I had an errand to run in Edinburgh today and took some time to hand out flyers and witness to people down in Princess St. Gardens. The Lord gave me 3, 10-15 minute opportunities and numbers of people took the flyer. One man who took the flyer began reading it and continued to read it for the next several minutes.

A few weeks ago I gave a retailer a tract and came back the next day. He told me that his partner (the person he lives with of the opposite sex - just to clarify for Americans) and he had an interesting discussion because she saw that in his car. It led into a great discussion between both of them and myself that day.

We never know the results of tracts but that was a good reminder that God is able to make them speak to the hearts of those who receive them. 

Please pray especially for Russel (early 20's). He really appreciated me taking the time to challenge him to think about God and eternity. Thanks for praying for divine appointments for us.

Thank you for praying for the kid's classes. Katie teaches the children's SS and has a class for the young children during the church service. She said that both went very well today. Mac is doing a bit better and we appreciate your prayers for him to be good during class.

I preached this morning on Isaiah 40, Behold Your God. Isaiah is helping the Children of Israel to get their eyes back on God and off of their circumstances.

God's good. We need your prayers and appreciate your interest in our church and ministry.

The mission team from IL arrives one week from today. We're getting excited about our HBC (Holiday Bible Club). Logan and I knocked on doors this morning and gave out HBC invitations. The Lord gave us some great contacts. We'll be doing more inviting this next week and would appreciate your prayers for divine appointments. Thanks for praying!

I am listening to a thunderstorm this morning and that is unusual for here. After a summer of temperatures struggling into the 60's we hit mid 70 yesterday. That was by far our wamest day of the year and the storms today are a result of that heat wave. When you get good weather in Scotland, you take it and enjoy it. So, we got out yesterday as a family and had a good time.

Because of the storms this morning, Don and I are giving our planned outreach a miss. Please pray for our HBC which is coming up in a week and a half. Katie had a great opportunity to invite a family on Monday. We have set a goal for our church (for fun) of seeking to reach 40. We've hit 30 (in total attendance for the week) but never 40. We'd appreciate your prayers with us for God to help us hit that amount.

We have enjoyed a good start to our week as we met for church this morning. Callum (13) often gets to church before anyone and starts setting up. He ended up at our home this morning because the building was locked. So, he prayed with our family here before heading to church. :)

We had a good morning. I enjoyed preaching on Intercessory Prayer this morning from Nehemiah 1. What stands out to me is that with Nehemiah's purpose of prayer he grabbed hold of God by fear, by covenant and in dependence. I've been using these three truths in my prayer life since studying this. Please pray for God to raise up great prayer warriors in our ministry. 

God's good. Thanks for praying for our day today.

I have the opportunity to be a guest contributor on Evangelist John Van Gelderen's Revival Focus Blog. My newest post went live this week and I wanted to give you a link to it. The post is entitled, "God's Porter." It's from a message I preached recently. There are several truths that stay with me from that message. If you have a chance to read it, I hope the post will be a blessing to you.

I started putting HBC flyers through our area today. Please pray for a young man that I met who indicated that he would visit our church. He asked a question that I think a lot of people have, "Can an unbeliever come and visit your church?" I wish I could make the answer to that more well known. We know as a church that we want them to come but it seems apparent that we need to communicate that to them.

Yesterday I filled out 188 pages of citizenship applications for our family. Mac and Nelson already have duel citizenship (USA and UK) but we are pursuing that for the rest of our family at this time. We've just become eligible having been here a year on our permanent residence visa. With permanent residence you can always reside in the UK as long as you are never absent for more than two years at one time. But, if our children (or ourselves) were ever away for more than two years they would lose their permanent residence. I can't imagine growing up in a country and not being able to live there. So, we want this for our kids. But, it also means that we will have put down roots in the country to which God has called us. We'd appreciate your prayers that these applications would go through without difficulty. 

The Lord gave us good attendance in our morning service this morning. I didn't have a SS class this morning because some who normally are in SS were unable to make that service this morning. So, my wife got a break as she got to teach without Mac in her class. If any of you have a child that is just over 2 years old, you can imagine what a blessing that was. Mac does ok in class but we would appreciate your prayers that he will quickly learn contentment during class time.

I preached this morning a message on faith from Jeremiah 32, "Steps of Faith." I recently sent a prayer letter which referred to this passage, but God put it on my heart to preach that passage today. It was a good reminder to my heart and I trust to our people to follow God by faith. Please pray for our church folks to step out by faith to obey God.

Benson was my door to door partner this morning. Generally people are pretty kind here when you knock on their door. We had one exception to that this morning but we weren't offended. I feel bad for the lady as she is missing a lot of joy in her life. God also gave us a great talk with a woman who is really hurting. Please pray that God will meet her in her time of need. She has lost a lot of family to death recently and feels that "if there is a God" she blames Him. You wouldn't have expected the conversation to open up but God did open it and I was able to speak to her about the love of God. 

Benson and I got some fly fishing equipment recently and have enjoyed going fishing a couple of times. Those of you who followed us on deputation know that I love fishing. Fishing has been one of the most difficult "culture shocks" for me as the system here is so different than in the States. Most fishing here is by fly rod. You also do not get a permit (license) to fish in the country. You get a license to fish a few miles of one river. And it is usually a day ticket that is pretty expensive. (One place we know of is 250 pounds a day to fish for salmon.) So, finding out how to fish for free and catch something on a fly rod - is a breakthrough. :) I'll put a picture below of Benson's first brown trout on a fly rod.

Don and I went into Edinburgh this morning to hand out flyers. We met at a statue of David Livingston in Princess Street Gardens. God gave a very encouraging divine appointment with a young man named Joel. He is a Christadelphian. (I had never heard of Christadelphian until I came to Scotland. They are very similar to Jehovah Witnesses.) I spoke to him for about half an hour. He thanked me for our conversation at it's conclusion. Please pray that God will awaken Joel's eyes to His truth. It was a cult morning. Don spoke to another man of the same religion and I spoke with a Jehovah's Witness. Thank you for praying for open doors to share the Gospel.