The weather for the past few weeks has been good and now it is amazing. We are into our long days and they are beautiful just now... low 60's fahrenheit, light breeze and sunny. If anyone visits Scotland at this time, they may leave with a false impression. :) 

This prolonged period of good weather opens the door to a project which we have prayed much about - painting the exterior of the church. Please pray as we put this on the schedule for works to be soon completed.

The work list is going well. The deconstruction of our back toilets has been going very well. A skip (dumpster) is arriving tomorrow and we'll promptly fill it once it arrives. A small wall has been built to fill in a gap behind the serving counter in our front two rooms. Another room in the back hall has been gutted and other miscellaneous works have been engaged. We appreciate your prayers as we continue to beautify our church property.

We enjoyed a good start to the week as we met together for church this morning. Josh Rowley took the adult/teen Bible class at 10:00 and taught from Genesis on the beginning. I preached this morning on Joshua 24, a sermon I entitled, "A No Brainer." Very little intellect is required for any rational being to understand that serving God is the obvious decision to make. Joshua used logic and the only logical conclusion would be for God's people to decide to serve Him. Tonight, we look forward to observing the Lord's table.

I continue to have difficulty with my sermon audio uploads. Lord willing, I will soon have this morning's message uploaded. Your continued prayers for wisdom are appreciated. I updated my Mac this morning hoping that would sort the issue, but it continues. Thanks for your prayers for Southside Free Baptist Church and our family, they are much appreciated.

We are unsuprisingly busy, but God is giving grace with our scheduling. We are again doing building works as a family from the States has come over to help us for two weeks. We have begun destructing and constructing. Please pray for wisdom, strength, safety and God's rich blessing as we make his building beautiful and useful. Today we are framing in an open section between the front two halls. We have also begun some work back in the sanctuary. 

I'm having difficulty uploading to sermon audio. Please pray for wisdom how to sort that as we try to keep the preaching up to date online. I've tried rebooting my browser and switching browsers. I have not found a solution yet. It drops my upload about 20 times. :( 

Kay Lee departed early this morning for Italy and is currently in flight. Please pray for God to do a great work in her and through her while she serves with the Frank Maietta family in Grosetto.

Logan went with me as I preached in Edinburgh on Monday. I preached in one of my favourite locations in the heart of the city. (Princess St. by the Duke of Wellington statue.) God gave tremendous liberty and strength. I was able to preach for about an hour and 15 minutes. Please pray for God to continue to strengthen me as I declare His Word. It was evident to me that people were praying.

We had a visiting pastor (and his family) from the States with us on Sunday PM. We had never met Pastor David Webb before, but enjoyed getting to know him and his family. We met them on Monday and showed them some of the religious history in Edinburgh. 

Afterwards Logan stayed down there with  me and I did street preaching on Princess St. for an hour. Please pray for God to give me greater endurance. It takes a lot of energy to street preach and there are many added noise issues of busses, trams, emergency vehicles, etc. . I'd appreciate your prayers for God's enablement in that regard. 

Today I put leafletts out near our church. God gave me a couple divine appointments. Please pray for people who want to come out to have the courage to do so. Please also pray that they will overcome any obstacles in their path to get themselves there.

God has given us a great weekend of ministry. The Ladies Afternoon Tea was very well attended. We had a handful of first time visitors for our area for which we thank the Lord. The program, the food, the atmosphere was enjoyed by all and we are truly grateful to God for His goodness. 

This morning (Sunday) was a slow start to the day, but gradually we had good attendance. We also had the joy of seeing a person saved after our morning service. WE THANK THE LORD FOR HIS GOODNESS AND THAT WE WERE IN OUR PLACE SERVING GOD AND ABLE TO MEET SOMEONE'S NEED.

I preached this morning on, "If any man be in Christ." Our 3 considerations were, You must be IN CHRIST. You CAN be in Christ. You MAY NOT be in Christ. God has saved three souls in our church property thus far and we praise Him for this acceptional token of His blessing upon this facility.

As we enter this next week, we need wisdom about future projects. A family from the States is planning to be with us for most of this next month to help out with some of these needs. However, their passports are currently held up and they need them to travel. Please pray for them to receive these in the very near future and for grace for everything God would have them to do in their time with us. It will be a vacation time for them as well as a working mission trip. These are good friends of ours and we trust God will work out the details for their coming. Thank you for praying for all the happenings in our ministry and family. Kay Lee and Benson are now safely back with us. Kay Lee will leave in about a week and a half for a 5 week mission trip to Italy. Your continued prayers are appreciated.

Below: Mac was the youngest waiter yesterday.

I just had the joy of putting this property update on Facebook, "It's OFFICIAL: Midlothian Council, as planning authority, has granted us a change of use. We no longer own a "Public House" but now officially own a "Church/Place of Worship." PRAISE THE LORD and thank you Midlothian Council." The Lord had us purchase the property without the change of use believing that this would be granted. It cost us £3,000 pounds to apply and we thank the Lord that it was not in vain.

