Coffees & Creams!

Just a wee but enjoyable blog today! A really funny saying that they have here can be heard when one of our kids is playing with their Filipino friends. People always say, "Coffee & Cream' ... referring to their complexion and colouring. I always think it is a hilarious way of putting it and not in the slightest bit racist!

So I thought I would put in a couple of 'Coffee & Cream" snapshots and also a few pictures of the Sefton kids & babies (for all you ladies out there!)

Enjoy these cheeky faces ...

LYDIA & RENZ ABBY


PEPITO & JOSIAH (inseperable friends!)

PASTOR JAMES BASTIAN & SHEKINA


DANIEL & GRACE BATAYAN

MARC DAVID JAVIER

(Marlou & Cristina's new arrival)

GWYNETH & JAMES AQUINO

Dedicated and Submerged!

G'day folks! Trust you had a good weekend and that all is well. We had a great Saturday. By the way, someone told me that I use the word 'great' far too many times. So I apologise for anyone of the same opinion ... but if you were here on Saturday you would say it was great too!

In the morning I had the honour of dedicating a lovely wee boy called James. He is the son of one of our Pastors - James Aquino. James and his lovely wife Florence have a little 3 year old daughter called Gwyneth (James liked the name of Miss Paltrow after watching one of her movies!!! I asked him of it was not her looks he was taken to .. but he assures me it was only the name he liked!), and the Lord has blessed them with a son. James jr. was one year old on Saturday, so it was a double celebration. I spoke about four James' that made a difference - James the Disciple (Friend of Jesus), James the Brother of Jesus (Pastor & Writer), King James (who authorised the Word of God to be available in English) and James Gilmour.

Does anyone know about Mr Gilmour? Respond below and be 'Ritchie's Scholar of the Year'...

I prayed the young James would grow to be a man who finds the Lord as his closest friend, a man who would bring the Lord to many people's lives, would be a man of God's Word and would be a man that would have a passion for souls. I think it is lovely when parents recognise that the Lord has blessed them with a child and they want to dedicate him/her back to God.

In the Philippines you choose 'Ninangs (female) and Ninongs (male)' who are Godparents to the child. They promise to support, pray for and take interest in the child and to be there in good times and bad. They are expected to give gifts at Christmas & Birthdays.

In the afternoon I had the blessing of baptising 21 new believers from our Cornerstone Churches. It was a GREAT occasion. They were so happy! It was a scorching day and I must admit that it is the first time I have baptised anyone with a baseball hat! Wonder of John had one of them??

Each person being baptised was given a verse of encouragement from the Bible, was prayed for and after baptism we sang their chosen song as they left the pool. Merienda (snacks) was provided for all. The moment we said 'Amen' at the closing prayer, about 30 kids jumped in! Very un-religious but absolutely wonderful.

At night, tired but happy, I watched the Scottish Rugby Team wallop (slight exaggeration) the Welsh. Aberdeen won, Man Utd won and I went to sleep one happy camper!

GREAT!

Face to Face with Utter Hopelesness

Living in the Philippines brings you face to face with stark paradoxes every day. You just never know what you are going to find out, who you are going to meet or what is going to happen. Trying to live by a schedule is great on paper but useless in practice. One minute you could be speaking to an ultra-rich (even by western standards) businessman leaning over his Pajero, and the next minute you are talking to the ultra-poor garbage man who still manages a smile.

I know that this is seemingly the same in the UK - rich and poor do live alongside each other. But here, if you take a walk down the main street in Santiago you will see such conflicting standards of living that you would wonder if these people dwelt on the same planet. The poor here are very poor; no dole outs, no safety nets, no free NHS, no job seekers allowance and certainly no government benefits. It's who you know that matters here, and if you don't know anyone in high places, you will find it so hard.

Sometimes, we can become immune to hopelessness and the pain and poverty can so easily be overlooked and ignored. But sometimes, the truth runs deep.

Take this week. Pastor Winston texted me to say that one of the kids who regularly attends our Powerhouse Kids Club had been run over by a bus. Winston went there and found out that this boy - his name is Sylvester - had tragically died. It was the Mayor of Santiago's birthday and she stated that all schools could be closed for the day (oh the joys of being a school kid in the Philippines! Any excuse is a good excuse for the teacher taking a day off!) Sylvester didn't believe that the school was closed and jumped on his bike to find out. he went to school and no-one was there. He was so excited that he peddled back on to the road without looking ... and a bus hit him and his bike. he went hurting through the air and landed very badly. His back was broken and he died on the spot. Tragic.


