This has been a great week as we have had the priveledge to host an amazing team from New Jersey who have led a Vacation Bible School in the wee town of Alva at the Alva Baptist church. It has been extra fun for us as 4 out of the 11 on the team are relatives which we haven't seen for about a year. We are having a great time and the outreach which just ended today has been extremely successful with over 30 kids attending each day. Many of the locals from Alva have commented about how exciting it is to see some life at the Alva Baptist church. Up until a couple of weeks ago there were about 6 people attending, the youngest being 68.
This team from New Jersey couldn't have been more perfect as they are all full of energy, have a variety of gifts and talents and they have been a blessing to our family and the people of Alva. It's been really kool to see how God has put this thing together as well. The planning started about a year ago in Randy and Diane's (Julie's sister) living room but up until about a month and a half ago, we weren't sure what they were going to be doing. We had this feeling though that God had something specific in mind so we just kept waiting to see what it was. Dave Barrie, the youth leader from Stirling Baptist had taken on a project to try and resurrect this dying church that was ready to close it's doors. Well to make a long story short, we told him of the New Jersey team and so the next step was to get the churches approval which came through just in the nick of time. The idea was to raise the profile of this church which had become an afterthought in the community. Well, you can't put 16 Americans in a small Scottish villiage for a week and not have people notice. Our prayer is that the 30 plus children that showed up for the VBS will come back this Sunday and bring their parents and make commitments for Christ. Pray that this will happen. I'll share more pics in the next few days. That's all for now though.
Marc
No comments:
Post a Comment