October Newsletter - Matt in the UK

Fall Newsletter
Vol. 3

Hello family and friends across the pond! I can’t believe I have been in Scotland now for over two months. The time has really been going by fast and I’m afraid I will be home before I know it asking myself “what just happened”?
So how have the last two months of living outside the United States changed me? I don’t think I can fully answer that question yet. I do know that I have started to think that maybe I didn’t need to come half way across the world to do ministry. Honestly all the stuff I’m doing here is a lot of the same stuff I did at my church home in Colorado, just with different accents. So why? Why did God bring me over here for a year? Why did I decided to put myself out there to see if maybe there is something I could do for the rest of the world? Maybe I’m already doing it.
Maybe, I’m asking myself the wrong decision, maybe the question I should be asking myself is not how the world needs me to help, but how I need the world to help me. To help me understand who I am on this earth and where I really fit in. To help me understand that we actually all might be very similar yet completely different. I’m finding that I am more likely now to celebrate our differences then our similarities.
The things I find the same in Scotland like the McDonalds or KFC (Yes there is KFC in Scotland, but I don’t think the chicken, if it can be called that, comes from Kentucky, does it even in the States?) aren’t things I rejoice over but mourn. Mourn for the loss of an older purer way I guess and the fact that Scotland did not need a McDonalds but there it is! Its golden arches calling to us! Here is the answer! Eat me!
For the most part now I can go about my day and I have become very used to not hearing any American accents. It doesn’t even phase me now, but when I first arrived it was all I could hear. It was a constant reminder that I’m an outsider and that maybe I don’t belong here. Then I went to church. As I sat in the sanctuary I soon realized that when we were singing the worship songs all the accents went away. I don’t know how that happens but I can’t hear the accents when I’m singing in church. If I listen closely to the person next to me I might hear a little bit of one, but when I listen to the mass of the congregation I can’t hear them anymore.
Maybe it’s when we all come together, when we are worshipping our King, when we are putting our differences aside and just singing to our loving God that the accent, that is the things that tell us we are different from each other, start to melt away and e become the same…..voice?

Prayer Request
For God’s vision for my life to become apparent to me.
For good health. I have already had two colds!
Thanksgiving for my fathers successful heart surgery and a good recovery.
For strength when I’m lonely and to help me continue to build new relationships.