I love times in ministry where God reveals his hand. He did that this morning and I hope you can see it. The politician to whom I wrote the PS which I have now made into the, "Open Letter to Government" was re-elected by a very small margin. The results came in yesterday.

We knocked on doors this morning in a new area just a few hundred meters from our church location. We only spoke with two people as most were not home and then the rain set in. Imagine our surprise as the politician mentioned above opened the door to their home. I didn't realise they had moved from a village a few miles away. 

Now, to show the hand of God, we are currently in an evangelistic outreach right now because of an email I sent to this politician. We have printed 10k flyers. I'm preaching on the open letter this Sunday. And God had me knock on this politician's door this morning. Can you see the hand of God in that?

Please pray for the power of God upon this open letter. We had an unusual prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Instead of preaching my class went to prayer. We finished at 9:00 PM having spent over an hour and a half in prayer. Please pray with us for the power of God. A church building is secondary. Our primary desire is to see the power of God open the hearts of people in our community.

Link to the open letter on our church website.

I preached last Wednesday and Sunday with a significant chest cold. So, I'm taking it easy this week and am not doing my regular outreach with flyers. However, I wrote a new flyer this morning and am working on prepping it for printing. I've also done a couple facebook advertisements. One is the message I preached this past Sunday which was a clear Gospel message. The second advert has to do with the new flyer, "Open Letter to Government." (Full letter and explanation here.) Please pray that Facebook will allow it to be promoted. It is currently under review.

I'll put the flyer below The flyer is a result of responding to a friend of mine in local government with a Post Script on issues which are hot buttons that the Government is pushing against God. I believe it is time for Christians to be outspoken about God's truth or we will be censured before we can take a stand.

Please pray for the power of God upon this effort. We need to challenge the ungodliness or the sad day is which we live or it will only get worse. God has awakened men before and God can do so again. Please pray for people who read this to humble their heart and say, "God you are right, I am wrong, please forgive me."

If you want to help with this wee effort and you are on facebook, please like/share the Gospel sermon post and the letter link post. The letter link is obvious. The Gospel sermon is the one that says, "No one can listen to this message and walk away without knowing HOW to be saved from Hell and on their way to Heaven. Why not trade one hour of physical life for open access to eternal life?"

Thank you for your prayers which avail much.

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.