At the invitation of local christians and also the Fishermen’s Mission Deputy Superintendent Willie Buchan we held a Lighthouses of Prayer Training Day in Thurso. This was attended by 21 people all of whom appeared to be excited about the vision. It also appeared that some people were already praying, caring and sharing the Good News through a local cafe and meetings held in homes. We were pleased to see representatives from local churches and also from other places too. We had some people from Lairg, Wick, Kirkwall and of course Thurso.

The picture shows Ernie Gibson teaching on the day.
Each of the three sessions ended with practical work in groups allowing us to share our thoughts and encourage one another.

During the past months our church has been studying the amazing book of Daniel.  I have been moved to tears in studying Daniel’s Prayer.  Initially he pours out his heart in confession of the sin’s of his nation. This leads onto a prayer of intercession, where he cries out to the Lord to have mercy on all the people and heal the land.

 “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.  O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay because your city and your people bear Your Name.” Daniel 9:18b,19

 I pray that this would be our prayer not just here in the Uists but in our Nation. There has been concentrated prayer around centres of population by Lighthouses, as we are being led by the Lord.  We are very aware of specific areas needing much prayer.  Please stand with us. At Christmas our Church gave out to the wider community in Benbecula the booklet ‘trypraying’, especially written for people who may never have prayed.  We are praying that we will see the fruit of this gift. We have had a follow-up Youth With a Mission (YWAM) visit recently.  They worked with our Youth Clubs: Junior and Senior.  Praise God all of the Senior youth went forward for prayer on the last evening: some to renew commitments made on the last visit, some made faith commitments and some for prayer for families and personal needs.

 Please pray:

·       How we should disciple these young people: we are considering a Youth Alpha Course at a Youth Fellowship that will be starting in May.

·       For a Scripture Union Group to be started at Lionacliet School (Seniors). 

 Sylvia Norton

This vision that has been shared across Scotland since 2007, is one with which we are still seeing fruit and expect to see even more. It is becoming vital to so many who engage with it. Not only is this the simplest most practical way to live your Christian life but it is fundamental to building your faith as you practise the pray-care-share lifestyle. It has also been a bridge in many places to Churches working together and a more unified approach being part of the resultant witness. It also takes the Church out of the building and deals with our daily walk. It causes us to engage with people in our community. It is the great commission in a nutshell, so wonderfully modelled by the early Church, encouraging the Church to engage with people where they live and work. Not so many years ago Mark Greene was encouraging us to “take God to work” and the Lighthouse vision is to “take God to your street, work, indeed wherever you go and touch the lives of other people”.  It is about being the “Good News”.
A recent report from Sylvia Norton in South Uist tells of a number of groups engaging in prayer for their community and also their use of the “trypraying” booklet as an outreach tool. In February Ola Norstrom and I visited Shetland to share the Lighthouse Vision and found that it had arrived ahead of us. Groups having been established in Orkney in 2009 word had spread to Shetland and even though Ola and I did not arrive till 2010 the Church in Shetland was already functioning in the community with practical support a major factor. Recent reports from Shetland indicate that Lighthouse groups are continuing to function and there is real expectation for growth in their number. This month (April) I went back to Orkney to support the “Love Orkney” initiative and shared again the Lighthouse vision. There are regular praise evenings in the various parishes and outer islands and these events coupled with the establishing of Lighthouse groups is a good way to build the Kingdom there. As many Churches are threatened with closure for either financial or numerical reasons there is a real concern for these congregations about their future. Lighthouse groups are one way of staying together and taking steps to engage and change your community without the burden of maintaining an expensive building. In Orkney I joined a fellowship meeting in the Community Centre. Now I come to think of it the “Love Orkney” evening was also held in one in Finstown.
Perhaps there is a greater power at work encouraging us to consider what is more important. This vision has stayed with me for these three years and I believe that it is certainly one way that blesses those involved in it, creates unity, as churches work together and shows people that God loves them as we become the conduits that carry the message through supporting them in prayer, practically caring in so many ways and sharing our faith and what motivates us when they begin to enquire.
Derek Jardine

The Orkney Islands number over 50 although only a small number are populated. Having arrived just after the St Magnus Celebrations (Arts Festival in the cathedral of the same name) and during the Jazz Festival, I realised that there is always something to celebrate in Orkney.

My main reason for visiting was to represent Pray for Scotland and to support the “Love Orkney” celebration, held this time, in the community centre in the parish of Finstown on the Saturday evening. It is planned to have these celebrations in all the parishes of the mainland and also when possible on some of the outer islands. This way there will be worship, praise and a presence of God in each of these places with a crying out  to our Heavenly Father to touch the Islands once again in a new wave of revival.