Winston got there and could not believe the poverty this poor family were living in. They lived in a squatters house made of pieces of wood and some corrugated iron for a roof. They had no work, no income. They were grief stricken and were hoping for a good future for their son.

Winston asked, "Where is your daughter Selina? She used to come to Powerhouse but we haven't seen her for a couple of months." They called for their little girl to come out of her room, and whet Winston saw made him almost cry. This little girl's arm was totally burned. A pot of boiling water had toppled over her weeks before, but because of their poverty, they could not even go to see a Doctor. Such a beautiful face; such terrible scars.



So at one side of the shack their son lay in a casket. On the other was their little girl with a badly affected arm. What a tragic situation Winston found himself in. And yet, this is exactly where God wants us to be. Burden carriers. Difference makers. Available shoulder-to-cry-on people. Fellow weepers. Hand holders. Generous givers. Tear catchers.

We are going to try and help this family in whatever way we can. We will take Selina to the Doctors and take care of her infected arm. We will surround them with prayer and trust that our prayers lead them to the Father - the source of all they need.

I feel that I just finished writing a great encouraging blog yesterday. The blog before was a hard one. And here we are again today .. a sad one! This is life in the Philippines.

I don't write about this family to make you feel bad. But I pray that you will feel something. Even if you feel just blessed that you don't face hopelessness and helplessness every day, that is a positive thing.

If you have friends or family that can pray, then please send them this email address so they can see the pictures and pray for this family.

The world is full of hopelessness - whether it be in a shanty house here in the Philippines or in a bungalow in Scotland. One of the greatest challenges we have ... is to bring HOPE to a dying world.

PowerWeekEnd!

Had a great weekend last week. On Saturday we had Powerhouse United here at the Fire Centre. For those of you who don't know, Cornerstone Church started our Powerhouse ministries in November 2005 when a team from Scotland came out. One of the team members was my brother David who started Powerhouse Ministries in Fraserburgh in 1996. Our Children's Pastor (Alexandro) went to Scotland for 6 weeks in 2005 to study what David was doing there and to be trained.


So on the first Saturday of every month we have Powerhouse United. We bus kids in from all the areas where we are ministering and they have a great time - songs, dances, quizzes, games, stories ... and they get a good snack at the end! They love it. We get between 200-400 kids every month, depending on weather, holidays etc. The team do a great job and I have to thank the Lord for people like David and Gillian Saunders who have done an amazing job training our team and developing the programme. We have over 30 Cornerstone members in our team, and they have learned so much.

On the First Sunday of the month we also have 'Cornerstone United'. We started off with one church in August 2004, but now we have six churches who are at different stages in their development. Maybe in another blog I will let you know all about them. Anyway, on the first Sunday we all meet together. This is a really good day when we can say hello to old friends and meet new ones.

Last Sunday we had around 320 people there. We have a full kids and toddlers programme .. so everyone is catered for. I was so blessed last week when I saw our band - all teenagers (see pic)! All have been trained in the last 2 years from scratch and now they are doing so well. The 'old' worship band (our Pastors!) are now happily redundant ... although I have bought a new guitar and rumours are flying about a return for 'Mark and the Old Guys'!

I preached about 'Don't Let the Devil Steal Your Song' and many responded for prayer. The end of the service was really nice. Brenda Chua is a young lady from our mother church in Cornerstone Singapore and she has been here for 6 months. She has done a great job and we had a wee presentation for her. We had 'words of encouragement' from the various ministries at Sefton, and also many dances and singing items. Really nice. The highlight was a group of parents from the KMGLC who sang a beautiful Christian song - 'Worthy is the Lamb' (above). They had never been to Cornerstone before and we were delighted to see them. A great morning ....

Keep praying for us. Many great things are happening and we ask that you keep our family close to your heart in prayer. Josiah is doing great and loves Pepito so much. They walk around Sefton hand in hand most of the time! Lydia is struggling a wee bit. She spoke fluent Tagalog before but she has not spoken any since she came back. She was very eager to go to school but this week she has shown some reluctance - we think it is because of the language and because she is a bit behind her classmates because of her time in Scotland. Pray for her as she tries to fit back in here. She misses her cousin Bethany so much and she has tasted tow different lives in two very different countries. Very hard, but I am sure she will fit back in.

