Hi friends,
My brain is all over the place today, so thanks in advance for bearing with such a random letter! Below are a few updates on how our church plant is doing as well as a few ways you can be praying for us.
[As a side note — All of the outreaches mentioned below (like Bible studies, cafes, etc) are wonderful and are often mentioned in my letters because they are easier to describe sometimes than the day to day living…but they aren’t the meat and potatoes, so to speak, of the ministry here. What I mean is that we seek to live our lives here in Merkinch in such a way that every day is an intentional day of evangelism and discipleship…because every day is a day to make much of Jesus in Merkinch.]
Café
Our Thursday café outreach has been super busy the last few weeks both with people from our community we already know and new people. Tomorrow will be my first time back to the café in a long while, and I’m excited for it. Please pray for a deepening of relationships with the folks who come and many opportunities to get to share about our Lord of Hope.
New people
Speaking of new people, we have had a number of new people from our community coming not only to our café but also to our Sunday service and our Bible studies. Last night the women on our launch team started going through the Gospel of Mark and four women from our scheme came along. It was encouraging to hear those women talking about Jesus; again and again they seemed to be surprised that Mark records people immediately giving up everything in response to Jesus’ call to follow Him. “There is something different about Jesus. Something compelling. He’s either really arrogant to call people to follow Him, or He really is who He says He is.” We are praising God for the ways we see His hand at work here. Even as we pray for opportunities to meet more people in our scheme, please pray that we will continue to be faithful witnesses and friends to these folks that the Lord has given us contact and/or relationship with.
Moving ahead
Prayers would also be appreciated for me as I make headway into planning an April outreach week for the kids in our scheme. This is an opportunity for us to bring the light of the Gospel to kids who live in a spiritually dark area. And so it’s my plea, really, that this outreach would just be soaked in prayer. I am so desperate for God’s leading and direction as well as for His provision of open doors into getting to know the families in our community.
There is much to pray for, but I will leave it there for this week. As I sit here at my desk I can see the tops of some housing flats, and I’m reminded of John 14:2…my Father’s house has many rooms. We persevere on with joy through much hard fighting because we know that the Lord will call all of His people to Himself…and because we know that Jesus is worth it.
Thank you for your many prayers. We couldn’t do this without you. Keep clinging to Jesus,
Claire
Claire in Scotland 