Allow me to introduce myself to you all: I’m Scott.  I’m married to Lorna, and we have a 4-year-old miniature dachshund called Dora.  I am a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, which I will be leaving after 13 years of serving the Lord in North Antrim and County Down to take up my new role as EMF Director. I’m thrilled and humbled to have been selected for such a task.  I hope your ears will all be well tuned in to my Northern Irish accent.  Although I dabble a little in French and Spanish, it still shines through.  As someone who was plugged into a local church and saved at a young age, mission has always been a huge part of my Christian life and ministry.  Mission has taken me to France, Spain, Hungary, Romania, and other parts of the world, too.  Lorna is also very involved in European mission, as she works for IFES as part of the European Regional Team and as Communications and Support Relations Manager for European Christian Mission.

Lorna and I both enjoy travelling, and because we have both travelled a bit before getting married, we decided when we got married that every year we would holiday alphabetically- we’re both quite indecisive when we want to travel everywhere, and so it helps narrow down where we will go. Each January, we begin a new letter and 2024 is the year of G! We look forward to visiting G places, but so far, we’ve done Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, and Estonia.  One country that I have not yet visited that I would like to is Portugal.  P is still a long way off! It is our game, so we can be a bit flexible... and we are open to suggestions of locations!!

I’ve just finished reading the life of David Brainerd. I’m often struck by the fortitude and faithfulness of many of our pioneering, mission forbearers.  These stories help us to stand firm without standing still; we read them not to live in the past, but to allow the past to fuel us and propel us into the future.  EMF has just as rich a heritage and it is a real pleasure to be able to be a part of that rich, missional, reformed, and evangelical heritage.  

For me, I think we (EMF as a whole, and I, as Director) need to think about how we can stand firm without standing still.  The message and essence of our reformed and evangelical heritage remains the same, but there are always new ways and means of communicating that message to the 21st century world. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us all into the realm of livestreams, zoom meetings and doing things differently.  I’m looking forward to seeing, under God’s guidance, how we can use all of these and other means before us, for reaching further into our desperately needy continent.  EMF is so very active and busy with theological seminaries in Portugal, printing houses in Poland and Spain, war effort in Ukraine, and YouTubing in Romania, and I am excited to see all these works and more, and seeing new works established.  EMF is blessed with creative and capable staff, and so I look forward to working alongside them as we continue to put the vision of EMF into practice, ‘lighting up the darkness’.  It has been thrilling to see so many new prayerfully targeted areas coming into the mission,. I hope, with God’s grace, to see lots of joined up and united thinking: after all, the Psalmist reminds us there is blessing in our unity.  

Being part of the Northern Ireland Council for EMF enabled me to travel last autumn to Spain, to be a part of the first Field Conference for 30 years.  Looking back now, I’m very grateful the Board of Trustees invited us, because I now know so many who before were just names on a page.  It is my desire in the early days to get to know you all, to try and understand the countries, cultures, and congregations you all represent, and, with Andrew Birch, the new Field Director, to work in tandem with him to care for the practical and pastoral needs of the field, as it continues to grow across Europe.  So I look forward to meeting many of you over a coffee (for Lorna, a caramel latte).  Every blessing.