Dear Friends,
Greetings from Bristol! My train arrived here Monday evening and after taking my luggage home, I was able to meet some of the Christians at a goodbye party for one of the members. Yesterday was the midweek Bible study where I met several more members. Today was my first day participating in the activities here. This morning started off with a meeting with Trevor and Jason who are two of the evangelists. I am staying with Trevor and his wife Pauline, and Jason works with the youth. We went over the coming events and discussed my roles. Then they put me to work stuffing and addressing envelopes to be mailed out today. After lunch, Jason and I went into town to run some errands. I got a good taste of the Bristol bus system. When we got back, we had just enough time to prepare for Bible club which is for the children. Many of the children that come to this each week do not come from Christian homes. This is one of their outreach programmes here. I had a large role in the activities tonight. I walked the children through their memory verse (Matthew 5:16) and worked with them on a Father's Day preparation activity. It was a good experience and the children are just lovely.
The previous two weeks have been very full. The first week I was in Aberdeen with the group from University Church of Christ in Montgomery. Basically what we did there was go to primary schools and the YMCA and put on a programme about the fruits of the spirit. At one school, we were able to play with the children during recess, and I know that experience will be remembered by all of us. We also went to sheltered housing and sang for the residents there. In the evenings, Donnie Hilliard presented his Marriage Seminar. We only had a couple of children at those times, but we took turns teaching and taking care of them. Saturday was the Family Fellowship Day, and we taught the classes for the children and teens. We had crafts and puppets for them as well. It was this day that I left the group and went to Glasgow with Iain Cameron and his family. They had been at the Family Fellowship Day and going with them saved me from a train ride. My week in Glasgow was kind of a refreshing time and served as a valuable transition time between working in Aberdeen and coming to Bristol. The Camerons took me to lots of sites and really showed me many faces of Scotland.
I was planning on updating my website during this time, but that may not be as easy as I had hoped. I will let you know if I am able to do so. I will send more newsletters in the next few weeks. I am planning on making a folder presentation of the whole trip with lots of pictures and a detailed journal and who knows what else. In any case, I want you all to know that anyone who is interested in my work here will have the opportunity to view something with pictures and details.
Please continue to keep me in your prayers. It is a very friendly environment here, but it is still different from home.
In Christ,
Elizabeth McBrayer