A new friend from Scotland

We had an overnight guest in our home last Friday night, Beth Bogue from Scotland. Beth who grew up in Ohio has lived in Airdrie, Scotland for the past five years where she has served as the secretary for the RP church in Airdrie. She came "home" to visit her family and friends and to speak to churches about the work in Airdrie. So I met her for the first time on Friday night as she was setting up the computer for the Power Point presentation at our church.

Trying to initially expell the myth about Scotland being some kind of idyllic Utopia, Beth related the undeniable facts of the hard Scottish lives made harder as the result of living in a land without widespead gospel light. The traditional family unit is slighted as people live together outside marriage and teens have babies out of wedlock. Of course that sounds just like home, but we still have a pretty large percentage of people who at least attend church, while in Scotland the vast majority of people don't even go. They are living their whole lives without being exposed to the Word of God or the God of the Word.

Beth was able to relate some very good news. God is blessing the Airdrie RP church. Andrew Quigley (who Rob and I have met) is the pastor there and is a very visionary man. He and the elders have utilized the members of the church and short-term missionaries from Ireland and the USA to canvas the city with annual flyers. Actually, they're very nicely layed out magazines with greetings from the pastor and elders and testimonies from people who have experienced God's changing grace in their lives. They have passed out these flyers to many, many houses all over the city for many years now and have gotten feedback that people who don't even attend church feel somehow connected to that church. What a great inroad into lives! You can imagine that if some of those people ever hit a crisis in their lives and they want to turn to God, they will probably go to a place where they already feel connected even if it's just through a magazine that they have gotten at their door year after year. I get excited just thinking about it!

There are many other things about the Airdrie church that Beth told us at our church and later in our home before bed. Stories of how God has changed the lives of people through the different outreaches of the Airdrie church, but I don't want to make this post too long.

Let me just say that my heart burns within me when I hear of the great need there and of the great efforts of the Christian workers. They are making progress for the Kingdom of God. I took Beth in our bedroom (even with the clothes flung on the bed) to show her the map of the British Isles we have on our bedroom wall. We brought that map from our bedroom wall in Texas where it had hung for many years. We're weird, I know, having a plain map as the centerpiece of our bedroom, but it keeps that land on our hearts and minds.

So, we met a new friend from Scotland. Another face to have in our minds as we continue to think and pray for Scotland.


And by the way, here's a photo of King Josh on his way home from the Chocolate Factory.