Can you spot Lydia from her school photo below? I am a mug. I told Mary three years ago that the school photographer did a really bad job and that even I could do much better ... so she told me that from then on I would have to! Nightmare! What they didn't teach you at Bible School!

Pray also for Mary & I. It has also been very difficult for us as there have been hard decisions to make and issues to tackle. There are different pressures here to handle and we would value your prayers. Sorry for the short blog the other day. It was a tough day and I was exhausted. That's about all I could muster!

Keep praying for us and all at Sefton Village. Thousands of lives are being touched weekly .. so be encouraged!

Goodnight ...

Hard

Hard, hard day.

The Comfort of Status Quo

It has been very interesting just to see the changes and listen to the stories of what has been happening at Sefton Village in the last 6 months. It has been quite an adventure for our staff, I can tell you! They have had to make decisions, and stand by them, all by themselves.

I must say, at this point, that it seems as if there have been no major problems at Sefton. I mean, Sefton is still here, no buildings have been burned to the ground, no terrorists have kidnapped anyone and no-one has been injured or killed in the last 6 months. Praise God! In fact, generally we are very happy with the way that we find Sefton Village. The teams have done very well and I think they have grown a lot in the process. We are very proud of them if truth be told.

The Children's Home had a bit of a scare in October, and faced the possibility of closure .. all because of an administrative misunderstanding. But Marilyn and Brenda (a lovely lady from Singapore who has been here to help us) handled the situation with grace and a solution was found. The School has run very smoothly and the teachers have overcome every challenge.

The Bible School has been through the mill a wee bit. I left and Pastor Abe died on the same night. Pastor Angel was left holding the ropes, but I must say that he, along with Pastor James Bastian (our Administrator and temporary Dean) have done an exceptional job. I came home to find a great group of students who have a heart to serve the Lord.

Cornerstone Church, well this is an interesting one. When I left we had a definite vision from the Lord and we were heading a certain direction. There were some key things that the Lord had shown us and, even though it was 'out of our box' and slightly different to most churches around here, we believed that this was the way forward. I left the team with clear directions and instructions, both for the church's vision and for their own personal development.

The comfort of safeness. What dangerous few words. If you take an elastic band and stretch it, you will find that it's length and capacity is much greater. But if you release the tension or just let go, it will become just an ordinary small elastic band. That's what's happened at Cornerstone. The team have gone into maintenance mode and have embraced safety. It is far easier and, to be honest, many many churches are in maintenance mode or walking in safety; very few are really stretched and walking in a consistent and revelatory vision.

I went to church on Sunday morning. On first glance, it looks great for a 2 year old church. Good number of people there (around 150-180 between both services), good praise and worship - our young people now play every instrument and all of our original musicians have trained someone to take their place - the message was good. But I knew, deep in my heart, that things are not where they should be.

So, when I talked to the leaders at our meeting yesterday, they shared with me that it was much easier for them to maintain the church until 'Pastor Mark' comes back. Everything is still going on - the feeding programmes, the Powerhouse, Jail ministries, Youth, Mens/Womens Ministry etc., but the fresh vision stopped when I left. They wanted to put the church in the freezer until I returned. But you cannot freeze something that is alive and growing!

So now we seek the Lord for what He wants again. I think the Team have learned many things in the last few days. We prayed together and cried together yesterday. We will continue to build a Church for the Lord's glory.

How about you, how about your church. In the UK, many homes undergo safety checks. Many computer have virus safety checks. We have car safety checks. If we did a safety check on your church, how would it fare? Here are some of the questions we could ask:

1. What is the vision of your church? Is it written down, communicated and prayed about?

2. When is the last time God asked you to do something new ... and you did it?

3. Do you have a book or list of prophetic words or vision that the Lord has shown you?

4. Is your church an exciting place to be, where you don't know what is going to happen .. or is it programmed and 'same old same old'

5. When is the last time you tried .. and failed?

6. Are you walking in a progressive vision or walking in the comfort of safety?

Same in our personal lives. Twelve men saw Jesus on the water; only one went and did something that seemed impossible. Eleven men kept themselves dry; one almost drowned. Eleven men believed with their head; one trusted with his heart. Eleven men saw Jesus; one man believed in Him. Eleven men thought and remained; one thought and walked. Eleven men saw a miracle; one man experiences a miracle. Eleven men congratulated themselves on a logical and ordinary decision to the call; one man encouraged himself to walk towards an extra-ordinary calling. Eleven men watched; one man walked.

