church) met up with me and we put out flyers for about an hour. We didn't speak with anyone but enjoyed the fellowship as we did the Lord's work.

Today we are under a wind advisory with blustery showers turning to snow later. We've had an incredibly windy last 3 weeks. Today the wind speeds can hit 70's mph. :) Better put some rocks in your pockets if you are out and about. Before the three named storms of this past week, they said the UK had lost 8 million trees already this winter.

Last week our church sign posters were blown out of our sign. They were new ones that I had put in two weeks ago.  Another A-board sign was damaged. I had tied it to a post. The rope snapped but not before bending the sign. Please pray for wisdom for us as signs are very necessary to guide people into our church building. 

Well, you don't always get the attendance you hope to get. Today was a day like that. We had several who were unable to be in attendance due to illness. We had one other man and our family present today. I share that to make you aware that sometimes you can have ministry disappointments, but it's ok. God is still good, is still building His church, and has given us numerical encouragement this past week with new contacts. Please keep praying.

I preached a Gospel message this morning on Judas, who was "Born, but not Again." It's amazing how poor a trade Judas made for his soul and for how little it satisfied him.

We very much appreciate your prayers. Mac's cough is much better and God blessed us with a great week of HBC. We also had some good door to door opportunities yesterday. The best opportunity was sharing the Gospel with a Catholic woman. Please pray for fruit that will remain.

PS. We had 8 others plus our family tonight (15 in total) with some still absent due to illness. I thought I'd add that update - so that you don't feel badly for us. We do have a good church family but we need to see everyone get well.

God is blessing our week. Our 2 Bible college students have a reading week this week. So, they are able to help with HBC. The young mother who visited on Sunday is also helping us every day. We've had 10 children who are faithfully attending. All but two were out tonight with their families to watch a Torchlighter video on Gladys Aylward. One family who visited may visit our church on Wednesday nights. That would be a blessing as we have been praying for our midweek service to grow.

We had the possibility of 70 plus mile an hour winds this evening with Storm Dudley. God kept us safe and I'm thankful that we did not cancel our service. We moved our Friday HBC to tomorrow as another named storm hits on Friday. This one looks to be a snow and wind event. They are saying it is a historic storm that could bring gusts of 100 MPH to England and Wales. (In case you don't know we are all connected with Scotland in the North.)

With regard to our church, God's definitely given us some encouraging prospects lately. Thank you for praying.

We had a great start to our HBC with 10 children out. With our workers there were close to 20 of us and it was a lot of fun. All of our family members were well enough to attend. Mac has a cough that flares up at night and we'd appreciate your prayers for that tickle to go away. He feels well otherwise.

God blessed our day of prayer in Blair Atholl. There were 3 of us and it was worth the drive as it always is. I know that God is using these prayer times and I always leave looking forward to our next get together. 

The Lord brought us into contact with a young Christian family who is settling somewhere in our general area. Please pray for God's leading and provision in their lives as they just immigrated 3 weeks ago. We actually sold them a car and he said, "We don't believe it is an accident that we met your family." I don't either. I'm thankful that God has brought another Christian family to Scotland.

If you read this blog frequently, you may remember that my wife and I had an amazing morning doing door to door several weeks back. We had every confidence that we would see some at church that we had met. One of those families came today (a young mother with two children.) We still hope to see another of those families attend. So, we are praising the Lord for His goodness.

This morning we looked at Psalm 103 where David reflects on WHO GOD IS and WHAT GOD HAS DONE. It's a refreshing passage and we were blessed by it.

Illness is still impacting our church. Some in our family stayed home today. Another family was unable to attend. Please pray that our church can get beyond the illness that has been hurting our attendance.

Also, we'd very much appreciate your prayers for a school break Holiday Bible Club that we are running this week. It will be Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 10:30 - 12:30. We anticipate some visitors being in attendance. Thank you for praying.