 It was also possible to hold a Lighthouses of Prayer training opportunity on the Saturday morning which drew some new and some old faces as we considered how this vision might be spread across the Islands and also be networked in support of the Love Orkney vision.

Sunday took me to Stromness to worship there in the morning and also back again in the evening to speak to a group of men as we considered what it means to be “Son’s of God”. All in all this was a short trip but did allow me to get a feel for the vision of those involved, across different churches, who carry in their hearts a desire to see God move again, in power, in this beautiful place.
Derek Jardine

Ola and I visited Shetland over this extended weekend and shared the Lighthouses of Prayer vision
at a training day held on the Saturday. We also met with a number of people during our visit
through attending various meetings including: a men’s breakfast at Emmanuel Fellowship in Lerwick,
a large home group in Walls and an evening at Kerith with various leaders thanks to the wonderful
hospitality of Roger and Rosemary Pocock. This was a time of releasing for  Shetland as we became aware shortly after arriving there. It was obvious to us that God was busy in the hearts of many.Outreach initiatives were underway in many parts of the Islands with great enthusiasm from those involved. While our main purpose was of course the training day we were blessed to have such a wonderful opportunity to touch the church in Shetland at many levels. In reflecting on this trip I find myself realising that we received as much from this visit as I hope Ola and I were able to give. As in all things we rely on our  Heavenly Father as we work together with Him to establish His Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
Derek Jardine.

Background
Jean Black had given all of the Pray for Scotland core members a stake at a core team meeting at the end of July 2008.  On the 31st July 2008 Anne Stewart and I did a prayer walk in Prestonpans.  Anne had been praying before we met and she had a picture of a metal cross that was driven into the ground, Anne asked where this might be as she felt this was the place we were to pray.  I could not think of any, we trusted the Lord to lead our steps and we found ourselves heading for the high place in the town known as Meadowmill.  When we got to the top we noticed electricity pylons which were made up of a series of metal crosses, we were in the right place.  I took the stake that Jean had given me at the core team meeting and Anne and I believed the high place should be staked, however the time wasn’t right.
In October 2008 my prayer partner, Pauline Smith and I attended a Lighthouses of Prayer weekend where we were given another stake from Ola Nordstrom.  Ola had shared about how he had staked the villages around his area in Aryshire.  Some ladies from the Calendar Lighthouses of Prayer also shared about how they had staked the high places and then the entrances to their town.  Pauline and I have held on to the idea of staking the land and wondered where we should drive our stake; we believed that it should be the high place; the only high place in Prestonpans is Meadowmill.  The last time we prayer walked to the high place was in July 2002.  That evening was such a blessed time with the Lord showing His glory through creation, we had the joy of enjoying a double rainbow, which we saw as a sign of God’s promise. 
Things have changed on the top of the high place since we were last there.  There is now a memorial to the battle of Prestonpans, with story boards and a flagpole which files the Jacobite flag.
Staking of Meadowmill
It was on the 3rd November that Pauline and I headed off to stake Meadowmill.  Before we set off we prepared a stake with scriptures, the scripture that came so strongly was ‘Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; lengthen your cords, And strengthen your pegs.  For you will spread about to the right and to the left, And your descendants will possess nations, And they will resettle the desolate cities’.   Isa. 54: 1 – 3 (NASV) as we stood at the top of Meadowmill we could see that the town had spread to the right and to the left.  The NIV version speaks of stakes.  This linked back to a word which was shared at the July 2002 prayer walk about us stretching out our tent pegs which comes from the same verse.  Back in 2002 Pauline led us in song, we sang ‘Let there be a canopy stretched forth to thy  praise, A tent for the glory of God, Make it great by lifting hands stretched forth to thy name, A tent for the glory of God….’ 
The other scripture we declared over the town was ‘For I know the plans I have for you (Prestonpans), declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and hope…Jer. 29: 11 – 14. 
As we were walking I was talking with the Lord and I asked Him for a rainbow as a sign of His promise.  When we got to the top we proclaimed scriptures over the town, we praised our Father and we prayed for His kingdom to come in Prestonpans, in Scotland and beyond. 
When we looked at the land around us on the high place we were unsure as to where to drive the stake.  We had asked the Lord when we got to the top to lead us as to where to drive the stake.  As we looked around we placed the stake facing the town and had faith to believe that as two physically weak women we would with the Lords strength have His power to drive the stake into the ground.   The word HOPE was written on the top of the stake and as we drove it into the ground we saw the word HOPE begin to change, it began to look like LOVE.  As we were driving the stake into the ground we were praying and remembering what Jesus did for us when he was nailed to the cross.   As we looked at the red ribbon on the stake we remembered the blood that Jesus shed for our sins and we thanked Him for His LOVE and the HOPE He gives us.  We asked that 1,000,000 souls will be saved in Scotland, also that the people of Scotland will know the HOPE that is found in Jesus and the wonder of His amazing LOVE.
As we walked down from the high place Pauline said ‘Margo, look a rainbow, WOW what a faithful and generous Father we have, once again He showed us a sign of His promise to us.
Staking of the entrances to Prestonpans
On the 9th November Pauline and I were joined by Pastors Ronnie and Alice Graham and also Major John Houston to stake the five entrances to the town.  We were each to write scriptures on a stake and we would each pray and stake an entrance.  Every stake had a red ribbon tied around it, the word HOPE written on the top, and ‘Jesus we ask You for 1,000,000 souls to be saved in Scotland ‘.
We met at the Salvation Army and headed for the North West entrance to the town opposite Sam Burn’s yard.  At every entrance we proclaimed the word by reading the scriptures that were on each stake and we prayed.  As we drove from entrance to entrance we sang and praised the Lord in the car. 
The weather on the 9th was unbelievable for November as it was as warm and sunny as some July days.  Prior to this it had rained at some point every day from the 4th November; this meant the land was soft and ready to take the stakes.  As we prayed and staked the ground I was reminded of a picture I had at a prayer meeting about eight years ago.  It was of the ground being hard and dry, we so desperately wanted to plant seed and we were shown through the picture that the time wasn’t right.  If we had planted seed in the dry ground the rain would wash the seed away.  What was needed was persistent prayer; it was prayer that would soften the hard ground, then the time would be right to plant the seed.  We thanked the Lord that the ground had softened and we prayed that the time was right for souls to be saved.  At each entrance we prayed as we staked that souls would be saved and that 1,000,000 souls would be saved in Scotland.
What was special about coming together with other Christians from other churches was the sense of unity and purpose as we praised, prayed and proclaimed the Lords sovereignty over Prestonpans and Scotland.