Living by faith is so easy to say but unbelievably hard to do. I know very few who truly live by faith. We all have our safety nets and excuses. Me included. But God is looking for those who will seek Him, receive a vision and dream from him and run with it. People who will be stretched. Who will leave the safety of the boat and what they have experienced.

In truth, I am not too discouraged about the church. In some ways I expected it to have changed. We are not where we should be, but we are not as bad as we could be, but by God's grace and strength, we will go where we are called to be. What we have to do now is repair the sails, encourage the crew and re-navigate our position. We will sail away from the comfort of safety into the depths of new adventure.

Don't live in the shallow comfort of safety. You will never change your world. Walk a life of living in the depths of faith, live a life of unfurling vision ... and you, and your church, will see great things.

Selah...

You Are Welcome!

Welcome. What a lovely warm word. There is no better feeling than to be in someones house or someones company .. and feel truly and warmly welcome. Guess what? The Filipinos are the absolute best.

I feel sad for the Filipinos in some senses; take sports. They are non-football playing (can you believe that?), they are not very involved in the world's major sports - rugby, American football, baseball etc. - and, although they are unbelievably skillful at basketball, their height is never going to make them world beaters. In recent Olympics, their ambition is to win a medal. They have only won 3 bronze and 2 silver since 1936 ... the last medal being way back in 1996!

But, if there was an award for being the most welcoming nation, the Philippines would win by a long way. My goodness, they could not have made us more welcome if they tried.

We arrived in Manila last Tuesday night. We spent a couple of days getting our visas organised and buying 'pasalubong' (gifts to Filipino friends after a long journey). This is a normal part of Filipino life .. so we had to buy around 110 gifts for all our staff and kid at Sefton Village. And you thought Christmas shopping was hard!
On Saturday, we picked up our car from the garage and headed up north. Winston was with us and the first thing we encountered was a massive traffic jam on EDSA, the busiest road in the Philippines! One hour! Murder. Never mind, we were soon on our way again.

We travelled up and arrived in Santiago at 4pm. When we turned into Sefton Village, we could not believe it. There were around 100 staff and friends there to welcome us .. with a big 'Welcome Home' banner at the centre of them. they sang songs, gave 'words of encouragement', hugged and kissed us and the tears were flowing. What a welcome! They made a special 'merienda' for us ... Josiah's favourite - Congee! It was great to catch up with everyone and see how much the children had grown!.

Just when we thought it was all over, we discovered that the Women's Ministries in Cornerstone Church had cooked a meal for us and all Sefton staff. Again, it was our favourite stuff - sweet & sour pork, chicken curry. They are stars!

On Sunday we went to Cornerstone Church, and again was given a lovely welcome. Today, we were invited by three different groups of parents from the school to come and have a 'Welcome Merienda' with them. So we went there at 9am, 1pm and 3pm and met three different groups of parents. They sang to us, welcomed us and they had cooked lovely food .. again!

The kids are so happy about going 'home' again. Lydia was off to school this morning ... beaming from ear to ear. Josiah is constantly surrounded by his two big bros - Abe's sons Angel & Renz. The pictures tell their story.

Tomorrow, we have another 'Welcome Home' party at the Bible School. Can you believe it? These Filipinos might not be the sportiest folk on this world ... but they have to be the nicest, kindest, most hospitable, caring and lovely people God has ever placed on this earth.

Don't believe me? Come on over ...

You are, and will be, made very welcome!

A Week from Now...

... me and Mary will be sitting in a British Airways 747 en-route to Hong Kong. Our two little darlings will be fast asleep and will proceed to sleep the remainder of the flight. Daddy will assure the air hostess that both children, even though they are fast asleep, definitely absolutely want their meals!!

