Financial Emergancy

Friends, I have just received the news no missionary wants to hear and that which leaves you humbled and powerless. Our sponsoring Church has just told us that we have to take a salary drop of $1000 this month. The reality of this is simple - we live from month to month with no savings and no emergency fund to fall back on. This cut means we will fail to pay bills. I will be making a trip over to America in late July to try and make up this shortfall, but until then we are in a bit of a crisis. We need your help. If you are able in any way to do something please get in touch with brother Fred Jewell jewell@harding.edu who is the head of missions at College Church of Christ in Searcy, AR, our supporting Church.

In all this there is purpose and reason in this challenge. God is good and His love endures forever!

The Narrow Way

This past weekend was full on! Looking back, things went great. On the Friday night I took a group of 12 older teens through to Aberdeen. We went to Subway for our supper and then on to the concert at the Aberdeen Church building with "Cornerstone" a group from Faulkner University in Montgomery, Alabama. It is always good to have time with this group of teens. They are a rich blessing to our ministry and seeing their desire and faith deepen is a source of joy to me and honour to the King.

On the Saturday we had our "Pool Party" where all the youth group were invited. There were over 40 kids turned up and what a time we had! I was in my element showing off on the diving boards and being spurred on to try dives I thought I no longer had the nerve to do, but surprising what you can do when a bunch of fearless teenage boys try to out do you. The Inflatable Obstacle Course was a big hit with everyone and instantly elevated someones standing within the group if they made it across to the other end. The time flew and before we knew it the pool attendants were calling time!

On the Sunday we had our 3rd Sunday night meeting. The lesson was borne out of the above clip which was sent in an e-mail. As soon as I watched it I knew that it would lend to a great illustration on our walk in the faith. I talked from Luke 13 and Matthew 7 about entering through the narrow gate and making every effort to find the narrow way. At the start we had a good discussion about the clip and talked about the parallels between the path leading up the mountain and the path of our faith. The imagery was fantastic and after the lesson the response was very good. This was a lesson I had been looking forward to preaching and praise God that the message struck at the heart strings. The format of the meeting continues to work well and continuing with a cup of tea as everyone arrives helps get everyone talking and getting connected before entering into the meeting time.

Had a couple of amazing assemblies yesterday at Clerkhill School. Talked to around 500 kids split over two assemblies of 250. We shared a lesson about our lives and how we need to be aware of the gifts we give out to the people around us. How that some of the time we give good gifts in the way we treat others and on the down side how we can sometimes give bad gifts in treating others in a poor manner. I illustrated this with a gift bag full of chocolate bars and potatoes. I invited a mix of kids to come up and receive a gift. To some I complemented and gave chocolate, but to others I grunted and gave them a potato! When I asked what they thought I was illustrating the response was good. I shared about God being the giver of nothing but good gifts and how that we need to mirror Him. In all, I know God's blessing had touched the kids with a challenge to think about the gifts we share with each other.

Meeting up with David Emslie and Patrick Sullivan in the morning. We are going to try an tie up all the loose ends relating to our campaign that begins in a couple of weeks here in Peterhead. I am hugely excited and a little bit nervous at the same time. There is such potential with this group and we want to make the most of it, while at the same time being considerate of the fact that this is every ones first attempt at this. Please continue to be prayerful as we take this huge step.

Well, take care and God bless!

Reasons to be JOYFUL!

Just wanted to follow on a little from where we left off in my last update. Things continue to go very well with the classes and especially the older teens. We have a very busy weekend ahead. Friday @ 4.30 we leave for Aberdeen to go to a concert with "Cornerstone" who come from Falkner University. We are leaving early to go to Subway for something to eat before the concert. It's always great to get some time to talk and hang out. On Saturday we have hired the local swimming pool for some fun and on Sunday we have our 3rd Sunday night and I have started getting my thoughts together for teaching there. Very excited about the path ahead! Things are beginning to heat up and with the campaign under 4 weeks away plenty be hopeful in. The group who are coming are fantastic! These names may not mean anything to some of you, but they have committed themselves to 10 days of service to benefit the church and community here in Peterhead. Please hold these names before God as they prepare to be used mightily in service to the King - The Boys: David Emslie, Patrick Sullivan, David Cope, Ben O' Donovan, Aubrey Boynes, Mark Wilson, Ross Stars and Craig Nesbit. The Girls: Sarah Ormsby, Sara McCulloch, Dawn McCulloch, Hayley Jones, Shanae Boynes, Elaine Pressley, Amy Strachan, Brittany Cowie and Ben's girlfriend Kelsey. Please pray that we can get the content of our school assembly program pitched right and ensure the simple message is memorable and impacting to their young hearts. Please pray that the individuals who make up the group can put all else aside and be poured out for the sake of Christ. Pray that lives are brought closer to God and that faith is deepened. I have commented before on the fact that this is a first for us. To have a campaign made up of our own young Christians is a dream come true and lights up the fact that, yes, the church here is struggling, but that God is very much living and active in the hearts of his people who will surrender to His will and serve for the good of His glory. This is huge and therefore we are petitioning you all to pray big prayers for the success of the message and example the group will be living out.