This has been a good week. We finished the painting in the fellowship Hall. We were really pushing hard to complete the painting in time for the Ladies Afternoon Tea this Saturday. So, again, thank you Lord! God has truly helped us along the way with our many projects. The front flower bed has been planted as well. The kids enjoyed doing that after church on Wednesday night.

Also, Tuesday, we hade our bi-monthly day of prayer in Blair Athol. There were five of us present and it was a blessing. God has used this to knit our hearts together and I thank the Lord for these friends in ministry.

Please pray especially for Katie as she does food prep, planning, final touches and shares God's Word at the Ladies Tea. We think the attendance will be 40 or more with other churches and visitors. We're excited to have our first shared use of our property with other churches. This is also our first real opportunity to offer a special time to our community. We look forward to what God is going to do and thank you for your prayers.

It was a joy to see the surprise on some faces this morning as they saw that the Activity Centre (current church meeting room) was painted. We praise God for the grace, strength, and wisdom which He gave us during this  ongoing project. He has helped us tremendously.

The Lord gave us a good morning. In our Adult/ Teen Sunday School class we looked at the Victory that is available to us through Christ. In our Sunday AM, I preached on, "Follow Me..." ...as I follow Christ from 1 Corinthians 11:1. Please pray that many in our church will take up Paul's challenge and be a spiritual leader following after Jesus.

Our ladies' are getting excited about their ministry opportunity on Saturday as they host the Ladies' Afternoon Tea. Please pray for God's great grace. We invited our neighbours (150 invitations) yesterday and we think that several of them will be in attendance. We look forward to serving our community and our sister churches.

Thanks for your prayers for God's work in our ministry. God's good and we praise Him for His grace given in answer to your prayers.

Here are the BEFORE and AFTER images for the Activity Centre.

This has truly been a "work" week. An electrician has been visiting our church as he stays with some relatives who are members. He offered to help me on Monday and we were able to install 5 lights in the property. On Tuesday Katie, Parker and I tackled the ceiling in the activity centre putting a second coat of paint on it. It's a ribbed ceiling and we are thankful to be mostly done with it.

Today the decorator finished putting up the lining paper and I started early painting the activity centre walls. Parker and Katie joined me this afternoon and into this evening. We were able to get a coat of paint on the walls and it's really looking nice.

In evangelism news, Don Dillman and I put out flyers in Loanhead yesterday and got a lot done. I think we put out around 500. Thanks for praying for grace for building works and ministry. We're trying to get the front halls ready for the Ladie's Afternoon Tea on 20 May. 

One other praise is that two children visited last night. We've had several first time (and returning) visitors this month which is very exciting. Thanks for praying.

The activity centre (pictured below) is where we currently meet for church. The sanctuary (previously the dance hall) is going to need a lot of work before we move into it.

Today is a lovely spring day. When the sun breaks through it is very warm, but even without it the day is very pleasant with just a light breeze.

It has also been a refreshing ministry day with returning visitors and good attendance on the part of our church family. Praise the Lord! We enjoyed showing our church family some building program progress with some landscaping, a painted ceiling, a cleaner commercial kitchen. It's also fun to show our guests the property which God has provided.

This morning we studied our priviliges in Sunday School (ie. sonship, friendship with Jesus, the Holy Ghost as our teacher and helper....) In the moring service I preached on the rapture of the church and the need to be watching and ready from Mark 13.

I'm very thankful for God's goodness in everything we are seeing Him do. Thank you for your help by your intercession to God for His work at Southside Free Baptist Church.

It was a beautiful morning. Today, I went down to Princess St. by the Duke of Wellington Statue and preached for an hour. I covet your prayers for my street preaching. It takes a lot of energy and I also need God's guidance. My voice is always pretty weak when I get done. It is hard to stop as you see loads of people walking towards you and you want to say something that has the potential of impacting their life for all of eternity.

I had two elderly ladies shake my hand (while I was preaching and say) "bless you." I had some thumbs up as well. There was very little negative today and people were respectful. 

This afternoon, my family tackled one of the tougher jobs on our church to do list. We started painting the activity centre ceiling. This is a "ribbed" ceiling and there is a LOT of trim work. It was not a quick job, but we got most of the first coat of brilliant white paint on today. We hope to fully paint these front halls (activity centre and fellowship hall) in the next two weeks. Thanks for praying for wisdom and grace for our work.

It is always encouraging to see guests coming to church. We had a 15 year old boy visit on Wednesday. I believe that I am correct to say that he had never been to church before. We had another 15 year old young man join us (with his family) for the youth activity on Friday. All of these were in church today. We also had a relative of a church family visiting with us. What a blessing! On top of that our attendance was good, there was a great spirit, and our church is excited about what God is doing. Thanks for praying.

I preached this morning on the topic of developing a personal prayer life. If we can develop our prayer life, we can develop a closer walk with God. How vital for our families and ministry! 

In case you haven't seen it - here is a link to a video update on the property. The link takes you to our sermon audio website and will play the video from there.