Starting the Descent

In these quiet moments of early Sunday morning, I'd like to share some prayer updates.

Praise:
A huge, almost unprecedented by Spain standards (so I've been told) turnout of children and parents for the Azuqueca campaign. Each day most of the seats in front of the stage were filled with children excited to sing songs and hear the story. In the evening, parents came and watched Gospel films such as "The Cross and the Switchblade" and "The Climb."
New friends in the Barcelona crew -- and grace to understand each other despite different dialects!
Having the opportunity to visit the Alcala church plant and see how God is growing a garden in the desert -- the church meets in the heart of a more worn neighborhood, surrounded by bars and clubs.
A farewell party in which neighborhood adults came into the church and met church members. This is important as again, many Spaniards will not walk into an evangelical church.
New missionary friends -- Ken and Allison, a British couple who have served in Spain for 23 years.

Prayer:
Continued energy for work at the MK school this week, various excursions and the journey to Zaragoza on Saturday.
That God would place us in volunteer spots there at the Expo that would bring Him the most glory.
Continued linguistic and culture awareness. After about 11 p.m. fluency tends to decrease due to tired brains and bodies.
Protection for long-term missionary families. Their role here is indispensable, but the Accuser would love to see them discouraged and therefore ineffective.
That individually and as a team we would be inspired to pray continually and depend solely on God (and not our own skills, though each member has been richly and diversely gifted) for everything.
That God would send more workers into the harvest field. There is so much work to be done, and time is running short! Jesus is coming soon.

And our time in Spain is running short, as well. We'll be flying home in two weeks.

And Noah praised the Lord...

...And we do too because of God's goodness to us. The animal dances went well and nobody overheated, even with temperatures hovering around 40C (104 F). We had a lot of fun and the children seemed to enjoy the animals. See if you can guess the other SEND short-term team members (Kendra, Rebekah and I excluded due to the previous post).

Un, dos, tres, es super-guay!

Practicing our dance on Sunday night.

For the last week we've worked with a group of young people from Barcelona, headed up by a lady named Esther who's led the traveling "Isla del Tesoro" (Treasure Island) evangelical show for many years. The group packs up all they need and travels around Spain, stopping in different towns to present the Gospel through action songs, picture lessons, clowning and dances. Our short-term group has had the opportunity to help set up and tear down the shows, as well as dance in some of the segments. On Monday the four girls and Judith, a Barcelona girl, danced as the five vowel sounds (I danced as the O). Tonight the short-term team and a few others will dance in two songs as animals on Noah's Ark. Kendra will be the penguin, Rebekah the rabbit, I'll be the elephant and some of the others will be figured out this afternoon.

It's been a blessing to see how God has drawn in children to attend and participate in Isla del Tesoro, and even more so to see parents attending the Gospel movies (tonight we're showing the Jesus film) after the shows and asking for the Gospels of Luke and John that church members hand out. It's fairly unusual for Spaniards to take the initial step in asking for information, so please keep praying that the kids' shows and evangelical movies would nudge people's hearts into asking about a deeper relationship with God.

My dear friend in the Azuqueca church, Eva, writes a blog, as well. For a different perspective into life in Spain, visit http://elim-eloasisdeeva.blogspot.com/. Eva belongs to a Christian blogring and gives updates on evangelical events. I'm blessed to call her a friend.

Storming the Fortress

Mountains surround Aguilas, a sprawling town along the Mediterranean. A castle from Carlos III's era crowns one such mountain, overlooking the cliffs down into the cerulean waters. Aguilas is a fortress in many ways. But this past week, the Christians invaded.
From Sunday to Sunday the campers, ages 6 through 12, learned about being soldiers of Christ, the theme from Ephesians 6. Each day we'd have a devotional and breakfast, Bible class with songs, play time at the beach, lunch, cleanup, rest hour, English class, crafts, more play time, snack time (merienda), supper and group games, then make sure all were in their bunk beds. We had approximately 20 children, many of them immigrants.
The camp is about 50 years old, which is a considerable feat when you think that it ran through the time of Franco's oppression. Esther, the pastor's wife, told me stories of how her family held underground church services when the government closed the church. Despite persecution, danger and neglect (non-Catholics were not permitted ration cards), the church grew. For a few years the camp ceased, but this was the second year since the hiatus, and hopefully it will continue.
It was amazing to see so many children having the opportunity to hear the Gospel. And I was really affected by having the chance to meet and fellowship with the Lopez-Soto family. Paco not only is the pastor and accomplishes his ministerial duties without having any formal seminary training, but also has another job. In addition, he did much of the cooking during camp. Esther is the tourism director for the city and knows everyone, and speaks English, French, German, Italian, etc. Samuel, 23, teaches Sunday school, is finishing his master's in music paedegogy and served as the principal camp teacher. Abraham,18, the poet (and jokingly dubbed "the model" by the short-termers), plays violin and will attend the university in Murcia in the fall. It was such a blessing to be able to hang out and have discussions with Samuel and Abraham. They don't have any Christian friends, so our time together was precious -- we even got to watch a movie together the last night. What a dear family we have in Christ!

