Well, it was a great work week. Praise the Lord. We were very busy and very blessed to have had help this past week. Pastor Michael Talley and his wife, Marsha, assisted us from Tuesday-Friday. Pastor Les Hill, his son and an friend, helped us from Wednesday - Friday. Pastor Don Dillman assisted us on Wednesday. The main work accomplished...

1) A water damaged hallway had the flaking paint removed which was a BIG task. That hallway was nicely repainted.

2) The bathroom for the crèche (nursery) was mudded and taped. Now, we just need to paint that space and then it is mostly finished.

3) The sanctuary ceiling was finished. This included several coats of paint and a lot of caulk. Praise God, it looks awesome.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY for all of the above. He helped us, enabled us, guided us, strengthened us, etc. We hit the finish line on all three projects on Friday Afternoon.

We are enjoying a good Sunday. This morning I preached a message from Daniel 2, on Life and Death Praying. I'm so thankful that we aren't going through life without GOD AND HIS HELP. Praise God as Daniel said, "There is a God in Heaven." 

We appreciate your prayers and thank you for standing with us in the work (spiritual and physical) which God has given us to do. This Tuesday we are hosting a pastor's fellowship. Your prayers for God's blessing on that day are greatly appreciated.

This has been a "normal" week of ministry - praise the Lord. I did street preaching on Monday. Tuesday, I put out our church flyer to about 200 homes in Bilston. Tuesday night Katie and I enjoyed visiting some of our HBC kid's homes. Lord willing some of them will be out for our kid's club this evening. Today I went to Pastor Dillman's and we put out flyers in their church area.

Also, the church work is moving forward. The sanctuary ceiling is progressing with lights and coving installed this week. Lord willing we will paint it next week. We have help arriving from Germany (Michael and Marsha Talley) and Ireland (Les Hill and two boys). We look forward to what God is going to do with their assistance. Please pray for wisdom as we seek the best use for our work that week.

Here is an updated pics of the sanctuary ceiling.

We are thankful that the mission team has made it safely back to their home location. God really blessed their time with us. It's amazing how close our friendship is in Christ with people we have known for a short period of time. We were blessed to get to know them.

God gave us a good morning. The sun was shining after 3 days enduring the weather from a named storm. We also had a great spirit in our services with good attendance and good attention to God's Word. I'm so thankful for our church family.

I preached this morning on, "The Way of Grace." It's sad to think that some people chose not to walk in the way of grace and instead have a very difficult life. Praise God for giving us ALL THAT WE NEED (grace) to do what pleases Him and which also makes our lives blessed by His goodness.

I'm sorry for the, "radio siilence." We have been incredibly busy and loving every minute of it. Crooked Creek Baptist Church has been a tremendous blessing. The team and some of our church family put out around 4,000 flyers. We worked on the church property. Brother Jennings preached two services on Sunday and in SS all ten of the team members shared their salvation testimony. 

They helped us run a 3 day Holiday Bible Club for the October school break and we had a great week. God just did far more than we could have imagined. I believe we had 46 people in attendance (including the mission team) for our film night last night. You can imagine that we loved every minute of it.

Please pray for those who came. We love each one and hope to see some of them out for our church meetings. Please pray that our church can continue to be a spiritual blessing to their lives.

Thank you for praying ! God's hand was so evident. 

Please pray for the mission team as they are supposed to depart this Saturday. We took them to the Highlands today in some fierce weather which is supposed to continue until Saturday. We thank the Lord for safety and a great fun day for all of us. God is good!

God blessed us with a good Wednesday night and I wanted to praise His name. This has been a specific prayer request and God encouraged our hearts tonight. We had 7 children in our kid's class and a few adults other than our family. Thank you Lord. 

This was especially encouraging as we get ready for our Holiday Bible Club next Monday - Wednesday. The kids are excited about it and we look forward to what God is going to do. A mission team from Crooked Creek Baptist Church in Athens, GA arrives tomorrow. We're excited to show them our area and get information out about our HBC activities and church. Thanks for praying.

God has given us decent weather this week which has allowed for outdoor ministry opportunities. Yesterday, I street preached in Edinburgh. Thank you for praying for that minstry. I try to get out weekly. God gave tremendous liberty and I'm thankful for His goodess. I preached for about an hour.

