Mr. Woods (Tommy) and myself enjoyed some outreach this morning. We didn't put out a lot of flyers. However, the Lord gave me a wonderful opportunity to speak with a friend of mine in the community. I've prayed for him. He could have died last year in an accident but God preserved his life. We spoke for 25 minutes and God is working in His life. He is open and I believe searching for truth. Please pray that God will bring Him to salvation.

In other news, we booked flights today for our oldest two children to go to Spain in December for a teen retreat for missionary kids. God worked out the details and our kids are excited about attending. We'd appreciate your prayers for them that God would really use this in their lives. 

It is a blessing to give God the first part of the week and to get to spend time with each other in the House of God. God gave us a very good morning. Our attendace was good today and God blessed our services. I preached a message this morning from Jeremiah 38 on "The Terms o f Surrender." God is at the table for anyone who wants conditions of peace with him. King Zedekiah could have chosen life, but he chose death. The prophet pleaded with him to accept God's terms but he would not. Thank you for your prayers.

We appreciate your prayers for our evening service as well. We've just begun a study of Proverbs. Tonight we be our second lesson as we seek to go through the Book.

We have a big event this Saturday and would appreciate your prayers for Jamie and Rebekah's wedding. We will be having the ceremony in a community located on the Firth of Forth in Fife. (smiling) I hope you were reading outloud when you got to that part.

God has blessed in the preparations thus far and I know Jamie and Rebekah would appreciate your prayers for their wedding and marriage. It's a joy to see a young couple get married who are both following the Lord.

Yesterday I was able to put out Gospel flyers in Loanhead. I enjoyed speaking with the brother of a man who attends our church. I have often prayed for this man and it was a good opportunity to challenge his atheism. The Lord gave 4 other good platforms to share the Gospel or to speak about faith in God.

Today, Don Dillman and I went out again in Loanhead. It is a very blustery day but warm (for here.) We didn't have any great conversations but we were able to put out a good bit of literature. Thanks for your prayers for our Gospel outreach.

I spent the morning at the New College LIbrary in Edinburgh and handed out some Gospel flyers to and from there. It was a tough day - it seems, as I didn't have any really open conversations. I attempted to witness to a man from Sweden who was sitting beside a statue of David Livingstone. The piper behind him near the road was playing, "Amazing Grace" on his bagpipes and a Baptist preacher was seeking to speak to him about Jesus (me.) Please pray that God awakens his heart.

The best opportunity was with two soldiers. As I spoke to them, I do believe that there was a genuine interest and a false bravado. The one asked me about a friend of his who changed overnight. To me, it seems that the man genuinely converted to Christ and I told this man so. That conversion obviously impressed this man who asked me why I thought this other soldier had changed. It was a great question for telling him how God can and has changed men's lives. Please pray for their hearts to be awakened as well.

God's good to give opportunitites to witness. Please pray for God to continue to give open doors (divine appointments) for the Gospel!  (Below is a series of pics taken by Raj's mum of his baptism.)

We had a wonderful time together in the house of God this morning. God gave us a very special Sunday. We baptized a boy who trusted Jesus as His Saviour at the end of our HBC in Loanhead. He and his mom have become a faithful part of our church. It was a special blessing to have his father in church today. Praise God! A family from another church visited to be a blessing to this young man and his mother as well.

We also baptized a young man in his 20's who accepted Jesus as His Saviour in the past 6 months. He has been looking for a church and God brought him to our church this past Sunday. Praise God he wanted to follow the Lord in believer's baptism. Please pray for God's continued blessing in His life. It's too hard to tell in total - but God brought him back into contact last Sunday with a young man who was a classmate. They have both gotten saved and this other young man was just baptized a few months ago. He has just moved back up to Edinburgh from London and is looking for a church. It was a joy to have him in church this morning to be there for his friend at his baptism. (Isn't that cool?)

It was an incredibly gorgeous day which is a special blessing as we baptize outdoors. God is so very good!

