Day 5: It’s Friday!

This morning we went and served at the High Kirk by weeding a little bit more. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters we were also able to buy the church a blower which they will be able to use in the years to come. After serving at the church we participated in the afternoon tennis session. All of the teenagers walked through downtown Kilmarnock up to the Tait’s house. We watched Andy Murray’s semi-final and had dinner with everyone. Immediately following dinner we all went out and weeded the Tait’s garden and driveway. We also threw out three huge bags of rocks. This was the first service project that we had done with all of the Scotland boys which was a great bonding time for all of us.-Josh

Friday was a really cool day. I met some awesome girls who were my age and helped coach the tennis. They were Christians and were leaving for a Christian camp the next week. It was really encouraging for me to see some people who shared in the struggles we have faced as a team, in their daily life. I pray that they were encouraged by us as I was most definitely encouraged by them. Later on, all the Scottish guys and Trey, Josh, and I were able to work in one of the host families’ front yard and lay down rocks. It was really special to see all the guys out there working, having a good time and spending time with each other.- Emma

Breakfasts in Scotland are absolutely amazing. Love the bacon, the haggis, the sausage, the rolls, the black pudding. Amazing!!! There is one lady who does a ton of the work for the church, we just couldn’t imagine her sweeping off the long driveway with a broom. Because of the generosity of our supporters, we were able to buy a blower for the High Kirk. At this point in the trip, our plans had been changed a lot. We had come over to Scotland with an itinerary for each day. Every day, our plans had changed at least once. We came to realize that the tennis was not what we thought it would be. In the past, Kirstie has run the tennis camps done everything a certain way. That was before Kilmarnock Tennis Club had a teaching pro there. Now, we realized that we would take more of a sideline job. At first this discouraged us. Everything we had planned for wasn’t happening. We really had to do some soul-searching. I was reminded that “God is most glorified when we let God be God.” As hard as it was to see the good in the first few days of our trip, I was inspired to stay the course, keep trusting God that He would work through us, even if it would be in different ways than we thought. -Trey