I want to comment a little on Shaun Main's journey of faith. I have met and studied with Shaun twice now. It was obvious from our first getting together that, yes, Shaun was convicted, but it was also obvious that he was not totally sure about what is was he was committing too. So, we are beginning his journey to find Christ and make his calling and election sure. Thomas and Alex are meeting with us. I am humbled and inspired to be involved in this journey with Shaun. Again, I ask your prayers for Shaun's journey. There is no doubt he is searching and has made this giant leap in faith, but pray that through Thomas, Alex and Myself that we can support and guide Shaun to find God.

The last couple of classes since my last entry have followed the same track - amazingly effective! Both Friday and Wednesday night have been so open and involved with the teens. Monday was great too. We had another 2 new faces start coming. Courtney, who is Bethany's older sister and Robert who came a while back and decided he missed coming and here he is back again!

A couple of things I should have mentioned before about how proud I am of my family. Amy got news that she has been accepted into the National Youth Choir of Scotland's full choir! This is an amazing achievement and one Amy has worked hard to achieve. The quality of this choir is second to none and Fenella and I are delighted for Amy! Beth has equally been shining in her musical talent. Beth was accepted into the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and participated in a residential training camp a few weeks ago. We were able to go down and share in their concert at the end of the training week. It was stunning! Fenella and I are so delighted with Beth's achievement. We can't believe the music talent there is in our house - a bit bewildering considering I have zero talent in this field!

Well enough for now, but remember God is good and His love endures forever!

So Unpredictable!

This was a video I got from Jamie Hernandez Facebook and thought it was outstanding. I used this for our 3rd Sunday and taught about getting our lives stripped back to the bare minimum and starting to rebuild with what's most important being the focus of our lives.

If there is one thing I have learned these past weeks it is this... Ministry is so unpredictable! I am guessing this is how it should be when God is in the driving seat, but out of despair there is always hope! We have been a part of some amazing ministry and some very challenging ministry this past while. We are seeing growth in our primary school age classes, which is great and this is something we have been working on the past month. We created a flyer to distribute around the schools and the results are good. We have seen 4 new kids start on Monday nights! Monday's are a true blessing and there is real stability in the class structure and the atmosphere. There is a good balance of fun and faith. We came up with a new slogan that goes onto the bottom of our letters and printed stuff - "Encouraging Fun, Encouraging Friendship and Encouraging Faith." A week on Saturday we have organized a trip for the whole group to the local swimming pool. We have hired the pool for the evening and will enjoy some fun with the inflatable assault course and the diving boards. The good thing that has come from this outing is that our recently started Mother and Toddlers group headed up by Emma-Jane Jones, Ann and Robert Stephen and Grace and Donald Rossie have a bunch coming out with us. Should make for a brilliant night.

We have struggled with our Friday night class these past weeks and have been prayerfully working through some issues. In a nut shell the issues we are dealing with are the result of growth. We are continually having new kids show up and as a result we are struggling to find a format for the class time of the evening. Our problem is simple - we have teens who have been coming for up to 8 years and are ready and desiring spiritual food and on the other hand we have a bunch of newcomers who are struggling to handle the lessons because they can't quite connect with them. This has led to some trying times as far as keeping discipline in the class time and caused a bit of strain. We don't have limitless volunteer help so we can't just set up another class and there are not enough nights in the week to make this a workable solution. To begin working through all this we changed the class last Friday night and simply asked the question, "Why do you come here." The reason we asked this question was to get the whole group to know what the others are expecting when they come. We split the class into 3 groups, The older teens 4th year and above, 3rd years and 1and 2nd years. The older teens we left to discuss themselves, but with the younger ones we had Alex and John lead up the middle group and I took the Youngest ones (the newcomers). The class was amazing! We started sharing what the youngest ones enjoyed first, then the middle and the older ones last. You could see the progression in depth of faith and desire for the spiritual side of the class coming as the older classed shared their reasons for coming. I have no doubt God was active throughout and we had a class to remember, however we still have to work out how to connect with the newcomers more effectively. Funny all this - as I am writing I am reminded of our struggles when we first began our ministry almost 9 years ago and trying to come up with material and ideas that connect with the un-churched. Looks like we have come full circle! Looks like we may have to use the old faithful "Divide and Conquer" principle and have teach newcomers in a different way.

