Wednesday, 13 June 2013

Things here in Scotland have been grand: it has been wonderful to see friendships with clients, volunteers, and staff at the Mission grow and develop. Tina made it safely and without incident into Glasgow on Wednesday morning and joined Tyson and I as we helped out at the Young Men's club Thursday. Since the art show was on at the Mission, we took the guys under 40 bowling where Tina beat pretty much everyone :)

We had the night off from the Mission and took the time to chat about how we each were doing, being here and what God has been teaching us. It was really great to take the time to connect deeper as a team!

On Tuesday night, I met a young man who had just ended up on the streets a few days before and had come to the Mission for the first time that night! I was able to connect him w/ one of the staff workers who was able to get him some resources and he came back on Wednesday! It was awesome to see that he realized that the Mission was a place of sanctuary and wanted to return! Please pray that God would use the Mission to draw this young man closerto Himself.

Wednesday night, there was an older gentleman who had been sleeping in a park for almost two weeks w/o looking for resources. He made it to the Mission and one of the staff, Ewan, spent a large bit of time trying to help him find a place to stay that night. When he was unable to do so by phone, he took him by car to other places but none of them had room so Ewan gave him, blankets, a sleeping bag, and warm clothes and let him off at a place known to be safe for sleeping outside (or sleeping rough as they call it here).  

Ewan and I chatted afterward and I was reminded that sometimes we're not able to provide for others in the way we want to so we have to realize we are not God but that God loves these folk more than we ever can; then we do what we can like giving them the resources we do have available, and pray.  We haven't seen the man since and would appreciate having you join us in praying that God would provide this older gentleman a safe warm place to stay while he gets back on his feet.

Ben Mercer