Today we had our training session from 8 to 10. After that, we went to Edinburgh all day. We walked through the castle which was spectacular. After that we walked down the Royal Mile. On the way down the road we saw the worst street entertainer ever. Then we walked into St. Giles church. This church holds a canvas with signatures of hundreds of covenanters that lived in the 1600’s. Then we rushed to John Knox’s house. We were able to show the boys how much of an impact he had on Scotland through his Christian beliefs. That night we had the opportunity to have tea with Marc. (One of the Scotland boys) We spent three hours at his house which enabled us to grow our relationship with him. -Josh
Going into Edinburgh with the boys was a special time. Many of them were touched deeply by the paper in St. Giles with the covenanters signature on it. They had never been taught anything like that in school, and it truly impacted them I believe. We had lots of fun fellowship and laughs in Edinburgh and just enjoyed our time with them. My highlight of the trip though has to be Tuesday night. We went to one of the tennis boy’s home for tea in the evening. He has a younger sister, Roisin, who is my age: 15 who has epilepsy. She had’t been with company for over 2 years. When we first walked in she was very quiet and shy, and wanted to be ignored. I sat next to her and started asking her questions about herself. At first she kind of ignored them, or answered them briefly, but ever so slightly she started asking me questions, answering the ones I asked her, and by the end of our visit she was laughing and joking with me like we had been friends for a long time. It was such an amazing night. I knew then that that was why I was on the mission trip, if my only impact was to make her more social and feel like she is awesome, then mission accomplished. It was really special for me to finally feel like I had a purpose and that God had laid out something for me ahead of time that would make a big impact on me the rest of the trip. The most amazing thing is that the tea wasn’t even planned, it was a last minute decision and it came to be one of the best decisions we made as a team on the trip. -Emma
Edinburgh was so amazing. I really enjoyed walking the cobbled streets of the Royal Mile, touring the castle, and especially St. Gile’s Cathedral. Inside the cathedral, a covenant resides bearing the signatures of thousands of Covenanters (Christians from the 1600s who were persecuted for their faith). Each of the signatures signified someone who refused to accept the King as the head of the church. Each of those people were hunted down and killed (along with 300,000 others) for their faith. Viewing this age-old paper impacted me in a huge way. It was so powerful being in the presence of the signatures of all these martyrs. Their sacrifice has inspired me to live with my faith on my sleeve and be more mission-minded. I am, more than ever, burdened for the lost. There are countless people I interact with all the time who have a huge debt to pay for their sin. Jesus can pay that debt; this news is too valuable for me to hold in. So if anything about me changes, I pray that I will become more bold. That night, we were able to go to Marc’s house for tea. We meant to stay for half and hour; we ended up staying for 3 hours. We loved growing our relationship with Marc and kind of seeing what makes him tick. His family were such kind and generous hosts. -Trey
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