God put on my heart, Acts 8:26-40 for the message today as I preached a message on "Be A Good Evangelist." It is wonderful to see the Spirit of God orchestrating Gospel appointments in the book of Acts. This passage is the story of the Ethiopean Eunuch.

We are into a period of very unsettled weather with low pressure systems hammering the UK. Today we are under an amber weather warning with gusts of up to 80 MPH expected. The wind is howling right now! Yesterday the remnants of Hurricane Helene passed through. Yesterday is also the day that Don Dillman and I met Rick Demastus and Don Clough up in Aberdeen. Rick is starting a church there next month. 

Don and I left early and drove in rain the whole way there. We were stuck in traffic for over half an hour two miles away from our meeting place. We got out of our vehicles in rain at the meeting place and as we were talking the rain stopped and didn't start again until we left later that afternoon. Praise the Lord for the very good weather he gave us yesterday! We had a good opportunity to help the Demastus family get some flyer's distributed and some doors knocked. We had several divine appointments. 

Thank you for praying for these outreach opportunities.

Thank you for praying for wisdom about sorting the problem we've had with our recordings. I believe that the Lord helped me to do that this morning. It was a pretty simple solution of downloading a new app. Lord willing, the quality of our sermon audio will now be good as it should be recording directly through the mic to my phone. 

In just a few minutes we are leaving to go visit the venue for the wedding. Please pray that God will give us wisdom how to make best use of that facility. Thank you for your prayers!

After a very busy summer we are getting caught up a bit on life. We have a wedding coming next month (2:00 PM, 6 October) and Katie hosted a wedding shower this Past Friday. It was well attended and a blessing to Rebekah and the other ladies. I enjoyed doing an hour and a half discipleship lesson wih the man who got saved last week. Please pray for him as they have not yet come to church. This week the Lord also helped us get the wedding program planned. 

God gave us a good Sunday morning. We had a man join us for the morning service who has just recently trusted Christ. He is looking for a good church. It was a blessing to have him with us. I preached this morning a simple message, You Need to Pray from Luke 22, and Acts 1-2. There are some compelling reasons to pray found in those chapters. The simple truth is that without prayer we can not be or do what God wants us to be or do.

This next Sunday we may be having a baptismal service and would appreciate your prayers for that event. Thank you for your prayers which avail much!

Thank you for praying without consistent updates to make you aware of what the Lord was doing in our meetings. We recorded most of the services from our meetings and I want to make the available below. God gave us some special services and sweet prayer times. In particular the prayer time following our final service and the prayer time following the pastor's fellowship were a special blessing. 

Every message preached by Brother John hit the target of our hearts just where we needed it. We very much enjoyed having him at our church for the third time and also enjoyed his fellowship with our family. My father grew up in Dr. Van Gelderen Sr.'s church (John's father) in Colorado. After my dad's car accident where he lost his wife and 3 children, he went on as an assistant at Marquette in Chicago with Dr. Van Sr. They hired my mom as a teacher and it took my parents three months to get married after they first met. We love the Van Gelderen's and praise the Lord for how He has used their family.

God is good. Thank you for your part in accessing His blessing upon these meetings. Please pray that the work God has done would continue in the days ahead. The newly saved man's family did not come to the  meetings. Please pray as we follow up this week.

Here are the links to the sermon audio....

First Night - Asking and Receiving

Second Night - Heart Cleansing 

Fellowship Meeting - Increase Our Faith

Third Night - Appetite for Jesus

Sunday School - A God Focused Life

Sunday Morning - Unfortunately I did not record that meeting.

Sunday Night - Be An Example of Faith

A man in my church, Tommy, and myself had the joy today of leading a man to Christ. We've been praying for this man and his family for a few months. Please pray for God to give him the courage to come to church and to follow the Lord in believer's baptism. I shared with him that we would likely be having a baptismal service not this Sunday but the next. We went to his home to encourage him to come out the the evangelistic meetings. He said that he would see us on Sunday and I hope and pray that we will.