This week a group of 12 teenagers from the Barcelona area is putting on a campaign in Azuqueca. We set up their stage and they'll present the story of Noah, I believe. More on that as I receive information.
This morning the short-term clan went to Vicalvaro, another Madrid suburb, to help unload a truck for the church's food bank there. We transferred five tons of milk, muffins, sugar and flour into the storeroom and church sanctuary in preparation for distribution on Saturday. The mornings for the next few days will be devoted to helping Craig with assorted duties (helping at the MK school and cleaning up the SEND Spain office) and the evenings will be dedicated to aiding the Azuqueca campaign. Praise God for the strength and opportunities He gives!

Grupo Alfa -- the campers I led with Ryan.

Samuel and the girls after church.

Abraham and Maria.

Ransomed Redux

This week we worked in Guadalajara, a suburb of Madrid and the capital of the eponymous province. Monday through Thursday we handed out tracts and talked with folks about Jesus in the public parks. At first I was nervous, but God worked in spite of our fears.

Gerry and Casiana Castillo are SEND Spain missionaries from the Philippines. They lead and host the house church in Guadalajara. How have they grown the church? By going to the parks daily and talking with people and handing out tracts. They have numerous stories of people coming to faith and calling their number on the back of the tracts, asking about Jesus. They fearlessly talk to people and are patient when hardened people curse them. Gerry and Casiana are true people of God and they live only to tell others about Him.

I had the privilege of accompanying Casiana in the mornings, since we were sent out in pairs. It reminded me a bit of Luke 10, when Jesus sent out the 70 ahead of Him. We walked up to people or sat on benches until people sat with us and started talking about life, then gradually brought the conversation around to God. We found a range of stories -- some Spaniards were so hardened they just instantly dismissed us (at one point I was handing out tracts and a woman cursed me out in the name of the Virgin Mary!), some were interested but afraid, and some were immigrant believers looking for a church.
Because of the lure of the Euro, may people emigrate illegally to Spain from such places as Africa and Eastern Europe. But if they don't have papers, they cannot work. Yet to obtain their papers, they must have a job. So the story of one Bulgarian I met is a similar refrain. He came to Spain ahead of his family, but lives on the street because he cannot rent a piso. He works during the night and sleeps in parks or wherever he can find. He said he was a believer and was so excited when we talked to him.

The main job Casiana gave me was to pray for people we talked with. On Tuesday I sat on a bench and prayed until a girl came and sat down next to me. We started to talk and I found that her name was Angelita, she was 16 and from Barcelona. She was interested in the church, although her family was Catholic and some of her extended family was in a cult -- read: Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses or Evangelical. She said she was really glad to meet me and we talked until her friend shouted across the park for her to join her. Please pray for Angelita -- she's one of the many who are interested and seeking.

We held a children's outreach in the park on Wednesday night and sang songs, did a craft and Pablo, a member of the church in Azuqueca, told the story of the prodigal son using a sketchboard. Some of the parents stayed to watch the story and we had a good number of children interested.

But Thursday was my favorite night because we hosted a Ransomed-style event for jovenes (young people, age 18-26). For the first part of the three and a half hour event we played icebreaker games (rompehielos), had a time of corporate worship, then presented a skit about identity in Christ. I played a hippie who urged the main character to just love, think of the present and be happy, and we had other identities enter and counsel/confuse Dani, who was searching for his identity. After the skit and a monologue about searching for God, Dani (he's a missionary kid in a Guatemalan family working in Ubeda, in southern Spain) gave a message about our identity in Christ and how that should look. We played a few more games, had some snacks and ended in prayer. Many jovenes hung out and talked outside the church long after we ended. At this point I'll mention that we "borrowed" a Pentecostal church for the event. How can Brethren, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Pentecostals work together? By being united in the same goal. In Spain this is easier because if you're not a true Christian, you won't be found in an evangelical (non-Catholic) church. The people from the Pentecostal church were positively tickled that the Evangelicals wanted to reach youth in Guadalajara and said they would love to continue hosting the event.

Saturday we will head to Aguilas, Murcia, a town along the southern coast. We'll be leading a Christian camp for kids age 8-12 for 8 days. So far we have about 15 signed up, but we'll get the final count when we get there. We'll be teaching an English class, have Bible lessons, excursions to the Mediterranean (only a few blocks away from the church), crafts and be counselors, since the children will sleep in bunks on the church property. We'll also rotate helping with cooking. Please pray that this will be a fruitful time and the children will learn more about Christ and see Him in our example.