Dan Alcantara: Notes From Scotland 4 #sendthealcantaras
Hey,
All glory be to Christ!
Looking back at December
Normally, the Advent season is a really busy one for a lot of people. There is a temptation to fill up the diary so that every day is filled with activity and visiting. That’s not what happened this year. This year, the ministry calendar focussed on a few particular efforts to try to bring some light to the community as we processed entering tier 4 lockdown again immediately following Christmas Day.
I was privileged to be able to preach for our Sunday morning gathering for the third week of Advent. My passage was Hebrews 2:5-10 and you can visit this link to listen to the message. One of the big themes I’ve been noticing as I read through the Bible this year is that so much of it was written in order to remind God’s people that following Jesus is worth the effort. It’s worth the stress and the inconvenience when the world out there looks like it’s doing just fine. The book of Hebrews does this by pointing to Jesus in particular and showing how he is superior to all things. The original audience was tempted to neglect their salvation, to give up in the face of persecution. That temptation stands before us today as Scotland enters another national lockdown that includes churches being closed. Our hope in the face of this continues to be that Jesus is superior and sovereign and is working all things for his glory.
We also got to help put together a series of videos for the week leading up to Christmas. Each day featured a reading from the Christmas story in Scripture, culminating in the prophecy in Isaiah 9. These were shared with the Strathaven community Facebook group which has a membership of about 11 thousand people. Pray with us that the Holy Spirit would be at work in the hearts of those who viewed the videos. You can view the videos as well by clicking the tripod in the image above.
Looking ahead
Where 2020 was filled with uncertainty and worry, 2021 is filled with… well, those same things but with a few glimmers of hope. We don’t know what ministry is going to look like just yet but we know that it will happen. During the month of January we will be focussing on prayer as a church. Each Sunday evening we will be holding an in-person prayer service as well. It was a bit unclear whether these would actually be happening because we didn’t want to overburden the tech team. One of the big challenges of ministry these last few months has been trying to encourage people to join us for worship in person. People here are much more cautious and many in the church are shielding because they or their family members are high risk.
Now that this has again been taken away, pray that those who call SEC their home church would persevere and engage as much as possible as we try to continue doing ministry online. Continue to pray that as the vaccine rollout takes place, that people would greatly desire to meet in person again rather than settle for watching a prerecorded service online. Pray that people would have an urgency to gather again when restrictions are eased.
At home
Things at home have begun to finally start to feel a little bit more settled. We are sure that there is still more work to be done in getting there but a few things have helped over the last month.
Despite restrictions, were able to have a really lovely Christmas here in Craigielea (our cottage has a name). We spent time with family on FaceTime, had a traditional British Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings and the kids received a massive haul of presents from family and some families from our new community.
Sophie, Chloe and Liam are now able to get free transport to school. School buses aren’t really a thing over here, but the kids are entitled to a mini-bus because we don’t have a safe walking route to the school. This frees up Tracy quite a bit during the day to run errands and things without having to think about when to be home, particularly on days when I am working from home.
The other thing is that Owen has finally been offered a place with a nursery in town. All children are entitled to 16 hours each week of free nursery school. Owen being in nursery will pave the way for Tracy to be able to work. While our budget and support raising have been made with Tracy working in mind, our primary goal for her working is so that we can stay in the UK permanently to continue doing ministry, particularly in Scotland.
Prayer requests
As always there is much to prayer about but we hope that you will join us in prayer for these specific things:
A job for Tracy - this is a big one and continues to be our primary concern. We have continued to be amazed at God’s provision and we believe he will provide the right job that will enable us to be able to focus on the task at hand while preparing to give our lives to ministry here in Scotland.
A new car - we have been extremely blessed by the car that Tracy’s parents gave her last year. In fact, this whole move would be impossible without it. However, it only seats 5 people and we’re a family of 6. Pray that God would provide a bigger car that will enable us to go out as a family. There is a huge park in town and it would open up a lot of doors for being able to meet with people in the community if we were able to be there as a family. It would also make it easier for us to get out on the weekends to explore the surrounding area and enjoy days out.
Online learning for everyone - Starting on Monday, 5/6s of the Alcantaras (even Owen!) will be doing some form of online learning as schools have had to remain closed. Pray that we would be able to keep a routine as a family and that we would not go crazy!
Building relationships in lockdown - One of our biggest challenges in trying to get settled and stuck into the community is that we haven’t been able to properly meet with people. Pray that there would be open doors for us to begin meeting with people both within and outwith the church and building relationships that lead to discipleship opportunities.