That's the theory anyway. As we all know ... the best laid plans o' mice and men go aft aglay! Can't believe it! Where on earth has 6 months gone? I know it is very corny to write this (have you noticed that every Newsletter written by anybody in the whole wide world always starts with this question), but it is true. A lot has happened in the last 6 months - good, bad and ugly. My observations and thoughts will be written at a further date. Just to keep you up to speed, here is what has been happening with me & us:

* Great Christmas with Mary's family in Aberdeen. Great food, lots of fun and lots of presents!

* Boxing Day - brilliant! Saw the Dons play unbelievable football against Killie at Pittodrie. Best I've seen them for years. Huge pleasure of going with Bruce and Mary's dad david ... first time he'd been there for 12 years. The Dons put on a show for him and won 3-1.

* Sunday 31st - we all drove down to (know where that is?) where Mary had a reunion with her 3 best friends that she studied with at Glasgow Uni way back in the good old days. They are all married, have kids and you could imagine the amount of talking 4 Speech & Language Therapists do to catch up on 6 years of news!! Aaaaagghh! Actually, it was a great day, but my ears have still not recovered.

* Spent Hogmanay at Fraserburgh AoG followed by going to the Elim church. Great to spend a special time with special people.

* New Year at my mum & dad's. Again, the food was out of this world. MMmmm. Great to spend time with my brothers et al.

* Busy 1st weekend of the year. Went through to Peterhead Baptist church for a 'Buttery Morning" For all the uneducated folk reading this blog, a buttery can be called "a roll, a scone and a multitude of other names, but basically it is a dod o'fat mixed with flour. Fattening but delicious. The lovely ladies at PBC have been knitting like mad and have also been collecting clothes and donations for Sefton Village. We gave 3 short presentations in the main hall while everyone else enjoyed their butteries. Good idea.

* At night, I had the honour of preaching at Teen Challenge Sunnybrae's Graduation Night at Aberdeen AoG. What a night! From the very 1st song we could feel the presence of God. Nikki Gardiner sang beautifully and the two guys who were graduating testified. Amazing. God alone can truly transform lives. I spoke about David's Mighty Men and really felt the presence of God with me as I spoke. Thank you Lord.

* On Sunday evening I had the pleasure of preaching at the Elim Church in Fraserburgh. I really felt the Lord prompting me to speak about how God Uses Broken People. A real breakthrough at the end of the meeting. Beautiful.

* I had to drive down to Central Belt on Tuesday to tie some things up. Met up with my bro David, Gavin, Kenny & Ben to watch Aberdeen v Hibs at Pittodrie. Not so good, but very enjoyable.

* This last weekend we have had the David family with us - Andrew, Rachel and wee Hannah. Had a great time. Took them around Moray Firth on Friday (they LOVED Gamrie - especially my Aunty Helen's homemade soup!!) and on Saturday all of us headed down to Edinburgh. Our main purpose was to say goodbye to the folk in Whitburn. Had a great Sunday - lovely lunch at Norman & Gillian (our agents). After 15 months of trying .. I bought a new guitar! It is a beautiful Takamine and I love it. Amazingly, I bought it for less than half price. You wouldn't believe what happened ...


* This week has been so busy. We have taken all our stuff out of the house we were staying in, packed everything away to either Fraserburgh, Philippines or Wick. Mary has washed, ironed, packed, cleaned the whole week. Finally, we finished everything yesterday. It is so complicated to live in UK - BT, Electricity, Gas, Sky, Child Benefit etc. etc.

* We left Fraserburgh at 7pm last night and, to be honest, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Mary drove from Fochabers to Inverness, bless her. After my 20 minute snore I was fine again. Arrived in Wick just after 11pm - not bad. David & Wilma were waiting and were delighted to see the kids (who had slept all the way!) However, it wasn't until after 2am that we managed to get them asleep (the kids, not the grandparents!)

So here we are. Enjoying Wick again. Can you believe it ... Wick has a massive Tescos!!!!!! What is going on? Has Tescos got a mandate to rule the world? Wick? Anyway, it is a fantastic boost to the town. We will go back to Fraserburgh on Saturday, I am preaching at Fraserburgh AoG on Sunday morning and then hearing my close friend Ben preach at the Elim Church Sunday night.

Then, next day, we will be sitting in the plane.

One week from now ...

Christmas Thoughts

We wish you a merry Christmas...
We wish you a merry Christmas...
We wish you a merry Christmas...
... and a Happy New Year!

