May’s Blog

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.

My speaking continues with the blessing of God. Travelling the country, seeing folk coming to the Lord – what a privilege it is to share about Jesus. It’s my life’s blood and what I live for.

I love my grandchildren, so I speak about them all the time, but if we love Jesus we should be telling folks about Him all the time.

I spoke at the Baptist Womens Rally in Dundee and what a blessing. The biggest blessing was 2 girls, whom I knew from Montrose and had helped them starting a project just like Preshal, came up to me and told me they had secured funding for 2 part-time workers. Their project is called ‘Havalah’ which means ‘Precious Stones’.  Praise the Lord and pray for this group in Montrose.  I was blown away by the group ‘ The Christie Trio’ from Grangemouth – a brother and 2 sisters. Their singing took us into the heavenly of heavenlies and it was so easy to speak after them.

We have a new chef, Tony, and this has freed up some of the staff to work with the Preshal people. Tony also does voluntary work. He is a brilliant drummer and helps Ian with the Music Club.  He also teaches cooking classes 2 days a week, because most of our group dont know how to make a pot of soup or a scone -healthy eating.  Having another member of staff puts the budget up, so we have to fund raise more.

Iain Graham , again, supplies all our meat – highland cattle fed organically. With Tony as chef, what wonderful meals we are getting – Thank you Tony for all your hard work and thank you Iain.

We have now started up the Fishing Club again. We had 7 guys away to Greenock this week. The weather was wet but they all had a great time. The highlight of the trip was that 2 new guys joined us who have only recently started coming to Preshal. They had a fantastic time and can’t wait to go again. We currently have a waiting list of people wishing to come fishing, so we have split them into 2 groups. This year the guys have got good competition as we have a group of women taking up fishing!

A right whopper

That's the new car behind the fishermen!

Iain Graham has kindly donated a new vehicle to the Trust. The vehicle we had previously had worked long and hard for the Trust and was now ready for retirement.

Here are some photographs of Sir Alex. Ferguson’s visit in February to Preshal Trust.

The group at Sir Alex.'s Visit

This is of John Thomson, one of our volunteers with Sir Alex.  It was wonderful for John to get this photo taken with Sir Alex because his wife, Marion, had just died from cancer the week before and Marion was very much part of Preshal.  Marion was one of the most giving people I have ever met.  She would help our homeless women by taking them to appointments, buying them gifts when they got accommodation and Marion will be sadly missed by everyone in Preshal and from going out to the speaking meetings with me, but one thing we are sure of, she is with the Lord.

MacIain Service and me with Sir Alex.

This is of our chairman MacIain Service and the gorgeous looking young lady is me, with Sir Alex.

With John McLaughlin MBE, the Govan Chairman.

Sir Alex., MacIain Service and me with John McLaughlin MBE, the Govan Chairman.  John is a famous sculptor who has done chairs for a lot of famous people including Sir Alex.  John is a great friend of Preshal.

With manager Alan, myself and Alexander, a highland visitor.

This is of our manager Alan, myself and Alexander, a highland visitor who originates from Stornoway and is a lovely Gaelic speaker.

After the successful trip to the outdoor centre in Scaradale last year, we are planning to go again, from 16th – 21st July. This time it will be intergenerational – that is, for all ages. It will be interesting to see how the different ages get on. As before, we will be involved in kayaking, gorge walking, fishing, archery, walking and lots more.
The Youth worker, Kenny Smith, from Stornoway will be working with us.

In the next month we are going up to Lewis to set up a charity shop in premises given to us by Donald Martin. If anyone has any items they wish to donate to the shop that would be great.

It is hoped the new building will start later this year. Sadly, the present building will have to be demolished first. The fundraising is going well though more funds are still needed.
God has been good and gracious – Praise his great name.