On our bus ride back to Motherwell, I had been praying to sit next to a certain guy, but the Lord wanted me to sit next to someone else and I ended up sitting next to another guy who’s name was Tom. I started talking to him and found out he was in high school and other basic information about him. Naturally, he noticed my accent and asked me where I was from, and I told him that I was from California, then he asked me why I was in Scotland. I told him that I was there with 40 other students and that we were part of a discipleship training program/Bible school and we were helping out with a Calvary church out here, but that the main reason that we were out here was to tell people that God loves them and that Jesus Christ died on the cross for them. Then I asked him what he thought about that and he said that he wasn’t religious but his grandpa was and he’d been to chapel before but wasn’t very interested in it anymore. I explained to him about how it was about a relationship with God, not just about religious practices. Then I asked him if he wanted to know God, and to my surprise, he simply said yes. Slightly dumbfounded because of his simple and non-conflicting response, I went on to explain the gospel message and I asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus Christ into his heart and he said yes, and again I was at a loss for words. So from there, I prayed for him and told him to pray to the Lord on his own in his own heart to repent of his sins and confess Jesus as his Lord and Savior, as I was praying for him. The Lord knows his heart, but it definitely seemed like there was a true, genuine response to the love of God. It was amazing to see how the Lord worked in that situation, because I hardly did any convincing at all-we had only talked for about 15 minutes-and he responded with the answer “yes.”

5-15-11

We were at the morning church service at Calvary Motherwell. My wife and I met a couple named Graeme (pronounced “Graham”) and Sandra. Sandra is a missionary from many years ago who met her current husband in Scotland. My wife and I connected with them immediately, we prayed for them and their needs. Graem invited us to his house on Wednesday evening for a Bible study. The evening ended, and you could feel the presence of the Lord heavily on our hearts and minds.

On Wednesday evening (5-18-11), about a dozen classmates went to Graeme’s house for the Bible study. Graeme was planning on going through 14 verses in Daniel chapter 2, but the Spirit compelled him to go through 49 verses. Graeme said he just couldn’t stop. After the study we were fellowshipping and one of the students was able to lead a man named Andy to the Lord. She (the student) told Andy that if she were to die tonight angels would usher her into Heaven, and she asked him if he were to die what would happen to him. He made a gesture with his hand that he would be going down. The student asked if he would like to change this, and he said yes. This is when she walked him through the sinner’s prayer. They both were in tears, and the whole house started rejoicing! Again, the Spirit of the Lord was so heavy that it was hard to leave the house and it was hard to go to sleep that night. The next day we talked to Graeme and he said that he and Sandra had had trouble sleeping because they were so excited about what God was doing in their house. Sandra said it was amazing to see God like this.

5-20-11

We took a bus to go and do our laundry. On our bus I met a man named Tam (pronounced “Tom”). He asked what we were doing and where we were from. I told him we were from San Diego, California and that we were here to be an accurate expression of the love of Jesus Christ. I asked him if he knew who Jesus was, and he said, “Yes, He is my Lord and Savior.” His story is how God delivered him from 17 years of heroine use. He started when he was 14 years old. He had been caught stealing from a man he used to sell drugs to, and the man told him when he caught him, “You have two choices: 1. You can go to jail, or 2. You can go see the priest. Tam chose to go to the priest. Tam said that’s when he was born again. He currently had 6 months clean and sober. I invited him to a free lunch at the church on Tuesday and I was able to pray with him on the bus. You could see the joy of the Lord in his eyes. What a blessing!

Coming to Scotland, everyone told me that practicum was going to be really hard, because people who had been on practicum before said it would basically just be more suffering. Really fun, but really hard. Kind of like wilderness in that you hate it while you’re there, but you wish you could go back. So I prepared myself for not really enjoying myself, but since I’ve been here, I’ve been extremely blessed because I found myself overcoming personal and spiritual issues, I’ve had a lot of questions answered and I’ve met a lot of people who have really blessed my life.

One day we were doing an outreach, and I wasn’t really feeling led to anyone, and everyone I tried to talk to, I just failed in communicating. So I talked to my leader Mike, and he was just telling me that maybe that wasn’t the gift that God had given me as far as evangelism. I told him that I would rather forge a relationship with someone that I could continue in, and Mike said that there’s nothing wrong with that. Being on outreach, I felt like we had to talk to everyone we could, but I just wasn’t feeling led. We came back to the church and I sat down at a table across from a local young man named Jamie, who was talking with some other students and I just got involved in the conversation. A few minutes later he looked up at me and said, “I have a question about the Bible.” Out of that question branched a spiritual conversation and a relationship was forged between Jamie and I that will continue after we leave Scotland. Soli deo gloria.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

At Bible study in a member of Calvary Motherwell’s house HSE students engaged and embraced our new environment as an accurate expression of the love of Jesus Christ. A young man gave his life to Jesus as the Holy Spirit led. Trained servants followed resulting in a young man being born again. All glory and praise to our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.