I mentioned in the title of this blog how "Unpredictable" ministry is, let me give you an example. On Wednesday night last week I had my class lesson prepared and began with the question, "Ask the group a question that makes us thing a little deeper." I did this simply to get the class into a thinking mode ready for the lesson, however from that question the whole class took of in a Spirit led diversion! Shaun Main stunned me when his hand shot up instantly. His question was this, "What passage in the bible helps you get through life?" Well, to be honest I was not expecting that depth right from the off! C.J. Cowie responded right away with Jeremiah, "I know the plans I have for you..." I was sitting in my seat trying to take all this in and had to acknowledge there was something special going on. Things heated up with Ryan Geddes Question which was directed at me, "Who do you think will be the next to become a Christian?" As if I could have been any more surprised at the course of this class. I responded saying I have stopped trying to guage where they all are in their faith and I can't wait to see who will be next. The next thing was, all the teens began to express who they though was closest to the kingdom and why they thought it! I was flabbergasted at all the comments and expressions of faith that they saw in each other. I left the building totally in AWE of God and with my heart filled to the brim of hope and anticipation. Friday night comes and during the lesson Thomas and Shaun disappear for a noticeably long time. I go out to check what they were doing and find the two of them talking in the toilet. I thought nothing of it and asked then to come and join the class. Little did I know what they had bee discussing! After the lesson time Shaun come to me and said we need to talk and Thomas needed to come too. We went into a classroom and Shaun began to express his need to become a Christian! I have no doubt that Shaun has thought all this through and is ready for the commitment he is about to make, but we will study some this week and meet up with his mum and dad to make sure they are supportive of his decision. God willing my next entry in here will be sharing the news that we have a new brother in Christ!

Take care and God bless!

Easter Fun...

Had to put in a quick update from our class last night. We had a "let your hair down" kind of night with an Easter fun night. Alex and I spent much of the morning getting ready for the evenings class. We hard boiled 60 eggs in preparation for the kids to have some creative time painting and decorating them. We then set about shopping for chocolate eggs to place all over the floor of the hall. We came up with the idea of a Easter egg hunt with a twist. The kids were in pairs each holding one end of a baking tray. Once the hunt began they were not allowed to take their hands off the tray and come up with ingenious ways to get the eggs onto their trays. This turned out to be a great hit with the kids and there was much fun watching as some eggs would roll off as they tried to get more onto the tray. In the end Hannah and Nina ended up with the most eggs - 41! We also did a twist on the old ducking for apples Halloween game and had the kids ducking for cream eggs in a ball pit rather that water. This was great fun too. The time flew and before we knew it it was 8.00 and time to get the kids off home.

I must mention something really good. Owen, came tonight for the first time! Owen is the 5 year old son of the mum who phoned to enquire about the classes after the teens had been out delivering some flyers about the classes for children. He loved the class and wanted to sleep at the building! His mum stayed the whole time to see what went on and it was really nice to get to know her and let her see the church in action. Owen cant wait for the Easter break to be over, even though they have not started yet, so he can come back to class. We had a great bunch of teens helping tonight and their input really helped make the various activities run smoothly - a big thanks to you all!

God bless.

Following on...

Coming on the coattails of the previous entry...

It was my privilege to be able to serve the Buckie Church a couple of Sundays ago. Heading up to Buckie is always a heart warming thing. They may only be a handful of Christians, but there is such a good spirit in the place that it's always a joy to share the message there. On the way up I was stopped in my tracks at the beauty of the coastline. Leaving Peterhead it was overcast and grey, but just before turning into Banff the skies were blue and the sunshine was radiant - truly gorgeous! The night before Hannah had a very heavy nose bleed and was pretty faint and weak, so Fenella couldn't come up with me. I always feel at a loose end when she is not with me. Holly decided she would come with me which turned out to be really nice. In the afternoon we took a trip into Cullen to get some "Legendary" ice cream and while we were there we took the chance to visit Avril and Ian Bowie. Ian was away in Nigeria, but Avril, her sister Irene and a bunch of the family were there. Holly had a great time colouring and designing quilts with Avril and Edward. It was good to catch up with young Ian and his girlfriend Mag's. They have all had a pretty horrendous last couple of years and it was good to just visit and let them know we are thinking about them. Bill Pirrie was looking well after his surgery. He is such a giant in the faith and is one of my favourite Christians. Holly and I got to spend time with Grace and Alan Johnstone who fed us and spoiled us big time. Samantha was in on the deal too and it was good to see and hear all her plans and life stuff. Grace and Alan are tow of the nicest people! While we were away into Culllen Grace made a bunch of "Tablet" or "Toffee." Anyone who knows me well knows I love toffee! Grace gave us a big old tub to share with the family, but on the way home we were thinking up ways to secretly keep it to ourselves - sorry family love you, but it was toffee!!! When we left the Buckie Church the old saying came true, "Going with the intention to bless and coming away knowing you have been the one receiving the biggest blessing!"

