Keswick Market Report
22 February 2025

Tom O'Donnell and Robert McGibbon

Saturday's weather was good : sunny and bright ; the wind was a bit cool at times but above all, no rain.

Our first visitors were two Chinese girls who had come from Liverpool to spend the weekend in Keswick. They had a special reason for their visit as they were studying Chinese films at university and Keswick was holding a convention about the films. We were delighted to share “Jesus” with them. The girls showed us a picture of Liverpool Catholic Cathedral on a phone in answer to our question of where they worshipped in this country. We can share that we had disappointments in our chat as well as encouragements in that they gladly accepted some tracts to read.

Children are always attracted to the guessing box. We find it a really good tool in our work. Perhaps it’s the bright colouring, or the mystery of what they will find that draws the children.  Certainly the knowledge of it being free settles the dilemma of whether to pause or not for the parents. While one of us engages with the children, the other gets the opportunity of speaking to the adults. We soon can gauge how much children know of the Bible, and share with them what it of why Jesus had to come to Earth as the Saviour. Two girls aged 19 and 16 called by and the older one  said she wanted to share the gospel so Tom  talked with her at some length.  In the meanwhile the girls mother came to the stall along with their brother who was 14. From our general chat, we were told that the mother did home-schooling with the younger two.  The oldest girl had finished formal education but as yet had not decided on which avenue of work to take.

Later a lady came with her 13 year old foster daughter. She told us that the girl had lived with her since she was 7. We were glad to encourage this lady, we can sympathise that it’s  hard bringing up children, and even more so in this present day and age.  We spent time telling how the Saviour came to earth to solve the problem of our sin by dying on the cross in our place.  Jesus even made a special demonstration using a child when he spoke to the crowd about him, saying that whoever comes to him must come with the same trust as a child.

In the late afternoon, we had a visit from a man who had been in contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses as his wife had been a long serving member. Tom has a great deal of knowledge on JWs so they talked for some time. The subject was clearly that Jesus is the Son of God, yet he chose to allow the authorities to take him a put him on a cross to die. The disciples were over joyed when he rose from the dead.

Another lady who spoke of her back troubles and explained it was hard to keep working in her school. She seemed pleased to accept some tracts to use in school.  Just as she was leaving, she said that she was spending the weekend in a caravan. I warned her that the weather forecast for the Sunday was very poor, then I remembered that we had some dvds and gave her one about David Livingstone a missionary to Africa from Scotland believing that it would give her and her friends something to watch if the weather was too bad to venture outside.

Overall we had a good day. After a week of bad weather, one good sunny day to make the work so much easier and yes, the Sunday weather was dreadful as forecast. So much still to pray for and for ourselves that we will spot the opportunities to present Jesus as Saviour and Lord.