Making umbrella salesmen happy..

Well, it's now officially been AGES since I last posted a journal entry. The long delay between entries all started when I failed to pay for the domain where this site is located and my website was offline for a month. Then it continued as I went to America and had three weeks of craziness in which almost nothing went according to plan and a lot of time was spent in a hospital visiting my dad. Then I got back to Scotland last week and got sick. Oh well. I'm back now and will try to be much more faithful in posting to this journal!

RAIN! I couldn't believe it! I left rainy Scotland for three whole weeks in Sunny California, and it rained almost every day!!! Oh well, that's what I get for bragging to all my friends that I'm going away to the land of sunshine! And I did at least miss the big blizzard here in Scotland last week.

My visit to the States went well in many ways. During the last 13 days of my visit I preached 15 times in Spanish evangelistic outreaches and a number of people came to Christ. I also had the wonderful opportunity of catching up with a lot of my Spanish speaking friends in California as well as with my family. However, it was also a difficult time because on the very day I arrived my dad fell and broke his hip. He ended up having surgery and staying in hospital for 19 days. Our plans to have a late Christmas dinner on the 28th of December were delayed until the 19th of January after he was finally out of hospital, but we did finally have that dinner and my dad is now safely back at home.

I also planned to visit friends in Southern California and those plans fell through due to closed roads as a result of snow and later floods, so it was a disappointment that I didn't get to see many of my friends in America as I probably won't be back for at least a year. However, for the most part it was a good trip, and it was encouraging to see God doing awesome things in the churches. I got to visit the church in Winton, California, which was started when I preached there a few years ago, and it was great to see that the work is continuing. I also got to see other works that I had been involved with in the past and see that they are progressing well and continuing to grow, and I made new friends in Modesto and Riverbank.

I've been a bit unwell the past few days, but I'm recovering again and start back at college tomorrow. I also preached here in Kirkintilloch on Sunday, and we had an especially good day. A number of people told me that they had especially been touched and challenged by the messages, and one young lady from Tanzania who lives here and visits occasionally gave her life to the Lord. I also came back to the news that two other people came to Christ here at the church while I was away. Good things are happening, and I look forward to seeing what God has in store for us in the year to come.

As for the weather here in Scotland, in case you're wondering, I checked the weather forecast for the coming week. It's supposed to rain.