This has not been a normal week. But, it has been a good week. We are in the final stretch on our sanctuary remodel and felt the need to put in some extra time. So, Monday was a church work day. We're trying to get finishing work done before the carpet is laid in two weeks time. Please pray for wisdom on where to focus our energies. A hallway carpet was torn out. Filler was put on walls and then sanded after it dried. The foyer of the sanctuary is almost finished with paint work. God's been good to bless our efforts at moving forward.

Tuesday I flew to Ireland to spend time in prayer with Pastor Les Hill. We enjoyed having another pastor, Declan Flanigan, join us for prayer in the afternoon. God gave me a great witnessing opportunity with an Irish Catholic man on the return flight.

Today, I had one of the greatest joys a minister can have. I was contacted by a 24 year old young man who had emailed me last year after receiving a Gospel flyer. God has been working in his heart. Today he wanted to meet up and he accepted Christ as His Saviour. Praise God for the power of the Gospel. Glory to God for what He has done in this young man's heart. Please pray for him as he grows in the Lord. We got more work done on the church today as we scraped rubbery substances off the concrete in preparation for screeding.

Your prayers avail much. We feel like we are in the thick of it at times, but God is faithful and keeps showing His mighty hand. Thank you for standing with us for the glorious cause of the Gospel.

God is helping us to progress on our building and is also progressing our church. On the church front, we have a man taking up and new responsability weekly at church. This is a wonderful blessing. We also had a family revisit this past Wednesday night. That was encouraging. We've also had a steady stream of visitors this year. Door to door went really well and we hope to see some whom we meet out for a service in the near future. We'll see what God does there.

We are currently filling, sanding and painting at church. We made some good progress this past week and hope to be able to keep the momentum going. Please pray for wisdom as I schedule the carpeting for approx. 3 weeks from now. After that, we'll take delivery of our piano and be close to finishing the sanctuary. Please also pray for wisdom as to when God wants us to order our church chairs. I have to nail down some unknowns before we make that decision.

God gave us a great day. We had very good attednance without any visitors. We enjoyed a good time in the Word of God as we looked at Ecclesiology in Sunday School and studied Acts 12 in the morning service. My message from that text (Peter's deliverance from prison) was on, "When God Answers Prayer." Praise God for the power of corporate prayer. Sadly, those prayer meetings could be the least attended meetings in our churches. I wonder if we know what we are missing?

Lord wiling, internet will be installed at our church tomorrow. Later this year, we hope to be back to livestreaming some of our church services. We've been unable to do this for the past 2 years. Please pray for wisdoom as a sound engineer helps us plan our sound system and technology. Thank you for your prayers which avail much!

The weather was good yesterday morning and I was able to get down street preaching. Princess St. in Edinburgh stays pretty busy even in the off season. It was a good outing.

We had a storm last night and even had some, "Thunder snow." It's warm during the day, but was cold enough to have some heavy snow showers that melted away. There was one good crack of thunder.

Today is a very pretty day. I put out Gospel flyers for about 2 hours. I had one conversation with a young father who had 3 boys with him. Please pray that they will visit our church. I told them we could collect them with our minibus as their village is very close to our church location.

The Lord gave some good opportunities as we did door to door yesterday. We're looking forward to a planned follow up visit this coming Tuesday. Please pray for grace to minister God's good news.

We knew that today was going to be a special day and it was. Pastor Sandy Edgar and his wife, Marina, were visiting our services this  morning. Sandy got saved about 30 years ago in Edinburgh. He shared a bit of his testimony at the beginning of his message this morning. He preached on, Be of Good Cheer.

God also allowed us to have visitors today as a couple came for their first time. It's a joy to have so many passing through and we trust some will be led of God to join with our church famliy.

The building works are coming along. The baptistry now just need to be fiberglassed and painted. We need to prepare our floors for carpet tiles, do some painting and we'll be ready to have the carpet installed.

Thank you for praying for all that is happening. Your prayers are MUCH appreciated.

Our church faith promise went well and we were able to take on another missionary, Fauso D'Amelio, for partial support. We aren't far off from being able to do full support and I hope further commitments may come in. Regardless, this is wonderful news as our church missionary program can move forward. Fausto is an Italian national church planter. He and his wife, Maria Pia, just had a baby boy, Samuel. We're excited about this young family who started their church this past September.

In outreach news, our weather has been bad recently. Is this a surprise? No, this is Scotland. :) It's been SUPER windy and rainy for quite some time. It was a blessing to have dry weather yesterday which allowed me to go down street preaching. Because the wind was still significant, I found a new place to preach which was a bit more sheltered. Please continue to pray for the power of God upon this ministry. I always feel my weakness and my need for God's enablement. (Here is a link to the video - on our church sermon audio page.)

Today, is a beautiful day. Pastor Dillman joined me in our area to put leaflets out in the village of Roslin. Please pray for God to do a great work in that village. We already have one from that village in our congregation. We saw another person their profess faith in Christ. And, we recently had a visitor come from there after receiving the same flyer.

In church building news; the baptistry is taking shape, A pastor contacted me yesterday about helping with a project. It was encouraging to sense his interest in what God is doing here. The electrical was put into the stage. A builder in England is praying about bringing a few guys from his church up to renovate our church toilets. (Bathrooms) He is also willing to supply much of the materials. Tomorrow, I am speaking with a believer in England who helps churches free of charge to get their technology set up. So, these are busy days and much wisdom is needed. Thank your for praying.

