Busking in Scotland

Busking means to play music for money on the streets. We weren’t trying to raise money but we were trying to have a platform for evangelism. It happened like this.

As we were just sitting down to breakfast at the missions base, the main leader came through saying he was going busking.  Without hesitation, I exclaimed, “Can we go?!”  Now, mind you, no one else in the family even knew what that was.

Here’s why I was so excited….  Before we left, the Lord put it in my heart to play worship music on the streets of Scotland just as a busker would.  I had even randomly seen a video of a music audition where the guy was a busker.  That’s how i knew what the word meant.  In the States, we call them street performers.  They put out their hat or gig bag and people throw money in them for the performance.

In my heart, I had the sense we were to put currencies in for the various countries the Lord has given us to visit as a symbol that the Lord would provide through donations, the means to go.  We put in Israeli Shekel, Thai Baht and an American Dollar.

Our host, Patrick, waited patiently while we rushed around gathering coats and water so we could go with him.  As you can see from the picture, we met some of his friends there.  You see, they do this every Friday.  The one day, we just happened to arrive at his place and have nothing else to do .

Having only met hours before, we got to play with our brother in Christ, Patrick, from the Netherlands.  On the way, he explained that many Scots are atheists, even hostile in it; and so you should never start a conversation with Jesus.  And, yet, the longer we all played together, the more Christian his songs became.   He is an amazing song writer.  We sang his music in English and he sang also in Dutch. We sang songs common to Christianity in many countries and when I didn’t know the words, I just bee-bopped along. Though he’s taking this picture, Mike, sang played guitar and played drums.  It was such a delight.

So many people stopped to listen and some even to worship.  There were tears in their eyes, even.  It was a beautiful day.  Many kept exclaiming how lucky we were for the sun to be shining.  They said 90% of days in Scotland are rainy and, yet; we had the gracious gift of sunshine.  At one point in the day, we moved further down the blocked and played directly in front of a methadone clinic,  where people can come and do doctor-prescribed drugs in a safe environment.  They were closed for the Queen’s birthday but the addicts didn’t know that and came by anyway looking for a hit. They stayed around to listen to the music and got a wonderful hit of the Holy Spirit instead.

By the way, the day brought in about  125 pounds,  We didn’t keep any of  it though.  The other guys depend more on it for a retirement living and we are not worried about God provide the monies for the trip.

I pray you are blessed and encouraged hearing the work of the Lord this week in Scotland.  We are certainly excited about being a part of it.