Thank you for praying for our travels. All went very well. After 21 hours of travel we arrived at my Aunt's in Illinois last Thursday. My parents and grandma surprised us and were at the house waiting for us. Friday was a down day. Saturday we drove 5 hours to my home church and our sending church in Hudson WI. It was a great blessing to report to them on Sunday. After an afternoon service we drove to Des Moines, IA where we are enjoying a week with my parents. We are already making some great memories. 

This coming Sunday we have two meeting in Wisconsin. We'll pull our travel trailer up to my brother's home in Galesville, WI on Saturday and be there for a couple of days. 

About the flights, the first flight was full. I had a good witnessing opportunity with a young man, Dominic, who was going to Spain to teach English. The second flight was on what seemed to be a new jet and it was nearly empty. I've never flown on a plane where you could tint the windows by pushing a button. The windows were also larger windows. We thoroughly enjoyed the flight.

Praise the Lord! The Andersons have safely arrived and gotten one good nights sleep. They traveled in total for just over 24 hours. It's great to have them here getting adjusted to life in Scotland. Thank you for praying.

Just before our departure, I have the opportunity to contribute an article for a religious seciton in our county newspaper. The article will be printed on 23 July. Please pray for God to use it to awaken hearts in our area. I''ll put the text below.

God is Essential

If you google the question, "what is the official religion of the United Kingdom?" You will find that it is Christianity. Obviously the UK is open to people of all faiths or no faith. However, it has been interesting to me as a minister of religion to find that our "Christian" society views worshipping God as unessential. 

How can a Christian nation not make opening places of worship a priority? Pubs have been in the news since the beginning of the pandemic. It has been abundantly clear and well publicized in what phase they will reopen. However, places of worship and faith groups have been marginalized.

God is the One who gave us life. He is the One who teaches us in His Word how to live our lives to the fullest. He is the One who sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sin. He also offers to us the gift of everlasting life to be received by faith in Jesus.

God is the ONLY one who fully knows the cause of this pandemic and the solution. But, as far as I know, we have not seen a national call to prayer at any time during the pandemic. When God healed our Prime Minister we appropriately heard words of thanks to the NHS, but how many thanked God for healing our Prime Minister?

We have not seen a nation on her knees before the God who holds our life and health in His hands. Our nation has not been asking for God's mercy or repenting of our national sin.

One wonders what God thinks of national disregard for Himself or national ignorance of His love towards us. Could this pandemic be a wake up call to stop treating the Creator and Saviour as if He is unessential? We do well to remember that God is ESSENTIAL.

"Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands (bondage) be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption (wasting disease), even determined upon the whole earth." Isaiah 28:22  

Lord willing, later this morning (US time) the Anderson's will depart for Scotland. Please pray for their travels as they have a lengthy journey ahead of them. They will be traveling for about 24 hours due to lengthy layovers.

We're excited to be at this point and God is helping in all of our preparations on this end. We are pretty well packed and are starting to get excited to be on our way after a long time planning. We're very thankful for God's guidance.

The Anderson's joined us via Zoom from the States for our midweek meeting. It was a blessing to introduce them to our church family and to hear from Brother Anderson.

I will preach out two services tomorrow on Zoom and then turn things over to the Andersons. Thank you for your prayers for these transitions. 

God gave us a good fellowship time yesterday. There were several missionaries from England, Scotland and Wales, about 10 in total. That was our last Zoom fellowship meeting for the Covid-19 outbreak. It's been good to get together. I preached a message on not stopping our run. Thank you for praying.

Please continue to pray for our furlough travels. Lord willing, the Andersons won't have difficulty with their flights and they will arrive on Sunday. Because of the recent worsening of the pandemic in the US, Europe has not opened it's doors to US travelers. The UK is open as far as we know. 

Meanwhile, last night we went to check our flights and they had changed them. The flights they had rebooked us on originated in Paris. (No, we haven't moved and we still live in Scotland.) After an hour and a half on hold with the airline, I rebooked for flights on Thursday instead of Wednesday next week. This is all getting a bit tiring, but God is giving grace and guidance. Please pray that we can pass these final hurdles and get on furlough. 

Thank you for your prayers for my grandfather's funeral. God blessed and it was a wonderful service which we were able to view online. I praise God for the godly heritage I and my family have been given.

Thank you as well for your prayers for our ministry online. We are very thankful to have finished our last recorded Sunday School and preaching services. We are now transitioning to Zoom in preparation for the Anderson's arrival as well as isolation ending. This is our 15th Sunday since lockdown began. Right now it does not look like we'll have service at our church location until the end of July.

I'm thankful for God's grace and guidance with, "The Journey" evangelistic and discipleship videos. I'm very happy to say that God has helped me, "finish the journey."