PS: The baptistry is one where the person being baptised is seated. The minister stands outside the pool in this case to the right.Our weather has been bad.

The Lord has given us an encouraging first part of our Lord's day. We had really good attendance this morning and had a family of three from our village visit with us. What a blessing!

I preached this morning on, "Worthy of Discipleship" from Luke 9:23. I will now conclude that series for a few weeks. Then I'm going to continue the, "Thou art worthy" series by preaching once a month as I seek to keep our 2024 church theme in front of our people.

There is a lot going on with our building works and we continue to appreciate your prayers. Please pray for God's continued guidance and grace. We're thinking about the next projects and have a mission team possibly coming in March. We also have another men's group who may want to help as well. Much wisdom is needed.

This next Sunday a friend of our's is going to be visiting the church and preaching for us. His name is Sandy Edgar. He and his wife, Marina, will be visiting Sandy's mum as they help her move house. Sandy is a Scot who now is a missionary pastor in Canada.

Thank you for praying for God's work at Southside Free Baptist Church.

We had a whirlwind trip this week to London to get our passports renewed. Normally, we could drive 10 miles from our home to the consulate. But, they decided to renovate the building and it was not going to open again until April. Kay Lee and John's wedding is in May, so.... waiting wasn't an option.

We enjoyed the trip. On Monday we drove 6 hours to Boston, England. Amanda Baker, a good friend of our's, hosted us (and our dog) at her house. We left there yesterday morning at 4:00 AM (without the dog) to drive into the heart of London. The renewal process went well and we were finished there before 10:00 AM. So, on the way back to Amanda's, we had a walk about Caimbridge and enjoyed seeing the beautiful college properties.

While with Amanda, we also had fellowship time with her co-workers, Joshua and Melissa Booth and their cute son, Logan. That was an extra blessing.

We added 1.5 hours to our trip back home today and went to a chair manufacturer to consider chairs for our sanctuary. This manufacturer was on the top of my list (compiled last week) and I realised that their location was nearly on our way. We found 3 good possibilities and think we know the one we'd like to get if God green lights this for us. Please pray for wisdom and God's provision as needed.

We made it home today in good time for our service this evening. We're very thankful for God's protection on our travels. In 20 hours of travel, we had about 4-5 hours where the windscreen wipers were off. Today we also had very high winds and a wind warning in effect. God's good. Thank you for your prayers - even when you may not fully know our plans for our week.

(pictures - notice the tower bridge in the background of the pic. We drove into the heart of London to go to the US embassy.)

It was an interesting week. Scotland had two names storms hit it. That meant that the weather on Monday and Tuesday was not great.... at all. We had several trees down by us.  The extra time allowed some necessary research on some ideas for the completion of our sanctuary. We also did some minor works on the property. Katie painted some trim and I took care of a small demolition project for our sound room.

The research had to do with our carpet, chairs, pulpit, and a sanctuary front wall design which we believe will look great when completed. The pulpit is being purchased today down in New Castle. It is an antique. The man collecting it for us is going to refinish it and make some modifications. This will save us about half of the cost (or more) of a new wood pulpit.

We have a trip to England scheduled this week to renew passports. We were able to arrange to meet a chair distributor on the trip and consider God's best for long term capacity seating for our sanctuary.

Wednesday I was able to get out with Pastor Don Dillman to do evangelism in his location. God gave me an opportunity to share the Gospel with a man as we handed out tracts at a local mall. Yesterday, our youngest two boys went with Katie and I to Hatton, Scotland. Pastor Danny Olmstead hit the milestone of 70 years and his wife, Su, had a birthday party for him. It was a great day and we enjoyed the fellowship and fun.

This morning I continued our series, "Thou Art Worthy" with a message from Haggai 1 on, "Worthy of Our Investment." Our attendance was down considerably, but we are thankful for what God did in our hearts. Please pray for God to continue to build His church as He has promised.

Rejoice with the angels, another soul entered God's kingdom tonight - Praise the Lord!

God has shown His goodness to us in several ways this past week. He allowed significant progress to be made in the sanctuary. The stage is now built with the exception of the baptistry. On the family side, God allowed our family to get a new cooker (stove) and have it installed. It will be a great asset to my wife's ministry. (She often uses her cooking for the Lord with baked goods or meals.) We obtained a beautiful antique communion table for our church. And so, we give thanks to God for His many goodnessess.

To update you on the prayer request for my father: Dad continues in hospital having been transferred to a geriatric memory ward. Please pray for grace as this continues to be a very difficult situation. We need God to provide a long term care solution. Thank you for your prayers.

This morning I continued my series on our church theme for 2024, "Thou Art Worthy, O Lord." My message from Romans 12:1-2 was, "Worthy of Us." We're thankful for each one that was present.

Tonight we have a named storm (Storm Isha) rolling through with weather warnings starting at 6pm this evening. We could have winds up to 80mph in exposed areas and coastlines. So, that should make our service that much more interesting. :)

Thank you for your prayers. We're working hard at building God's church (people and property), but our efforts are in vain without God's rich blessings. Thank you for your part in obtaining His grace and mercy for our area and ministry.