To my dear husband..

One year ago today I married my best friend.. 

I love you Ian, thank you for chosing me to share the rest of your life with!! 

For those of you who were not able to be at our small family reception.. here is the best man speech.. (sorry I couldn't upload it so view from here)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGUqmc0dPK4

"A Prudent Wife is from the LORD" (Prov. 19:14)

I have yet to make a contribution (at least by way of post) to our blog and so I deemed it fitting that I should do so, on this, the 26th July 2013.

One year ago, I married Lenelle (nee Moerdyk); the most wonderful lady I know.  I loved her when I married her one year ago, but hard as it would be to believe then, I love her even more today.  She is all, and more than, I could have ever asked.

Thank you Lenelle for marrying me!  And above all, thanks be to our great God, who called us by His grace, and Who in His remarkable providence brought us together.

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out" (Rom. 11:33).

I love you Lenelle!! :)

Edinburgh

Hugh Cartwright's grave site..

His wife was buried here as well back in 2007

We next visited the graveyard where Ralph Erskine is buried

This is the church in the middle of the graveyard...

"King Robert the Bruce" at the top of the church..

  

Ian, Kenneth and David all admiring the ruins of what used to be a castle

Part of the courtyard...

The whole courtyard still in tact. 

the walls of the castle..

The graveyard we visited had people buried there from the Cholera Epidemic in 1832

Ralph Erskines grave

Writing on the grave stone..

David Wylie and Ian by Ralph Erskine's statute

Us by the statute..

The church (behind the statute) we think is where Ralph Erskine preached

 We went on a walk the next day, we could see the layout of the city from here

Another view...

And another...

Church buildings in Lochcarron

We drove past the Free Church building and Manse in Lochcarron where David Murray's first charge was...

The old manse..

Another of the old manse..

The old church building..

Right next door to the left is the new manse..

Another of the new manse..

And the new church building..

We also passed the Free Presbyterian Church building..

And again...

Lochcarron scenic pictures..

Looking from Lochcarron over the water to the Isle of Skye.. you can see the Cuillin mountains in the distance

Strome Castle.. 

( We didn't go up there... but here is a better view from the top I found on google)

                                      

View from the graveyard onto the mountains..

  

Wellington's nose..

Wellington's nose up closer..

Story of Ceit Mhor

Muckle Kate

Not a very ordinary name! But then, Muckle Kate, or Big Kate, or Kate-Mhor, or Kate of Lochcarron was not a very ordinary woman! The actual day of her salvation is difficult to trace to its sunrising, but being such a glorious day as it was, we simply wish to relate something of what shone forth in the redeemed life of that "ill-looking woman without any beauty in the sight of God or man."
Muckle Kate was born and lived in Lochcarron in the county of Ross-shire. By the time she had lived her life to its eighty-fifth year she had well-earned the reputation of having committed every known sin against the Law of God with the exception murder. Speaking after the manner of men, if it took "Grace Abounding" to save a hardened sinner like John Bunyan, it was going to take "Grace Much More Abounding" to save Muckle Kate. However, Grace is Sovereign and cannot be thwarted when God sends it on the errand of salvation, and even the method used in bring Muckle Kate into the day of full salvation only serves to magnify that wonder-working power.
Lachlan MacKenzie, Minister at Lochcarron, had laboured long and hard to bring the old sinful Kate under the sound of God's Word, but to no avail, for Kate flatly refused to so much as set her foot within the four walls of the Minister's Kirk.
Knowing, however, that it was Kate's custom to attend the local "ceilidhs", Mr. Lachlan – as the Godly old minister was affectionately known – decided to take a rather more unorthodox road to show the old sinner her perilous state. Sitting down at his desk one day he wrote a song, listing all of Kate's known sins and heaven's judgments against them. This composition was then given to one of the "singers" of the "ceilidhs" who, in turn, sang the song in the hearing of Kate of Lochcarron.
The result was shattering to the conscience of Muckle Kate and from the very first line of the song, it would seem, she fell into the deepest conviction of soul and began to pour out her heart before the Lord. The hills around Lochcarron began to shake and to echo with her weeping and in course of time poor Kate wept away her eyesight and became physically, as well as spiritually, blind. That physical eyesight was never to be restored again in this life, but spiritual eyesight was to be given to her to "look" unto Him and be saved, and to taste and to "see" that the Lord is good.
The Day of her Salvation was perhaps the closing day of one of the Communion seasons at Lochcarron. Kate had no intention of going near the "blessed Ordinance" and she had made this plain to her Minister; she had been sorrowing now for three whole years, but had still found no assurance that Christ had given her His peace. "I go forward to that Holy Table!" she said, "I who have had my arms up to the shoulders in a Saviour's blood!" And as the sermons for the day were preached and the bread and the wine served to the communicants Muckle Kate sat through it all still under the burden of the wrath of God upon her soul.
At last, it was all over and the benediction pronounced. Kate, believing that she was once more alone in the hillside where the communion had been held returned to her sorrows and crying and her piercing cry once more rent the air. The congregation homeward bound, were arrested in their steps and their interests. The congregation, however, was not alone in viewing the burdened old sinner crying for mercy before the heavens of God that appeared as brass unto her, for, Mr. Lachlan was watching, too. Going forward to the aged sinner, he took her by the hand and led her to where the communion tables still stood. Placing the bread and the wine of Christ's Atonement before her, he exhorted her to eat and to drink, and there, unconscious of the thousands of eyes upon her, Muckle Kate ate "his flesh and drank his blood" and until the day of her death, when she was almost ninety, showed forth the praises of Him who had called her by His grace in such an unusual way.
"Tell them that the worst of sinners," she used to say thereafter, "Tell them that the worst of sinners – the drunkard, the profligate, the Sabbath-breaker, the thief, the blasphemer, the liar, the scoffer, the infidel - tell them that I, a living embodiment of every sin, even I, have found a Saviour's Person, even I have known a Savour's love."

Credit goes to this website for the story.

Granny..

I know.. I promised the story about Ceit Mhor.. but I feel I should post a picture of Ian's beloved Granny. 

She is the oldest of 5 kids, all of which are still alive. We were able to visit the others when in Lochcarron. Auntie Sheila comes and visits Granny every weekend for 2 days (she is the second youngest)

(unfortunately we don't have a picture of her!)

 This is Alisdair and Morag's house (Granny was born in this house)

Alisdair and Morag, Ian and Lenelle (Alisdair is Granny's youngest sibling)

Lenelle and Ian, Rena and Willie (Willie is the second oldest)

Willie and Rena's house...

Lenelle and Mary Belle (she is the 3rd oldest)

We had a wonderful time visiting them all, we are back safe and sound in Grand Rapids!