Today I put out our church flyer which has the Gospel on the back of it and an invitation on the front. I also put out a flyer for our Holiday Bible Club which starts next Monday. Please pray for God to generate and interest in the hearts of parents. Kids love it. But, the parents have to get them there. So, we need to pray for their interest as well. God gave us some good visits tonight as we personally invited the children we know to attend.

Our church is looking forward to welcoming a group of ten from GA on Thursday. Please pray for God to bless their time with us as we evangelise and show them our beautiful country.

God provided some art for the walls. We had been praying and looking. The cost was ten pounds each for the pictures and seven for the mirror. Isn't God good? It's fun to see Him providing "little things" and big things. A local Edinburgh artist, Frank Manclark, painted the sea scene picturing the Old Granton Harbour in Edinburgh.

God blessed us with a good week. After street  preaching on Monday, I put out Gospel flyers on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I put out flyers again but with Pastor Don Dillman helping me. On Thursday I enjoyed a quick flight to Ireland and back. Pastor Les Hill and I got together for some prayer time. Please pray for their church as they seek to purchase their meeting location. They were hoping to close this past week, but it was delayed. Please pray that God will give them wisdom as they further establish, Gospel Baptist Church in Lucan Ireland.

This morning was a good morning. It was good to have one of our folks back after a month long trip to Europe. She was glad to be back.

I preached this morning on, "Confederate with God Alone" from Isaiah 8. Isaiah was encouraging Judah not to seek a confederacy with Assyria, but rather to be solely in league with God. The passage has a lot of application to our day where many (churches and individual believers) are compromising with God's enemies. There is much to be said for simply maintaining dependance upon God.

Please pray for our church this week as we welcome a group from the States. We look forward to showing them our area and doing evangelism. Your prayers for this Gospel endeavour are much appreciated.

Please click this link to watch a short video of our church property progress.

Today is an exciting day. Logan passed his written test for driving. We thank God for our children and enjoy seeing them pass milestones. You can not drive here until you are 17. Logan turned 17 in December, but because of how busy the year has been, we are just now working on his driving instruction. This is our 3rd opportunity to teach a child to drive and we still have 3 coming along behind him. :)

I also enjoyed street preaching this morning while Logan took his test a few blocks away. God worked that out well for us as I was planning to street preach this morning regardless. God blessed the preaching, but I am always reminded how much I need God's people to pray. There were a lot of Satanic distractions this morning including a man playing two notes again and again on a flute. (It was painful!) I have no idea what he was doing unless he was trying to get people to pay him to stop. Please pray for God's enablement to overcome any and all distractions.

Another exciting thing was putting to use some special funds given by kids in the States for our building project. Our church sign was installed this morning. It is powder coated allumium letters on an allumium tray. To quote our church treasurer, "It looks aweseome!" How thankful we are for each person who has invested in God's work and we were especially blessed to have had two churches this summer teach their kids to give to missions by investing their VBS penny offering in our work.  God has been very good to us. Thank you for praying and rejoicing with us in what He is doing at SFBC.

It is good today to not just give God the first day of the week, but the first day of the month. I'm thankful that God instructed His people to take one day a week as a primary day of congregational worship. It's always refreshing to have time with our church (assembly) and to be refreshed by God's Word.

In our SS doctrinal study, we were reminded about how God's character is vital to our relationship with Him. If God was not WHO HE IS nothing would work correctly. Praise God that He is holy, unchanging, just, all knowing, ever present, all powerful, loving, merciful, etc. If God wasn't holy we could not trust Him. If he wasn't unchanging, his holiness might change. If God wasn't just, he wouldn't be right in His dealings with man. etc. etc. etc. Praise the Lord for WHO HE IS!

In the AM I preached on our chuches privilige to have a building project. The text was I Chronicles 28, David's charge to Solomon about building the temple. God continues to show Himself faithful as we seek to do a good work on this project for Him. Lord willing, our main church sign will be installed on the "A Frame" part of ur building tomorrow. More work is also scheduled on the sanctuary this week. We appreciate VERY MUCH your prayers for our church AND our building project.