A Wee Bit of Scotland!!

Greetings folks!! I was supposed to do this blog ages ago but I've been a bit limited on the internet access...these things happen!! Anyways, as most of you probably know, I was invited to come up to Scotland the first week of October to share at a one-day women's retreat hosted by my sister Mattie's church there (Calvary Fellowship of Carluke). It was a great time and the Lord really blessed it, so I wanted to just give ya a little snapshot of my time there!

Oops, how did this picture get in here? Just kidding! Before getting into the retreat, I couldn't resist sneaking in a couple pics of my handsome 2-year-old nephew, Luke!! :) Pretty darn cute, huh? As most of you probably know, my sister married a Scotsman (Martin) so they live up there.

Oh and here he is again!! OK I have to say that, being a big Seattle Seahawks fan, I in no way condone the Chicago Bears hat he is wearing (that's Martin's team)...but somehow he still looks cute in it!!

OK let's move on to the retreat!! What a sweet group of women this was!! Although the majority were from Calvary Fellowship Carluke, a few other women from neighboring Calvary Chapels attended as well (even a couple non-Christians who were invited!)...so of course that was great! By the way, the woman I'm sitting next to in the front row is Doreen (the pastor's wife who also happens to be Martin's mom!). She's such a neat lady!!

My sister and I were asked to lead worship together for the retreat, which was so fun (plus Mattie is a better singer than me so that helps)!!

Here I am getting ready to teach!! Let me tell ya, the Lord really showed Himself faithful in this! I had lots of spiritual warfare beforehand, so since I was sharing on the subject of FAITH, this was certainly an opportunity for me to step out, put that into practice, and see God do a neat work!! I was definitely encouraged by seeing His hand on the whole event (and also to experience once again the power of prayer)!!

Here's a little shot of the women spending time together afterwards. They don't often have the opportunity to get together for a retreat like this, so times of fellowship with other Christian women is super encouraging!

I thought I would throw in a couple shots of the church in Carluke as well! Here's Pastor Jim Tatton (Martin's dad) getting ready to share from God's Word...

...and here's the congregation singing during worship!

So that's the women's retreat in a nutshell!! As always, I wanted to give you a visual of what I've been doing, but in this case I also want to encourage you to please pray for Calvary Fellowship Carluke (and all the churches in Scotland of course!), that the Lord would continue to encourage and build up His people there, as well as raise people up to serve Him in that country that so needs the love of Jesus Christ! As Jesus said in Luke 10:2, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."