Greetings from another cloudless, blue sky and sunny day in Perth! It got up to 75 degrees today and all the Scottish we mumbling about how hot it was and they were truly melting. I guess it is the equivalent of us having 100 degree temps and high humidity. Their normal highs this time of year are 65 with clouds and rain, plus none of the buildings have air conditions or moving air, so an open window is all you get. In the end though, God provided us an awesome day!
The day started off with most still tired from our long travel day and trying to figure out the right time as the sun rises at 4:30am. Some of us woke up to the bright sunrise and thought we were late to Bible class only to find out it was 4:30am…ugh. After a Scottish breakfast for most, we headed to PCOC to study and worship with our brothers and sisters.
It was a great reunion for most on our trip and an introduction for a few with the PCOC brethren. Bible class started at 9am and was led by Maurice Charlton who brought insight to Matthew 5 and loving our enemies.
After a short break of fellowship, the men led the worship made of American and Scottish brothers. Scott brought us the lesson continuing to study the Beatitudes and how we can apply it to our lives in 2018.
Hearing Scott preach over the years has been a blessing for many and I see another level of maturity every year I hear him. PCOC is blessed to have Scott in the pulpit!
The afternoon consisted of
- Sandwiches, crisp and sweets at Scott’s flat where we were limited on space but enjoyed the fellowship, food and catching up
- Leafleting the remaining neighborhoods around the North Inch Community center where we will host the daily HBC and Gospel meeting
- Making a run to ASDA, the local like a Walmart, for remaining craft items, supplies and a few Scottish treats
- Dining at McDonald’s, yes McDonald’s, as over here they have a more expanded menu
- Fellowship outside at a park as we waited for our youth connections ‘meet n greet’
We ended our day participating in a new activity to meet n greet as many youth connection kids and their parents. The goal was for them to meet us and us to meet them ahead of a week of HBC. Scott and Allana had a fun mixer like program setup for us to enjoy at the Oakbank Community center.
We had 3 of the youth connection kids show up (Ben, Gracie and Roberta aka Bob) who were super exited to be with us and kickoff a fun week ahead. The mixers consisted of
- Guess what character I am where we were given a name and had to ask yes or no questions of others to solve who we were. Jeremy was the last to figure out who he was and took Bob and Gracie to break the code…he was Tinkerbell
- A timed relay event made up of four American/Scottish/English teams to drop the most chick peas into a soda bottle. The goal was to hold the pea at your nose and drop into the soda bottle…it was fun and got very competitive
- A timed relay event made up the same teams to pick up a skittles candy with chop sticks and move from one plate to another plate across the room without dropping…it was fun and again got very competitive
- A four team competition for who can do XYZ the fastest with Scott judging the outcome for a point. Examples included aligning the team in order for who had the longest hair to the shortest, making an ark made out of team members, quietist to loudest seagull sound, etc.
- A break for tea, coffee, biscuits, cakes and American candy we brought (tootsie rolls and jolly ranchers).
- And American vs Scotland real or fake duel. The goal was to decide if a city after listening to facts Scott provided was fake or real. The Americans had to guess for Scotland cities and Scottish for USA cities. To say the least, there were some interesting city names and facts to consider (Why,AR & Harry Tatties Aberdeenshire). As you imagine, neither team had a Clyde, so they guessed
The nights events were a lot of fun, gave us a perfect setting to mix with the youth connection kids, laugh a lot l and provided a way to bridge gaps. We are super excited about HBC and are praying the leaflets handed out and word gets out about the week.
We ended the night around 10pm as the sun was setting and our bodies reminding of us of a long 48 hours. Our spirits are high and super excited about our start tomorrow. Continue to pray for our planting! May God be the Glory!
In Him
Todd and BYG Missionaries