Yup, tis the season to be jolly and all that! Today is Christmas Eve and we cannot believe that tomorrow we will be opening all our presents on a lovely Christmas Day. Seems like yesterday we were arriving at Aberdeen Airport and only a few days since we were celebrating Christmas 2005 in Santiago. Must be getting extremely old extremely fast!

Must say a couple of things here:

1. I have been totally gobsmacked that the whole of UK celebrates Christmas and yet hardly give a thought to what the implications really are. Here in UK, everyone is totally against the mad PC people who want to take Christ out of Christmas. But, in my humble opinion, it wouldn't matter to the majority of people in this country if it was only a "winter holiday". Because, to most of these people, Christmas is merely a time to drink, party, listen to corny music, kiss, decorate the Christmas tree, let the kids meet Santa, overspend and overeat. There are some positives - some go to church and most spend time with family. But often the church has no reality and offers no hope. They go, sing a few carols, eat a few mince pies and go home. Tragic.

Tragic because, if people truly believe in the Christmas story (and most do), then there are MASSIVE implications and consequences.

If this baby was the Messiah, then He must be the Saviour.
A Saviour must save us from something.
He can save us ... from sin, death and hell.
He lived, died and rose again, conquering all the above.
Through Jesus, we can go to heaven forever.
But ... there is a also definitely a hell. No in between. No second way.

I fail to believe why multitudes believe very definitely the baby of Christmas. They believe the claims of the Bible about who Jesus is. Yet, they reject Him as a Saviour. They all love to talk about heaven, but cannot possibly believe in the finality of hell. They believe Jesus is the Son of God, but they declare that all roads lead to heaven. They believe that God is love, yet cannot believe that He is also a righteous judge.

What a mixed up country we live in. What must God think? How the Lord's heart must be broken. We have lost the real meaning of Christmas - Jesus arrived to save us. Simple yet life changing.

My goodness, I started writing this blog in good heart and with great joy, but now I feel a bit flat! I think we, as Christians, must really re-evaluate what Christmas really should mean and be. What about you .. what do you think? Am I a grumpy so-and-so or am I making sense? Go on, surprise yourself ... write a comment below!

2. I must say how great it is to be a dad this Christmas. Like I said in my last blog, Lydia is at a wonderful age now where she is saying some really funny (and profound!) things. She is priceless. Josiah just goes with the flow and seems to be happy wherever he is.

It is great for us to be near our families this Christmas. We will be in Aberdeen tomorrow and boxing day. Mary's brother Bruce and his lovely wife Alison live there and Mary's mum & dad are down from Wick. Should be great. After all I have said above, I love the way that we can take a break from our hectic lives and spend quality time with our friends and family.

I leave you with a few photos I have taken over the last few weeks. They are of special places and special people. Enjoy Christmas and look after yourself. Many blessings ... I will blog soon!

Sure Dad?

Well, I am back in NE Scotland and getting ready to settle down for Christmas. Had a great time in Shetland and I had to spend a couple of days in the Central Belt this week. I have a "To Do" list about as long as roll of toilet roll, but it is time to spend time with Mary & the kids. This is just a wee short blog ... with a Christmas flavour!


A few nights ago I was telling the kids the story of Jesus when he went up the mountain and met Moses & Elijah. I know it's not Christmassy (is that really a word?), but Lydia always goes to the Index page of her children's Bible and 'chooses' the page number she feels we should go to. Prophetic at 4 years old LOL! Anyway explaining the word 'transfiguration' to a 4 & 2 year old was pretty interesting. I asked wee Lydia, "Do you know who Moses is?" I expected a "Dunno dad" but to my utter astonishment she replied, "Yup, he is the wee boy who was put in a basket and put in the river."

"Obviously having a daddy who is in charge of a Bible School is rubbing of on this wee beautiful girl," thought I proudly. I gave her a great big congratulations hug. Then I added, "How about Elijah, what did he do?", expecting a story of fire from heaven etc. "He was a lovely man" she said with great conviction, "He was the very nice man who picked Moses out of the river and looked after him!" My confidence was now wobbling.

