It's a couple of weeks since the last post and it has not been for laziness or lack of desire to. I spent last week in Northern Mississippi on our senior high mission trip. We had a fantastic group of youth and adults and the week was a complete success. The organisation that we were on the trip with are called Adventures In Mission (www.adventures.org) and they were a good group to be on mission with.

I really don't know where to start in terms of describing the experience. The primary focus of Adventures In Mission is a concept known as 'listening prayer'. What they mean by this is that they believe that God is not silent saviour and that he is active in speaking to his children. In our team meetings before the trip I was challenging our youth to expect God to speak to them in one way or another, their response to this idea was to tell me that God has not spoken to them and that he probably would not speak to them on the trip. You can imagine then how cool it was to watch as one by one, throughout the week, they all heard something(s) from God.

We experienced so many good things during the trip. Jen went over on her ankle and was in some serious pain on Tuesday night so we laid hands on her and prayed for her asking God to heal her and restore the ankle to full strength and mobility. The next day she had no complaints at all about the state of her ankle and she was able to walk freely on it. She was so surprised at what had happened, I think we all were. Isn't that strange how we sometimes pray and don't expect God to answer. It's almost as if the prayers we speak are more like a good team talk rather than a conversation with the Most High God. On Tuesday night we had that conversation with Him and He was happy to speak back through healing. Have I become Benny Hinn, telling people that they can all be healed? No, but I have become someone who is unafraid to genuinely pray for healing and to humbly accept God's answer whether it is a healing or not.

We were also involved in a Prison Ministry while in Mississippi. This is a weekly outreach to the men that are being held in the county jail. It was a very moving experience for all our boys (only the boys from our team were allowed to go for obvious reasons), they were able to come to the front of the room and all give testimony about how God has been at work in their lives. I want to make special mention of one of the testimonies that came from one of my youth during and after the service. During the service, Ryan read from Romans 3 v 23 where we are told by Paul that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. After reading this Ryan then looked up at the group of men gathered before him and proceeded to tell them that this verse meant that there was no difference between him and the men before him, it meant that we are all the same whether we are in jail or whether we are free. After the prison ministry, Ryan told me that any stereotype of what prison is like has now been broken down. After last Wednesday night Ryan himself was changed. There were also four men that gave their lives to Christ that night and had their lives changed as well.

We also had opportunities to minister to people in nursing homes, in a thrift store that provided cash for a local orphanage, on the streets of Tunica as well as in a trailer park at Mhoone landing just outside of the town. This trailer park was the site for our daily sports ministry/VBS with the local kids. Throughout the week our team got the chance to do what they do best - hang out with kids and get to know them and love them. By the end of the week several of the kids we were working with had recommitted their lives to Christ or hadmad that commitment for the first time. It was a beautiful thing as a Youth Pastor to watch our kids leading other kids to Christ. I am convinced that the quality of our kids work was blessed by God with quality and true commitments from the kids we were working with and if you are reading this I ask you to pray for the new Christian's of Mhoone Landing in Tunica, Mississippi.

There is so much more I could write about and maybe it will come out of me at another time but for now I feel that is enough. I want to write about my wife and daughter.

Margaret has been amazing this summer. Not only has she given birth to 9lbs 11ozs of perfection in Eva, but she has also been strong enough to be on her own for a couple of weeks as I had to go off on the mission trips with our youth. She is a fantastic mother and and incredible wife and very much the biggest blessing of my life.

Eva is now over 14lbs in weight and continues to guzzle lots of milk every day. She has developed a very cool little grin in the week I have been away and is able to focus in on things and follow them with her eyes now. On top of these cool things, she continues to sleep through the night and Margaret is able to rest at that time also. Everything is going well with Eva and she is growing and developing at the correct rates. What a beautiful gift from God! I will let the pictures do the talking.

Thanks for reading and looking and don't be afraid to leave a wee comment!!

Blessings