Season one is comprised of 15 evangelistic videos. Season two is 10 discipleship videos. The videos are 7 minutes long and have been put on The Journey Youtube page. The purpose of the Youtube page was to make the series available to other Christians and churches. Anybody can link to it with their own material, webpage or facebook page. 

If you would like to see Katie's final Sunday School lesson of the Covid-19 lockdown, here is a link the lesson on our Facebook page.

I preached a message from Deuteronomy 20 for our AM service, "A Voluntary Soldier."

Your prayers for the Anderson's travel and transition are appreciated. They are scheduled to arrive here next Sunday afternoon. Our family will leave early the following Wednesday for the States. Thank you for your prayers for us and our ministry.

Happy Father's Day!!!!! to all of you fathers. Praise God for the family structure which He has given. 

Thank you for praying for my grandpa. He is not doing well with the cancer. However, God gave he and my grandma a great day yesterday as they celebrated 70 years of marriage. Many of your were praying for that day and your prayers are much appreciated.

We are entering the serious countdown stage before our departure. The Andersons arrive here (Lord willing) two weeks from today. Please pray for God's great blessing upon their travels and our own.

We're thankful that God has pretty well set our calendar. We currently have 23 meetings scheduled for our 3 month furlough. 

It does not look like the church is going to be in the building before we depart. However, we know God will give wisdom for this transition regardless.  (Prayer appreciated.)

Katie has put up a fun link to a great story of a godly young lady for her SS lesson this morning. We visited Wales and a museum that shared the story of this little girl. The video is very good and your kids would be blessed to see it. Here is a Vimeo link.

God helped me get another episode of The Journey recorded. There are now 6 episodes in the discipleship series of the journey. Please pray that God will promote the Youtube page among unbelievers.

I preached a message on "Approaching God" from Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement. Leviticus 16 is a good study on how God takes away our sin through the work of the Lord Jesus.

Thank you for praying for our church and our family.

The Lord is helping us tick things off our "to do" list for furlough. Katie has just ordered our prayer cards. We'll make sure we get these off to all of our supporters.

I enjoyed an extra ministry opportunity as I got to preach for a church in Peterbourgh, England. They are doing some special services at their midweek with guest preachers. It was recorded today for the service tomorrow. We also enjoyed a zoom meeting with about 20 other ministries in Africa, the United Kingdom and Ireland. All of these ministries have Brother Steve Anderson as their field director with BWM. 

The Andersons are excited about being our furlough replacements. This will be their 21st furlough replacement! Please pray for them as they arrive here on 5 July.

Here is the picture which we took for our prayer card.

By the way, tomorrow marks 20 years of marriage for Katie and I. I want to thank the Lord for his goodness to us. We've seen Him meet our needs over and over again. We're getting to see His hand right now as we adjust to His plan for our furlough. Thanks for praying.

Thank you for praying for our family as we ajdust our schedule from a 6 month to a 3 month. God has helped us make some very difficult but needed to decisions which have included cancelations. The changes have helped us build good family time into our calendar while still getting by as many supporting churches as possible. We're also able to get by Christian colleges while we pray about God's will for our children. We still have meetings to get settled, but the schedule is coming along nicely.

Please continue to pray for our church to be back meeting at the community centre. This is our 13th Sunday since the government put restrictions in place. It would be ideal to have the church meeting again before our departure.

We continue with our online ministries. Here are some links if you'd like to see them.

Katie's SS class from the Creation Story (Facebook link)

Sunday AM message - True Confession from Exodus 9.

Season 2 of the Journey - The Journey WITH Jesus (Discipleship) (Youtube channel link.)

    episode 1 - Finding a Church (sermonaudio link)

    episode 2 - Believer's Baptism (sermonaudio link)

    episode 3 - Jesus is God (uploading this morning to Sermon Audio, facebook and our youtube channel)

Thank you for your prayers. God's hand has been evident and we thank you for your participation in the work God is doing here in Scotland.

Well, we continue to not be allowed to meet as a church. Lord willing, we will soon here that we can assemble. This is our 12 Sunday since the lockdown began. Although I'm thankful for how God has led in online evangelism, we greatly desire to be congregating again.

We have a definite departure date now for furlough. The Andersons are scheduled to arrive the beginning of next month. We are scheduled to depart a few day after their arrival. Your prayers are appreciated as we have some decisions to make regarding our furlough schedule.

Katie's SS lesson in online on facebook.

My Sunday  morning message is, "Be a Good Fig" from Jeremiah 24. God has an object lesson for Jeremiah from the 2 baskets of figs left as an offering at the gate of the temple.

I also recorded another Journey episode, "Born Twice."   (Youtube link)

Please pray as we switch focus with the journey from "journey to Jesus" to "journey with Jesus." My desire is to do some discipleship videos for any who have followed along and have trusted in Jesus.

Thank you for your prayers.