"And what about Jesus, Lydia, what does He do?" She immediately replied, "He makes people better when they are sick, he does good things and he died for us (by this point I was wonderfully amazed that her Christology was so accurate and that she was doctrinally sound) ... and sure dad, every Christmas he goes on a sledge and gives all the good kids a wee present. I'm getting a Barbie from Jesus, sure dad?"

A Peerie Blog!

I'm sitting here eating my toast, overlooking a magnificent view of Lerwick Harbour up here in the Shetland Islands in the far north of Scotland. Maybe some of you think that I should get a job with "Wish you were Here" .. and maybe some of you are right! Ghana - Amsterdam - Central Scotland - Lerwick ... all in a few weeks.

But it is great to be able to go to places and tell people about the Lord and to share the vision of Sefton Village. So many people have been touched, inspired and challenged by our presentation and we are blessed to meet people who are regularly praying for us and who support us in so many ways. I am here in Lerwick for a double purpose. I am here with Keith Pointon, our former agent who was 'ambushed' (his words!) by the Lord and called to China for 2 years! We have great news -Keith and his lovely wife Anne are coming to Sefton Village for 2 years to help us with the ministry there. They will fly out in March and they have already been to Sefton many times. They will be such a blessing and support to us. We cried out to the Lord for help ... and he answered!

But ... it does not stop there. The Lord also called a lovely couple from Lerwick to come and help us in Sefton. Matthew is a local Shetlander and Claire comes from Northern Island. They have a beautiful wee girl called Madeline and they are expecting their second child. Claire is a Teacher and Matthew is a Civil Engineer, and so there is so many things for them to do at Sefton Village. They have been interviewed by AoG World Ministries and we are hoping that they will come and join us in the middle of 2007. Exciting eh?

So we are here to speak to the Leaders of their home church - Emmanuel Lerwick. The church really wants to be a good responsible sending church and so we are able to give them some ideas of how they can get behind Matthew and Claire. Tonight, they church have invited leaders from churches from here in Lerwick to come for a meal and then afterwards there is a service for everyone where we will share the vision of Sefton Village. Praise the Lord!

Well, this is our last week of itinerary! I arrive home on Friday and on Sunday we are at 2 local NE churches ... so no driving! I am really looking forward to going to our last church on the itinerary - Braehead Church in Gardenstown. My uncles and aunties have been in this church for many years and they are so involved in the ministry of Sefton Village. They have even made the long trip to Santiago! They run 'Soup and Sweets' once a month and very often the Children's Home at Sefton Village are the benefactors of all their hard work! By the way, you have never lived until you have tasted the soup and deserts from Braehead Gamrie! They travel from all around to taste a taste of heaven!!!!

Itinerary is never easy and it has been such a busy time. It seems we have never stopped packing and unpacking and we have done over 12000 miles on the road. It has been especialy hard for Mary and I don't know many women who has done what she has had to do. But we are looking forward to having a wee break before we go back.

So, wherever you are, take time to thanks the Lord for all His blessings of 2006. I will get back to you ASAP ... but from where, who knows!!!!

H.O.L.L.A.N.D.

Hello again! This is Mark Ritchie, international traveler and jetsetter. I arrived home from Ghana on Saturday morning, was picked up at the airport by Mary et al, went to a missions banquet on Saturday night in the Central Belt, we spoke at Harvest Church in Hamilton on Sunday morning, zoomed up north to speak at new Hope Peterhead at night and collapsed into bed in Fraserburgh in the evening!!!

Great to be home though! We had an amazing time in Ghana ... fantastic. In the next couple of weeks my intention is to write blogs on:

1. Ghana
2. Philippines - Sefton Village
3. Itinerary
4. Our kids
5. Anything else that enters ma heed!

Listen to this ... I am in Amsterdam, Holland right now. I came home and realised that Mary & I needed to leave the UK for at least two days before we go back to the Philippines, and we planned to go next week. But other things came in and so it only left this week to go. Went online, realised that we could only fly from Aberdeen to Dublin or Amsterdam ... so here we are! The real reason is that we are home for 184 days on itinerary, and if we are home for more than 182 days we have to pay a whole years tax. So here we are, tax exiles! That's our excuse and we are sticking to it!

My mum & dad are looking after the kids, so it is a wonderful break for us. First time we have been away on our own since our honeymoon! Can you believe that!

Gotta go now ... clogs to try on, tulips to pick and windmills to see. Hard life!

Will blog again soon ....