Margo Cunningham

I know that we have much to praise God for over the past year. While in Athens as the guest of the Wesley Foundation, University of Georgia, I felt led to share primarily about being a Lighthouse of Prayer. Imagine my joy when I received an e.mail from a young woman, Dana Hernandez. I met her at the Tribe Issacher “Lighthouse of Prayer” room which is in the centre of downtown Athens, Georgia, USA. Her e-mail had this to say: “I have thought of you often as God uses little houses of prayer on college campuses all over the USA. Even here in the State of Georgia there are many houses of prayer being raised up to give Jesus glory and prepare people to go out.”
WOW! isn’t our God amazing! He is bringing His plans to pass. We must give God all the praise and glory for all the new Lighthouses of Prayer that are “Lit up” in our communities throughout Scotland and the rest of the world. Let us continue to encourage and pray for each of these “Lighthouses” so that we will see lives and communities transformed. (article from Sylvia Norton)

Here we will include reports from our many contacts around Scotland and particularly our Lighthouses of Prayer.
We are eager to hear your stories!

Since the launch of Lighthouses of Prayer in April of last year there are now almost 100 Lighthouses praying, caring and sharing across the nation. We have heard wonderful stories of how focused pray-ers are reaching out to their neighbours and all across their communities with tangible expressions of care – opening the doors for whole families to experience the Good News of Christ. It’s a time of prayer, care and share!

We are looking for your Lighthouse stories to post on our web site for all to read and enjoy.

Here is one such story:

Getting near Christmas time we felt God tell us to “do an act of kindness” for our neighbours.  So we  made a variety of sweets, packaged them attractively with a card explaining who we were and saying that we were praying for our neighbours, and delivered them personally two days before Christmas. We were amazed at the very positive response we received. Some people had tears in their eyes when we introduced ourselves and handed over the gift we had made for them. The act of kindness had touched their hearts. One lady said we would never know what a wonderful thing we had done for her that day!

Today our prayer times have become a ‘Lighthouse of Prayer’ in the street God has answered our prayer for houses to be occupied by Christians. But this is only one of the answers to prayer we have had as God’s Spirit is at work in our neighbourhood. There is no limit to what God can do through Christians getting together to ‘Pray, Care and Share’ for their neighbours.

Email us at admin@prayforscotland.org.uk  and send us your story! We look forward to sharing it with the nation.