Dan Alcantara: Notes from Scotland #6
Dear Redemption
It’s been a long and isolated winter, but spring is on its way and ministry is picking up!
Ministry Updates
While February was still cold, wet and snowy much of the time, we did experience a week of milder weather. It was great to see that lambing season has begun, although the farmers caring for their fields has meant that it smells of 💩 outside now!
The change in the weather, however, has meant that it is much easier for me to get into town on my bike. That means I’m now able to cycle into town on Sundays to finally learn the live-streaming setup at the church. It’s something that I haven’t had a reason to learn until now but it is potentially providing a discipleship opportunity as one of the church’s students has been running it from the start.
I had the privilege again of preaching in February. We are spending some time back in John’s gospel, going through chapter 7 when Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s been fascinating looking at the different responses to Jesus’ claims about his identity but the overwhelming theme of the chapter is his control. He is in a crowd, yet no one can lay a hand on him. His brothers insist on him going to the festival to show off. Temple guards are commanded to arrest him. And yet, none of this is successful because “his hour had not yet come.”
Theological training has continued on Zoom, now focusing on the major prophets, learning to preach from the gospels and slowly working through Mark’s gospel (we spent an entire morning on the first 3 verses because there is so much there). Oh yeah, and we’re currently practicing preaching the Epistles in preaching class. On Monday, I will be giving a talk on Philippians 3:1-11 which I’ve tentatively titled “Suffer-fest” because of the juxtaposition of rejoicing and suffering in the passage. After I’ve received feedback, I will share a link to it in next month’s newsletter.
At Home
The kids have continued to do really well in their home learning. Both they and their teachers have settled into a rhythm with it and so they’re able to be a little bit more independent with some of the work. All three of the big kids have also received postcards from the head teacher which really brightened their days. God-willing, though, they will be returning to the classroom on the 15th! While we have loved having all of this extra time with them, it has been a struggle for us to keep everything going. Tracy’s Sunday afternoons were lost to preparing all of the kids folders for the week, the constant context switching in the dining room (it is amazing how much a table cloth can change the way you think at certain times).
Owen, however, has started going in to preschool every day! It’s been a never-ending story, but after we found out he finally had a place in a nursery, the government closed all of the schools. As lockdown has begun to lift, early learning has been prioritised and so he was finally able to meet his teachers and new classmates last week. He is loving being in school and getting to do something special while his siblings are all still doing home learning.
In the News
Because this is such a small community, SEC’s evangelism team has an opportunity to share updates in the local newspaper. This time around, the team asked if we would share a bit about our experience so far and so we’ve been introduced to the local area before we’ve been able to meet a lot of people!
