Dear friends,
 The celebration of my twenty fifth anniversary on Sunday 3rd June was memorable and most enjoyable. I was grateful to Rev. Ian Watson for preaching and to all involved in organizing the magnificent buffet lunch afterwards. I express my warmest thanks for the gift of £500 from the congregation and gift tokens from the Kirk Session and also from the Bible study group, the engraved picture frame from the youth organizations and the arrangement of flowers for Sharon. I was touched too by many individual expressions of good wishes either in the form of cards or gifts or just personal comments. I think it would be appropriate to allude here to something I said in my reply at the service. My being in Dalserf for twenty five years reflects positively on the congregation of Dalserf. The reason for this is that during my time in the ministry I have witnessed a number of ministers in a few cases personal friends, compelled to leave their charges, some having become ill, due to the way they have been treated by their congregations. That is not to say that there were no faults whatsoever on the part of the ministers concerned, Dalserf certainly has to live with many faults on the part of their minister, but whatever the faults and failings on both sides - minister and congregation, overall the relationship has been and is a good one and my time in Dalserf congenial. For that I am very grateful.
You may remember that following my attendance at the Church Without Walls conference at Aviemore in April 2006 along with Arthur and Joan Harvey, a prayer partnership was established between our congregation and that of Auchtergaven and Moneydie in Bankfoot Perthshire. Some prayer requests were exchanged between us for a while but the communication began to tail off and then cease. Just after the General Assembly I spoke to the minister - former forces chaplain Rev. Ian McFadzean about the future of the partnership and it was enthusiastically agreed that it should be revived rather than ended. Auchtergaven and Moneydie is at an exciting stage in their life as a congregation. Like us they have been and are dominated by a major building project indeed somewhat more major than both of ours in Dalserf put together. Several years ago their church was burned down and it was discovered that the building was seriously under insured. After much hand wringing it was suggested that since the building had been somewhat inaccessible (it is on the top of a steep hill) and limited in facilities, a new building able to accommodate some community needs be built in the centre of the village. Some were unhappy with this and opposed it but it has gone ahead and last Monday the turf was cut to signal the start of the work. The cost of the building is £1.8m but permission to proceed involved the condition that the original church tower which is a landmark be restored. This is to cost another £700,000 bringing the total to £2.5m. They have already received just over £1m from Church of Scotland insurance and are awaiting payment of a third party insurance claim. They expect the rest to be covered by other grants donations and fund raising and will avail themselves of a bridging loan from the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland to allow the work to proceed without further delay.
I hope to visit this congregation sometime and hopefully groups from each congregation might visit the other.
Have a good summer holiday and remember the Devil doesn't take a holiday - neither does God!
Yours sincerely,
D. Cameron McPherson
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