Reorientation

Well we're back! We will plan on a presentation of our trip tonight for those who come to prayer and devotion time. Then the Wednesday before we kick off Discipleship Training for the fall, we hope to have a Wednesday night when you can hear how your church reached others with the presence and power of Christ all summer through mission trips and camps for all ages. We hope to have a great DVD to link to the front page of the website. Our trip was successful in several veins: 1. Prayer. We prayed and were prayed over. Prayer was a deep part of the experience in this trip! Thank you for your prayers! 2. Witness. We witnessed to the theme of God helping us with our sense of identity. In God we become OK with who we are, where we are and what we are. We then tied those to the fruit of the Spirit (Love, joy and peace -- who we are; patience, kindness and charity -- being OK with where we are; and finally faithfulness, gentleness and self-control = being OK with what we are). The message caught on overall and several people are deeping their faith or coming to faith for the first time. 3. Refreshment. We worked hard and experienced great images of God through the people, Westray Baptist Church, CE Camp and their leaders, and through the beauty of the landscape in the Orkney Islands. We were refreshed by this experience of God's mighty power! In any trip there is time for orientation: what to expect and plan for before going. Then there is disorientation when you run at a breakneck pace to catch planes, taxis and ferry's in order to reach your destination. After arriving in a strange and different place and tempo... and experiencing disorientation, there comes the return home and the requirement for reorientation. We need to reorient ourselves into our common homeplace but with new insights learned from our trip. We're working on the latter part of this experience. Thanks to all who made this trip and make this sister church relationship possible with the wonderful congregation of Westray Baptist Kirk! God bless, Steve

Kirkwall again!

We traveled to Kirkwall today and had a marvelous day, topped off by Andy Murray beating Tsonga to get to the Wimbledon finals on Sunday! It would be great to be in London on Sunday when Murray wins being the first person from UK to win since 1937! We're now off to a concert of Gospel music started off by our own Michael Harcus! Daynette Orr will sing back up for him when he is in New Bern the first weekend of November! We couldn't be having a more blessed trip than we have and are! God is so good!

We had our camp conclusion tonight with a full house of parents, kids and visitors from Westray! It was a huge success! Our team bonded well with the children and that meant the most to me. All the leadership of the camp felt that our Bible teaching and relationship with the kids was blessed by God! Praise God! I personally could not be prouder of the team than I am right now! Every one of them, Steve and Kimsey, Daynette, Helen and Mary all contributed uniquely to the overall witness of Gods love in Jesus Christ! Tomorrow, if the weather is agreeable, we will go out on a church members boat (John Drever). I am praying for great weather. We will motor over to Papa Westray and around the islands. It should afford some great pictures, close up encounters with the seals and maybe a view of an Orca in the water, if we're lucky! This has been a worthy investment in God's kingdom work by our church. I look forward to aging our team share with you on a Wednesday night after returning! God bless, Steve

Today is the final day of our work with the CE Camp children. It has gone well and, as expected, we have bonded well with the children and it will break our hearts to leave them! Most of them are very quiet, shy and reserved (an Orkney Island trait we are told), but once they get to know you they open up and are incredibly loving! I have found that I cannot upload pictures onto the blog from my IPad, so I will use Daynettes computer to load soe pictures of the CE Camp events and the children, leaders and the Kirk (church). We have been blessed with good weather and have done almost all of the things we wanted to do around the island during good weather (never warmer than upper 50's). We have slept well even though it's only fairly dark for about three hours! More to come and again, if you want to see pic's, visit my Facebook page! Cheerio!

What a great start to our time with the children. Mr "Steve" has touched the hearts of the children and our Bible theme of helping the kids know who, where and what they are in God's eyes is going well! The music being led by Daynette is awesome! You need to request me as your Facebook friend to see great videos and pictures! We took a wonderful walk today along the western side of Westray!

Last night we met at the island schoolhouse for a community event and fundraiser for the lifeboats (lifeboats are completely funded by donation only). Teenagers played Celtic and original Scottish music! I will upload a sample onto my Facebook page when possible! This was a high moment in all of my travels to Scotland, Ireland and England! Today we gathered for worship together at the Kirk at 11:30 a.m. The pastor, Gavin Hunter, speaks lovingly and authentically straight from the heart. Michael and Teenie Harcus allowed Daynette to assist in all of the worship music and then Daynette sang a solo, He Knows My Name, just before I preached. The worship today included the other church on Westray, The Church of Scotland. Attendance was spectacular and there was great fellowship afterwards! We now go to meet with the director of CE (Christian Endeavor) and plan out the kickoff for this weeks thematic Bible focus!

6/30/12:  we all slept in different homes last night and everyone was tired! We ate a fantastic meal with Linda and Kirsty Hagan at their home on Skail! I stayed with Michael and Teenie Harcus and we went and viewed the completely refurbished Kirk (church). Then we went for a sunset walk at 10:30 on a beautiful night! I slept from 11p.m. Until 8:00 am like a baby!  Had a wonderful breakfast with Michael, Teenie and Peter (a cousin who is sailing down from Shetland to Aberdeen but enjoying a stay here waiting for right weather).  Then we saw Steve Wynn and Kimsey Welch walking past the house and I went and collected them. After some chat at the house we went up to the lighthouse and walked along the cliffs, saw many seals, birds, but no puffins (they were out feeding). At table for lunch after buying seafood at local market!