support

it's that time of year. We've been over here in Edinburgh for just under a year now, and are in the process of encouraging our supporters to continue prayerfully and financially partnering with the ministries we're blessed to be apart of.

We're putting together a pretty sweet DVD collection of some Eikon sermons, funny videos, picture slideshows, interviews and other things to show you some of the exciting things that have and will continue to go on while we push on for another year.


If there is anyone out there that has been following our experiences and are not yet supporting us and would like to, please send us an email with your information and we'll throw you on our list. Don't worry, we don't send out constant mails to you. In fact, I've mainly stuck to keeping this blog updated for our supporters.

We're needing to increase our budget because of how bad the US dollar is, but we've got no worries on that end, God is certainly good.

I'll do some reflections on what we've seen develop over the course of the year. To think that this started with a God-sized dream from a few guys, and to see where the Lord has brought it to this point......wow! Can't believe we're lucky enough to join in and see where this wild ride takes Eikon.

Eikon Kids

Haven't come up with a creative name yet, but I never thought I'd be so pumped that we started Eikon's children ministry this past weekend!

It's a sign of growth, but more importantly it adds another dimension to who we're able to reach out to. We've had a number of people contact us in the past wondering if we had anything available for children. Kate has done a great job organizing that, along with Amy and some other volunteers.

Praise God for these kids and another connection-point!

Look forward to being able to speak the next two Eikon gatherings.......good God, pray for that:)

opera

I've talked about this before, but one of the things that excites me so much about Eikon right now is the diversity of people that participate in our gatherings and various events. Though it's a natural display of a city center church, we're diverse demographically and ethnically.

We have an amazingly talented musician at our church, along with his wife who has been helping us with worship. Bruce and Mary have been such a blessing to Eikon. He happens to be an opera singer and a group of us went to check out an "opera-friendly" show, a sort of Opera for beginners. They took us through a typical rehearsal they would have, taught us the lighting set-ups, musical timing and showed us some of the highlights of the particular opera. It was a blast! Bruce was up by himself for part of the show. One of the things that always amazes me about operas is that the singers don't use microphones at all! Bruce, you're the man.

dreaming?

Kate and I were in bed, trying to sleep because Eikon is tomorrow morning and it's an early start when we heard constantly yelling and heards of people....what in the world?

I look out the window to see a see of woman walking with an obvious theme, they were all wearing bras over their shirts. Come to find out it was breast cancer awareness and every year on this date at exactly midnight! there is a march that starts from the bottom of the Mile up to the Castle. It was all very decent and working towards a great cause, but wow, I couldn't tell is I was dreaming or awake! We stood there and watched for at least 15 minutes and the sea of people didn't think about letting up.

Never seizes to amaze us what random things go on when you live where we do.

engaged!

Brian Rainville and Amy Boutwell have come over from Naperville to serve the ministry of Eikon. They arrived a week ago and it's already been an incredible blessing to have them here. They plan to stay from 6-8 weeks. Brian has a Master's degree in Counseling and Amy is a sign language interpreter. Brian is one of the most important friendships that I have in my life, one of those where trust, loyalty and love for one another is a very rare combination in friend. He has such a passion for people. You honestly couldn't ask for a better easy-going, serving, and encouraging couple than Brian and Amy, which are the most important characteristics in short-medium term missions.

Three days upon arrival, Brian got down on one knee in the Princess Gardens overlooking Edinburgh Castle and proposed to Amy. Kate and I were hiding in the bushes, trying to get some pictures of the moment. This is the second time I've been blessed to photograph a proposal. They're so much fun; catching the joy, the tears, hugs and just the energy of the moment.
We heart these guys.

MC Graduation

Master's Commission had their graduation today during Eikon. Mike did a great job sharing, the theme being "navigating through life." We had the opportunity to present the students with The Message bibles, or as Tony likes to use as a euphemism: the library. Eric, Andrew, Osama, and Kyle were the students and they were a great help with Eikon this year. They showed up every week to help set-up, and they will significantly missed for that. They also ran video and controlled the media and took part in many other activities in the ministry. The Eikon team prayed for them at the end and we headed out to Mike's for a barbecue.


We have learned that if you stick a camera in front of Mike, he can come up with some pretty amazing material. This particular video was all improv.

Did a video of the devil encouraging people not to go to Eikon....take a look:

north sea

Went to Portibello and decided to try out the North Sea. The nice thing about having a best friend around these days is you do things you wouldn't normally do alone.

The North Sea is not exactly the Carribean, the water is, well, freezing.

Watch us brave the cold HERE

gamers

We're, or I should say Kate is an avid gamer, so it's been nice having brian and amy here who love games. We met a really nice couple the other day.
Leighann and Eric arrived from Australia a few weeks ago not knowing anyone and without any plans for work. They were married 5 weeks ago and just decided to come here for an unspecified period. Talk about fly by the seat of your pants. Needless to say, we connected with them immediately. Since they've arrived, they both found full-time work in an engineering firm and interior design company respectively. Not bad, I'd like their resumes.

studio part II

Had an awesome day in Red Roof Studios this past saturday. The last time we filmed it turned out well, but we threw it together last minute. This time we came quite prepared and brought half of Eikon:)
Michael MacNamee happened to be in town with the director of church planting for the Rocky Mountain District along with the AG director of Scotland Andrew Smith, so it was nice to have them stop by and see the types of projects we're getting involved with.
It was non-stop laughs. There were probably 20 people in the backdrop watching the filming, so when Tony got up for the first time to shoot a scene and forgot his lines only two words in, we all completely lost it. I stopped for a moment to soak it all in.

We did a few scenes where we interviewed people from Eikon. They all turned out well. I was touched by what James, a new guy that has started attending Eikon through a personal invitation from someone, said when asked what makes him want to attend Eikon: "it's like an extended family". I could really tell he meant it, and it's completely true. I looked around this past sunday during gathering and just smiled because we've got such an amazing group that has come together.

the skinny

Great to see our ad in "the skinny". The Skinny is a free monthly events newspaper that has a distribution of 75,000 that is targeted for 20-somethings in Edinburgh and Glasgow. It showcases bands, theater, op-ed pieces and for the first time, at least from my understanding, a church advert. We met with a gentleman from the newspaper a while back because they were, rightfully so, somewhat skeptical of who we were. The conversation went over well and they were completely cool with running some ads for the next several months.

This month:
"No perfect people allowed", a line that we've actually gotten from someone else but felt it really fits the description of who we are.

It was such a great feeling today as I grabbed the newspaper, thumbed through and found our nice, big advert! We're praying it grabs peoples attention.