May's Blog

On Wednesday 18th April 2012 a group of young people from East Renfrewshire Schools got together to raise money for Preshal and share their musical talents. They organised a concert hosted by Greenbank Church in Clarkston  featuring these musical youngsters on a variety of instruments including Church Organ, French horn, Clarinet, Trumpet and much more. There were over 100 people at the concert and it raised a whopping £687 for The Preshal Trust. We would like to say a huge thank you to Luke, Andrew, Cameron, Chloe, Richard, Mark, Emily, Nicholas, Stuart, Christopher, Andrew and Hannah for sharing their time and music.

I have been busy as normal up and down the country speaking. They are far too many to mention. However I thank everyone who supports the work of Preshal.

Here are just a few:

The Congregational Church Women’s Rally made us their yearly project and as such I have got to know the ladies and I must say what a bunch of hard working wonderful servants of the Lord they are.  A big thank you for your kind donation of £2,277.00. God Bless You All in your service for Him.

I am just back from Stornoway and I am blown away with the support that we get from so many people in Stornoway. The High Church of Scotland had a lunch day to raise funds for Preshal which Chris Martin had organised. Again and again I see the tremendous hard work that the women do in the Church. The lunch day was full to capacity and with a lot of chatter in the background.

When we have our intergenerational week to break down the barriers between our young people and adults, the High Church supplies home baking, three course Sunday lunch and a lot of additional support from individuals in the congregation.

We will be returning to Scaladale on the 2nd August with our Early Intervention group and our adults. Watch this space and, if you’re near, drop in and see us. The kettle is always on the boil.

I must say we have a wonderful friend who is closer than a brother, Yes Donald Martin, you know it’s you. Donald and his family are always working tirelessly on our behalf. Keep up the good work. Ps get that café opened to feed our lot. They are looking forward to dining out in style.

For the past 15 weeks the adults have been learning Guitar, Drums, bass and vocals. They have all achieved their first ever Showcase where they entertained their peers in the Preshal. I asked what will you call your new band and they decided to call themselves THE BENEFITS, as they are all currently receiving Job Seekers allowance!

Here in his own words to tell you about it is Wilson who is the lead singer of the Benefits:

“Doing a concert was a challenging experience for me as I have never done anything like that before, but seeing the crowd enjoying themselves gave me buzz and I can’t wait to learn more songs. My confidence and self-esteem has increased with all the positive feedback from everyone. I know that the other band members feel the same and that we are proud of our achievement.” Wilson Martin

The Sunday Evening Fellowship is going well with new people joining in our worship.
Triumphal Entry was one of the talks that we discussed. Many questions were asked and, of course, Preshal being Preshal, one of our people asked the question, “What was the name of the donkey that Jesus was on when He entered into Jerusalem?”. Answers on a post card, please!
Another week, the speaker mentioned that “many are called, but few are chosen” and a new comer said you are dead right, the Rev. I M Jolly used to say that “Many are cold, but a few are frozen”. I said “You are correct. Many are frozen, frozen in their faith, that is, and they need the warmth of the Lord to melt them to reach other people.”
We have also being working with Stevenson High Church with the Rev Scott Cameron and his prayer group. The Preshal Fellowship has been joining them for prayer in order to reach out into the community. Please pray for Scott and the others for the vision God has given them.
We have also been blessed not only in numbers, but with the Preshal Praise band. A BIG thank you to all the visitors who drop in. This encourages us – and love to see you.

A big thank you goes to everyone who donated Easter Eggs it was much appreciated and over 400 families benefited from your kind generosity. Well done!

Ireland was truly blessed when a large group from The Preshal Punters turned up last month. They did not know what had hit them! All joking aside, this was a time of Spiritual and Team building, equipping the team to deal with the many challenges and hard work that are lying ahead.

We stayed at Tullyarvan Mill Community, Cultural & Hostel Centre, Buncrana, Co. Donegal, Ireland. The hospitality was second to none. The staff at Tullyyarvan gave us a great big welcome as they have got to know us over the years. I think they are becoming Preshaler’s , but we still need to pay our way as they are also a charity.

Willie, our bus driver, was fantastic and he even joined in with all our activities and fellowship meetings. A big thanks to our Willie and he will stay in touch as he has promised to come and visit us at Preshal.

Our Irish friends were superb as usual; the relationship the Preshal people have with our Irish friends goes deeper than friendship, and we are like one big happy family.

Since my last blog we continue to help others through the feeding programme. The need however has increased and we struggle to meet the demands. Please pray that God will continue to meet these needs within our community.

Feeding Programme

Since its launch in October we have been able to bless many people with the gift of Food Parcels.  In addition to the homeless benefiting from the food parcels, many of our local families and some further afield on benefits and low income have also been helped in this time of recession.

