God gave us a first time visitor today who said that he will be back. He is the father of one of our faithful girls. It was a blessing to have him there. The Lord gave us a good morning. I preached this morning on "The Man God Chose" to take up the dead body of our Lord, Joseph of Arimathea. I enjoyed discovering more about Joseph than I knew before. There was a good Spirit in the service. The children also sang this morning and did a wonderful job for the Lord. You can hear them at the beginning of our sermon audio.

Now we are getting ready to head to the Trust Service (assisted living facility) at 2:00. God's good - thanks for praying.

I thought about putting as the title "Praising God for my wife" as she had so much to do with putting this great event together. I'm very thankful for the wonderful wife God has given me and was reminded of how special she is as she hosted this event. I want to brag on my kids as well as the oldest two worked very hard to serve everyone. Lilliana also put in a lot of hours baking and cooking with Katie the last several days. Her help was much appreciated.

The Lord gave us 35 ladies in attendance today. 24 were from 3 other area churches.  Shellie Smith, a fellow missionary, shared her testimony and Katie gave the devotional. They had games, prizes, tea, scones, soup, assorted other goodies, fun and fellowship. It was a beautiful weather day as well which was nice. So, thank you for praying. God gave a great time to all who attended.

Here are some pics from the day. The four youngest kids went hiking with Don Dillman, Bella (dog) and myself. We also enjoyed our outing.

Dear All,

I apologize for not updating this past week. However, I have a pretty good excuse as my computer has been in the shop from last Friday and I got it back this afternoon. I'm very thankful to have "my arm" back. It's funny how missing a normal part of your life really warps your week. My car was also gone this week which made life interesting. I also got that back this afternoon. So, onward, forward....

The ladies' meeting plans are coming on nicely. Please pray for God to do a great work on Saturday.

We have had several divine appointments this past week. Thank you for praying for those. I'll try to keep you better updated this next week as God opens those doors.

I preached this past Sunday on "Keeping Your Life from Ruin" from Ezekiel 18:30-32 and God gave us a good Sunday. Thanks for praying.

Don and I enjoyed a good morning out doing flyers. We had one divine appointment with a man named John. I tried not to take much of his time as he was working on bagging up some work materials. However, he stopped and leaned against the truck and was engaged in our brief conversation. I gave him a John and Romans. Please pray that he will read it and think about the Gospel which I was able to share with him.

I finished putting out flyers in Rosewell this morning. The Lord gave me two encouraging conversations. The first was with a man who is about 70 years old. God directed our conversation and I found out that he is good friends with a man who attends our church. God put that together as He allowed me to find out that information. I had a great opportunity to speak to HIm about the Gospel. I left a copy of John and Romans with him.

I also spoke with a man about the importance of truth. He spoke about respecting other people's beliefs. I said to him, "Let me put it to you this way. If your children thought it was ok for your grandchildren to play in the road, would you say anything?" He said, "I would share with them why they shouldn't do that, but ultimately it is up to them." I told him, "That is what I do as a minister." He gave me a great compliment as we parted by saying, "There is substance in what you say." Please pray that the substance of God's Word would open His eyes and that, God helping me, there would always be substance in my evangelism. God certainly guided in those conversations today.

I went back into Edinburgh this morning. The high pressure has remained in control of our weather and it was another very nice morning. Because of that I thougth it would be good to seek opportunities to witness in Edinburgh. 

The Lord gave me 4 very good divine appointments this morning. The first was with a 17 year old Scot from about 20 miles away. She is an atheist - but I hope she will be someone who was an atheist. She thanked me for our conversation which lasted over 20 minutes.

The second one was with a man who is my age and was on holiday from Ireland. He was hard. He thinks that God exists but doesn't care about knowing him or about Heaven and Hell. Please pray that God will awaken his heart. I told him that I was doing my best to get him interested in something that was vitally important. 

The third was with a couple on Holiday from Italy. I explained the differences between what God's Word teaches and what Catholicism teaches. They were engaged in the conversation but had to leave for an appointment.

The last was with a young man who attends a Baptist church in Dumfermline. Sadly, he is trusting in his goodness. However, I had a great opportunity to share with Him from the Bible why good people don't go to Heaven. (There is no such thing.) He also thanked me for the conversation.

Thanks for praying for these divine appointments. It was encouraging to have so many opportunities to engage people in conversations about the Lord. I also handed out a good number of Gospel flyers.

We had a young man visit our service this morning who is a student at a local Bible college. He is a believer from Northern Ireland. We enjoyed having him over to our house after the service. Please pray for Alex as he seeks God's will for his life. We'd love having him attend our church if God saw fit to join him with us. It was a blessing just to find a young man who has a heart for God and a desire to do God's will.

God gave us beautiful weather for the second day in a row. We enjoyed taking the kids on a walk this afternoon near our home. This is mother's day in the UK. So, Katie made a special boquet of tulips for the mothers of our church family. I preached a mother's day introduction to a message on obedience telling our children that this would be the best gift they could give their mums. The message was from "God's Object Lesson on Obedience" from Jeremiah 35. Everytime I read this story in my Bible, I wonder why I haven't heard it more often and wonder if I have read it before. 

God gave us a good morning. Thank you for praying for our ministry.

Our family and the Hikin family handed out flyers in Edinburgh today. God gave us beautiful weather in the low 60's and sunny. This is by far the best weather of the year so far. We were able to hand out 1,000 flyers in just under 2 hours. The kids are a bit irresistable (almost) and people kindly took the flyers from them. Please pray that those flyers will bear much fruit. 

Nelson is the 6 year old pictured last. He said when we got done, "I bet I handed out over a hundred." My daughter and I looked at each other and I said with her agreement, "I'm sure he did." When he was refused the people after those who refused him would ask to take it. :) Just as a point of interest - David Livingstone's statue holding a Bible was right in the middle of where we were handing out flyers. I'm sure he would have given his approval to that ministry today.

7 years ago today our family left for Scotland. God has been very good to us in the 7 years that we have been here. The verse we claimed in coming was Jeremiah 32:41  "Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul." God has been very good to help us get settled here. We don't get homesick, because we are home. We were homesick for Scotland during our 6 month furlough in the States. 

We love our community and praise the Lord for all of the good relationships He has given to us here. God has also done a good work with our church. We have great expectations for what God is doing and will do with Free Baptist Church. The ministry verse we claimed after arriving is Neh 2:20  "Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build:" We still anticipate His blessing as we do the work of the ministry.

Thank you for your faithful part and interest in Free Baptist Church, Loanhead. Please pray for God's special blessing as we enter year number 8 of ministry in Scotland.

Don and I were able to finish a good part of the village of Rosewell today. The weather wasn't lovely as the temperatures were quite cold and rain was threatening, but the Lord gave one really good divine appointment. Please pray that Ryan (20) will visit our church. He was listening to music but took his headphones off to speak with me. Although he lives a good distance from our church, he is used to cycling near Loanhead to his work. It's refreshing to meet a young person who I believe is open to thinking about God.