Mission 2000

An International Event

Opening Praise	St David's has organised many holiday clubs over the past 20-30 years. In the 1970's the "Pie Club" was a firm favourite with young people in our Parish and was hosted in conjunction with our neighbouring Congregational Church. During the early 1990's two very successful Scripture Union Summer clubs were held in our church halls. "The Light Factory" and "Bodybuilders" both attracted large numbers of youth and were led by Mr John MacKinnon, a former St David's member who was, at that time, a Scripture Union Youth Evangelist. As we approached the year 2000 the time seemed right to attempt another summer outreach campaign but who would lead it?
Little did we realise that a group of American Christians from the Washington area of New Jersey, under the pastoral leadership of Rev Bill Orr, had conducted a very fruitful mission at Millerston United Free Church in the East of Glasgow during the summer of 1999. So fruitful in fact that when the returning missionaries gave their reports to their congregations back home, a veritable flood of potential applicants approached Rev Orr to enquire whether he was planning to conduct another mission in 2000. The search was on to find sufficient host churches for the new influx of 60 American Missionaries. By the providence of God our Church caught the attention of Pastor Bill (as he prefers to be known) and just prior to Christmas 1999 we received the first e-mail inviting us to become part of VBS in 2000.	Bible Time
"VBS? What's VBS?", said the deputy Session Clerk - so he telephoned Rev Graham Thain. "VBS? What's VBS?", said Rev Graham Thain. Thus began a series of e-mail exchanges with Pastor Bill culminating in an invitation to meet him early in January 2000 while he was spending a few days in Scotland. (by the way VBS stands for Vacation Bible School )