One granny who is bringing up her grandson has an income of £47.00 per week; this is for herself with an additional £20 for her grandson. This is to buy food, clothing, electricity, TV Licence and gas. I try to imagine getting by on this budget and I know that I couldn’t. This is where the food that is donated benefits this family and people in similar circumstances.

December 2011

12 of our young people who have been attending the Music Club learning guitar, drums, bass and vocals, have put on a Showcase for the benefit of our day-time participants. This has given our young people the opportunity to give back something to their community. The adults who attended really enjoyed the young bands who played golden oldies and chart music. The dance floor was never empty and the roof was nearly lifted with the singing.

The lead up to Christmas was manic with 5 parties to organise and all the toys that had been donated distributed, ensuring that every child woke up to a gift on Christmas morning.

The first of the Parties was the Sunday Evening Fellowship with a full hall and a visit from Santa, good food and even better worship and fellowship. I do not know who enjoyed the games the best – the jury is still out – was it the adults or the children? We had the privilege of having a few guests from the travelling community with us.

Next group of parties organised was the Music Club, then on to the Youth Club and finally the Early Intervention. Fun was had by all with Santa making another guest appearance. There were many games organised involving syrup & cereal – you get the idea, and so did the young people. (See picture for details).  In total 80 children and young people attended the parties and benefited from the kind donations.

What a pleasure and joy it was to see so many people benefit and enjoying the positive atmosphere and knowing the true meaning of Christmas. The greatest gift was Jesus’ death on the Cross. This reminded us that what you do to the least of these, we also do to Him.

All of this would not be possible if it weren’t for so many kind people supporting The Preshal people. I would like to thank each and every one of you for making so many people’s Christmas this year.

We were blessed with so many toys that reached so many families in Preshal and outwith; we have lost count of how many were given out to needy families who otherwise would have got into debt with loan sharks.

The grand finale of parties was the day-time participants. 88 adults received a 4 course meal with all the trimmings. Thanks to our wonderful team at Preshal, participants said that this is as good if not better than any meal in any restaurant.  We had live music and the floor boards were getting big licks – good job we are in for getting a new building. Santa came for his final visit along with his bag of goodies ensuring that everyone had a gift along with a peck on the cheek.  By this time the Preshal staff were well and truly partied out.

I am sorry I have not written here for a very long time but you will see that, over the past months I have had various speaking engagements all over Scotland, England and Ireland.  But before I tell you about some of them, I want to mention a new programme we are just starting.

Feeding programme.

Over the next couple of weeks we are setting up a new project.

Shona, a girl just out of rehab ,( who is coming to live with me), and Theresa, one of the Preshal friends, will take charge of this project. Theresa has been off heroine and methadone for 3 and half years and is at a place in her life when she wants to give. They will make up grocery parcels for singles, doubles and families for a week . We are looking for donations of food such as tins of soup, cereals sugar tea etc for these parcels.

We have more people than ever on the bread line, and more requests from other agencies to see if we can provide food parcels for needy people. This can come about through Social Security mixing up their benefits, made worse by the government cutbacks which affect families like ours especially the weans. Its hard enough to get shoes and clothes, which we also give out. Also through the cutbacks ,we are getting a lot of new people coming in for breakfasts and lunches, trying to keep the wolf from the door.

Ebenezer Church.

Ebenezer Church, Motherwell held a fund raising and auction night for us . They put on a beautiful meal, which the whole church got behind and provided. What a wonderful night!  Leah Clark and her Mum did displays of flowers which were also auctioned.

The evening raised an amazing £1500 for preshal.

Thank you all at Ebenezer for your time,help and support.

Stevenson High Church.

I had the pleasure on a Sunday night in May, at Stevenson High Church, of introducing my great pal, Arthur Williams, director of Stauros. What a night we had! (Preshal go there every few months to do outreach with Scott Cameron.)

God used Arthur to give me good teaching and grounding in my walk with the Lord.

I’ll always give thanks to God for him and his wife Beth.

Thurso Baptist Church

I had a lovely trip up to Thurso Baptist to take their meeting. The welcome was given by Stuart and Hazel Walker. The hospitality was beyond anything you could imagine.

Milngavie Book Festival in the Allander Church

It was wonderful to be there and share about my life of faith, and how I’d been set free from drink, drugs and other things. When Jesus sets you free you are free indeed.  Without him I would have been at the road to death.

It was great to hear folk with no faith tell me that they could see it was real in my life.

Invergordon

I had a great night with my pal, Christine Kennedy, in Rosskeen, Invergordon.  Christine is a Gaelic singer and has won various mods, has been on TV quite a bit.and also sing internationally.  I just love hearing the psalms sung in Gaelic.

Blair Drummond

Our president, Cathy Montrose, and myself, had the pleasure of speaking at the Garden Scheme at Blair Drummond village hall. The pig was roasting on the split and the apple crumble was made from apples from local orchards- I had 2 helpings – delicious! I’d like to thank everyone at the garden scheme who have contributed to the work of Preshal.