Been working on our Campaign 2010 with our local Scottish (and a couple of English) team. I have to say I am excited! Have got a chance to work with David Emslie throughout the planning stages and he's a great guy! Have known him for years, but have really only got to KNOW him through this campaign. We have the schedule done and the group formed. We have 7 schools signed up for assembly programs and our focus on young adults is taking shape too. Our theme will be "Helium" with the idea of being lifted up. Our focus will be teaching the kids the importance of doing and saying things that lift others up rather than burden and weigh them down. In all everything is coming together well. Our next group time will be at the young adults retreat next month - excited!!!

On the home front things have been exciting too. We were made aware just how gifted Beth is on the oboe when we went to her 1st concert with the music school she has been attending this past year. The quality was up there. I am no musical critic, but there was obviously something special on show throughout the whole nights performance and Beth was right at home amongst it all. The moment that got me though was when she was playing at the Aberdeen Music hall with the Aberdeenshire North Concert Band last week. She had a solo during "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the sound was amazing! Holly and Hannah have just performed this morning in the strings section of the Aberdeenshire Junior Orchestra and again Fenella and I were delighted to see them be a part of something that is beautiful. Both played their violins beautifully and they looked to be enjoying their performance. What a joy to be surrounded by all this beauty! Amy is in the final stages of her rehearsals for her part as "Iolanthe" in the opera. Most days we hear her go over the songs at the piano and even with the doors closed her voice just fills the whole house. She truly has a beautiful voice. Amy has also just received an unconditional offer for a place in Edinburgh University's music programme. She is excited! And finally throughout all this frantic family activity there is a loving mother encouraging the girls and making sure everything is as it needs to be - love you Fenella!

Well, that big splurge of information sort of gives you an update on our ministry and family life.

God is great and we are blessed.

Long time no see...

Life is very full these days and finding a quiet moment to sit and focus on this report is proving to be tough. If it were not for our friends in America who are supporting our efforts here I dare say I would choose not to get on here. However, it is because of our love for the churches involved in keeping us going that I take this wee while out to update on our ministry. Upon reflection I have to say things are going well. In the classes at church there has been fewer dramas and more focused effort on the younger ones part and as you will see further into this update the involvement from the older teens especially has been refreshing.

I will begin with a snippet from our last 3rd Sunday Night. Alex, John and I got things together and shared a great night. John welcomed everyone and led the singing while Alex and I shared the message. Alex started out by showing the Tiger Woods "Apology" and talked about man's sinful nature. I followed Alex with the question, "Do you want to live a life of Brokenness or Blessing?" We concluded with the truth that you can only find the blessing if you are following the right path. We had a good number there and again we had a bunch of the teens there. It is now part of their lifestyle to come on the 3rd Sunday.


On Friday night's we made a change to the format during our class time. For the pas 3 weeks we have simply set a foundation with a 5-10 minute intro and then split the group into smaller groups for discussion. This might seem commonplace to you, but the difference here is that we challenged the older teens to lead the discussion groups - beautiful! They have responded in a really positive way! When we ask for group leaders there are a bunch who step up and take the lead. John, Alex and I just mingle from group to group helping out a little if needed. We all come together again after about 15 minutes for discussion and exploration. Last week we discussed the question, "How do you know God is real?" Alex, John and I shared why we were convinced in the reality of God and were blessed to hear some of the teens "Faith Blocks." Let me say with honesty that some of the younger ones who have not been coming for long have at times been silly and struggled with the groups, but the evidence on the whole is that there is depth in many of their young minds.

I must quickly mention about last night. We met with the older teens and shared a good time together. We wanted Andy Forman, who is leaving on Sunday to start army training, to know how much we appreciate him and we all wrote messages in the pages of a new bible as a gift for him to remember that he has friends who care and who have shared lives over the past 4 years. After the Bible signing we then started on our second phase for the evening which was to go out and distribute flyer's to the houses that are close to the building. We wanted to promote our primary school classes on Monday and Wednesday nights. When I am in the schools many children are excited about coming to classes, but when they go home and tell their parents it is obvious that they don't know anything about us or about the classes. This motivated Alex and I to spend a little time putting together a flyer to inform the parents about the classes. Already this morning I got a call from one of the parents asking if their 5 year old son can start coming!!! What a great age to have him begin with us! I can't wait to tell the teens that their service is being blessed already!

I have to go get ready for Meethill School - will write more later today - God willing!