Parker turns 6 today! Wow! It seems like yesterday we were on deputation and heading out to Colorado with a ten day old for an 8 day missions conference at Beth Eden Baptist Church.

We are enjoying sharing the day with family. The kids and Katie went into the national museum to meet the rest of the family. I'm following them shortly.

I wanted to show you our HBT (VBS) flyer and encourage you to pray for our upcoming Holiday Bible Time. (It looks fuzzy in the photo below but the print is actually very clear.) We have a ministry team from Bethel Baptist in Shaumburg arriving on 30 July. We are praying that God will give us a great turn out. 

The Lord also gave me a great opportunity to witness to a Muslim young man in Dundee on Monday. I invited him to a tent meeting at the local park where I met him. (A good church in the area is having special meetings there this weekend.) Please pray for their outreach and that he will attend.

Katie's ladies Bible study on Monday nights is going really well. She had six ladies this past Monday.

God has given me some interesting opportunities this year. One of those is to be a guest contributor on revival focus blog. My newest post was put on yesterday. If you are interested in reading it, you can access it here.

I was also given a chance to be interviewed for a local Christian radio broadcast. Please pray for the right people to tune in as that airs on Black Diamond Radio on Sunday 28 July at 802 am.

Yesterday morning we picked up my mother-in-law at the airport. We haven't seen her for 3 years and we are enjoying having her with us. Kirk, Carrie and Brodrick also came down from Dundee.  And Carrie's mum and brother flew in Yesterday afternoon. So, we are enjoying having some guests in our home.

The Lord gave us a good day yesterday. I finished preaching on Romans 3,  "The Only Way to Heaven."  We had good attendance with some out of town. Pastor Edgar from Dundee, Kirk and Carrie's pastor, surprised us by visiting last night with his wife and son. 

Thank you for praying for our ministry. I prayed on Saturday night for God's special enablement for those praying for our ministry. You are a vital part of what God is doing on our field.

It was a beautiful overcast cool morning today. The sun has popped out now (mid-afternoon) and it is heating up outside.

The Lord gave me several good opportunities to share the Gospel. The first opportunity was the best. Please pray that God will water the seed sown in this young man's heart. He offered to give me his name and number and we are hoping to do a Bible study. He also indicated that he will visit the church. I was praying for an opportunity to use Romans 3 in witnessing today and this was that opportunity. We went through the last half of that chapter as we considered how God's law through conviction points us to grace for Christ's righteousness. 

I handed out about 250 flyers and had a few other good opportunities. I'm always a bit overwhelmed in Edinburgh because there are so many directions you can go to give the Gospel. The harvest is great and the laborers are few. 

We have had hot weather (low 70's) for the past couple of days! It has been wonderful. This morning I put out flyers early to get done before the heat came.  Thankfully I was finished before the sun broke through the morning haze.

The Lord gave me 2 good opportunities. One was with a 15 year old paper boy. I was surprised by his age as he was about a foot taller than me. Please pray for this young man. He has never read the Bible or gone to church. The other opportunity was with a middle aged woman who attends a church of Scotland. She hopes that she will go to Heaven. Our conversation was brief but I encouraged her to read I John 5 to see that she can know that she'll go to Heaven.

The Lord gave us a good Sunday. It was our 3 year anniversary of planting the church. We began on the first Sunday in July in 2010. I preached yesterday morning on "Navigate to Glory" from Romans 3. We didn't finish and will have a continuation of that message next Sunday. I've always gone to Ephesians 2:8-9 when speaking to those who believe good people go to heaven. I now hope that God reminds me to go to Romans 3 which deals with this topic in depth. It is an excellent argument against man's goodness and for man's need for God's grace.

We were busy on 4 July....so we enjoyed having several friends over last night. It was a gorgeous day. My wife gave me a Weber BBQ for my birthday and was put into use. We also had a small campfire and enjoyed a lovely time.

I had a divine appointment last night. God's good to give these. Please pray for a friend of mine whom I have witnessed to on numerous occasions. I have no doubt that this was of the Lord as He clearly directed.  We are praying for God's power to awaken hearts.  I'm convinced more and more that it will take God's Spirit's power to bring people to Jesus. Please keep praying. God IS working in answer to your prayers.

God gave a glorious day for the funeral. Yesterday it was chucking down rain and 52 degrees. Today it was sunny and mid 60's. The attendance at the funeral was superb.  There were just over 120 people present. There was standing room only for about 30 of us.  God was glorified in the funeral and grave side service. The reception was lovely with wonderful tributes to a man who faced death convinced of the goodness of God. Please continue to pray for Shellie and her children.  God's grace is evident and the Lord was magnified in everything today. Thanks for praying.

The Lord gave me some wonderful open doors this evening. I knocked on doors in our area and met some of the people in our community. I enjoy doing that. Most people were very friendly. I had 3 extended opportunities to speak about God's Word. I appreciate a person who has an open mind towards the Bible.  Two of these three were particularly thoughtful. Please pray that God will encourage visitors to attend our ministry. It is not easy to visit a new place and to hear truths that are unfamiliar.  But, God can give grace to help them come.

Please also pray for a ladies Bible study that Katie is going to do on Monday evenings in July. She is excited about this opportunity for some ladies to get together around God's Word. Thanks for taking these requests to the Lord.

Thankfully, it didn't get me that bad. But, I got my first dog bite doing flyers. I'm laughing but it could have been serious. I had a pit bull come out an open back door round the corner of the house and bite my Flyer Distribution Tool.  Now, most of you know this as my F.D.T. otherwise known as a plastic cheeseboard. The flyer was presently shredded. No matter how uncool you thought the F.D.T was, it has just saved my hand from a bad mauling. :) He did take a very small piece of skin from my thumb as well.

What did I do, I repeated, "No, no, no, (I wish I would have thought to say, "bad dog.").." at high volume and great soberness. Thankfully the dog's owner wasn't too far behind.

In all seriousness I was thanking the Lord for his protection. That is my first dog bite in three years of doing this. So, if you have lately prayed for our safety, please thank the Lord for answering your prayers. 

Jeff Smith went into the presence of His Lord this morning. It is a joy to know that his absence from his body makes it possible for him to be present with his Lord.  The last song that I sang with Jeff on Monday was, "He the pearly gates will open, so that I may enter it."  Praise the Lord, Jeff isn't suffering any longer.

Please uphold the Smith family in prayer as they grieve the loss of husband and father. Please also pray for Carl Miller and Jon Gleason as they lead in the funeral and graveside service.