Well, God gave us a wonderful time of fellowship and a great opportunity to honour the Ventrello's. Barbara has been here 55 years and Merle has been here for 50. We presented them with a laser cut out picture of Scotland with a plaid background engraved with the dates of their ministry here. The fellowship also gave them a generous love offering. 

It was a blessing to hear Missionary Dennis Snelson challenge us from God's Word on faithfulness in the first session. In the second session the Ventrello's gave us the same challenge through their testimonies. Please click on this link to listen in. God was very much honoured in the ministries of today.

Thank you for praying for our day. It was a great blessing!

This is the day the Lord hath made - and we are enjoying it! Thanks for praying with us for our church. We had a good morning. If you have been  praying for me to get over the cold, I have my voice almost back to normal after 5 weeks. I even enjoyed singing a solo before I preached this morning. Please pray for others in our church still struggling with it that they would get well.

I preached this morning on Exodus 15:26 on "Spiritually Healthy Living." God gave a wonderful conditional promise to Israel immediatley after bringing them out of Egypt and through the waters of the Red Sea. It speaks of healing and freedom from plagues. My cold gave me extra motivation for preaching this message. :) Praise God there is a very real blessing for those who are not under the chastening of the Lord. 

Please continue to pray for our fellowship meeting this Tuesday. Please especially pray for the preacher, Pastor Snelson and for the Ventrello's. We are honouring the Ventrello's as they are finishing their course in Scotland after over half a century. I'm looking forward to hearing some of their experiences as they share testimonies on Tuesday.

Liberton is the part of Edinburgh that is just on the other side of the city bypass from Loanhead. This housing area is less than a mile from our church location. It is a new build housing scheme of around 200 residences. I had 3 opportunities to hand flyers to individuals. And I ran out of flyers at the very last house which was right by my car. The Lord reminded me that I had some flyers in my car door and I was able to get the last house done. 

I like it when God shows His hand on my day by something as simple as having the exact amount of flyers I needed. I almost didn't do outreach this morning because I was running short on flyers and need some for evangelism with Don Dillman tomorrow. I had found this stack of flyers in my garage and used all of them.

I spoke with one woman who said about Scotland getting a spiritual awakening, "May it be so." I said, "It starts with one person going back to church." She said, "Like me....?"  Please pray that God would really work in her heart. I think there are many defeated believers (whether saved or not) sitting at home thinking one more person in church doesn't really make a difference.

Thank you for your prayers for our church outreach.

I enjoyed this morning even though my cold lingers on. :) God gave us a good first Sunday morning of 2019. God gave grace and strength and I enjoyed setting before our church the vision of what we want to see God do. It was a topical message on having vision (praying) and active faith (participation) in what God wants to do.

God gave us a first time visitor this morning who said that she will be back. So, we praise the Lord for that extra blessing.

Thank you for your faithful interest in and prayers for what God is doing at Free Baptist Church. I know that many of you have already laid up great treasure in Heaven in what you are doing by following along, praying and giving. May God richly bless you for your impact in our church.

That was what the six year old boy asked my wife when she said, "Cain killed Able." That is humuerous and a very good question from an inquisitive little boy. He just got saved two weeks ago. Katie has him in her children's class for 6 and under during our morning service.

God gave us a good morning despite illness. Several of us were there this morning despite colds. Some could not come because of colds. Lord willing, we will all be well soon. I enjoyed preaching a topical message this morning on sanctification, entitled "Keep the New Year Clean."  

Tomorrow night is a special service at our church as we enjoy a New Years Eve family film night. We're going to show the BJU Unusual film production, "The Printing." 

Thank you for praying for our ministry. God gave us an encouraging start to today.

We all enjoyed our Carol Sing this evening. We had half a dozen visitors, mostly family of our church members. God helped in every aspect of the service. I preached this evening on finding Jesus from the story of the wise men. I encouraged those who came to take a copy of John and Romans from our back table. I know that a couple of them did take a copy - praise the Lord. Thank you for praying.

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

I enjoyed preaching a message this morning from the story of the nativity in Luke 2. Specifically we looked at the question of, "Who Is this Baby?" What an incredible person was held as a babe in arms. Praise God for His great grace in giving us Jesus.

We had good attendance and a good spirit. Please expecially pray for our Carol service tomorrow night. We know that there are guests that ought to be present and look forward to sharing the evening with them. Thanks for your prayers.

I was asked a great question Sunday night by a little boy (6). His mum just got saved last month. His question was, "How does someone get saved?" He was in earnest and his mum and I sat down and talked with him about the Gospel. He understood that he was a sinner, that the punishment for sin is hell, that Jesus paid the price for his sin on Calvary, that Jesus rose from the dead. And.... he prayed and asked Jesus to come into his heart to save him. I love seeing a child accept Jesus because they do so very simply. Isn't God good to reach into a child's heart and bring them to saving faith? He came back into the room singing and my wife asked him, "Why are you so happy?" His answer, "I just got saved!"

Today I put flyers out in the village where we live. Please pray for our neighbors in this community. We love them and hope to see many of them encouraged to faith in Jesus.

Thank you for praying about  our colds. We are much better thank you. I wasn't able to preach on Thursday night. However, I was able to preach both services this morning. I enjoyed preaching a message in the AM service on Life Changing Faith from 1 Thes. 2:13. Praise God for the power of the Gospel! Regretably, man has robbed it of all it's power. That verse shows the key to unleashing the power of God's Word in a transformative way.

Thank you for your prayers for Kay Lee and Benson. They got back from Spain last night just before midnight. God blessed their time away and they will likely not stop speaking about this for quite a while. :) We are enjoying hearing all the stories from their time away. Tonight they are going to share a testimony in our evening service. Jack will also be sharing a testimony about how God worked on his trip to CA. He was unable to go to the Bible college. Thank you for praying for that possibility. 

Yesterday I got to help out Don Dillman over in Livingston. Please pray for God's continued blessing on Almond Valley Church where the Dillmans minister. We were able to put out several hundres flyers and had one short witnessing opportunity with Jason. Please pray for God to awaken Jason's heart. After watching a documentary on genetics, he has concluded that there must be a creator. That is a great place for faith to begin!

Please also pray for the health of our family. The main need is that I would have my voice and that we won't be kept from attending church. A few of us have a cold. Thank you for your prayers!

Camp in Spain is now over. The kids will be spending a couple more days with the David Willis family before arriving back here on Saturday. As far as we know (from facebook videos etc) they are having a great time. We look forward to hearing them share everything that God has done during these days.