July 23, 2007
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Spain Update #5
We left Spain a week ago and arrived in the Canary Islands. Our first stop was in Santa Cruz, Tenerife Island and we are now in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria Island. Our last week posed new challenges for our team as we were working with officers who could not speak English and had never lived in North America. It seems strange, but everywhere we have been we have been working with groups of officers in which at least one could speak English and was familiar with North American culture. The team prayed and quickly learned new patience and understanding for crosscultural ministry beyond what we had been learning. We also faced new challenges in our VBS ministry. The Salvation is not well liked on this Island as a newspaper report a few years back had claimed the SA was a cult that used children. The officers have been slowly rebuilding trust in the community and were excited to learn how to begin children´s ministries. For a few days we would go the nearby parks and just begin playing games hoping to draw a crowd. At first we had little success but the Lord answered our prayers! The second time going to the parks we prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide us in approaching children in our ministry and when we opened our eyes there were two boys we had met at the corps a few days earlier. We began playing with them and other children joined in just in time for those two boys to leave. Gabriel then took the opportunity given by a weird bug on his shirt to talk about creation with two boys. One boy surprisingly had many questions concerning the Gospel and the afterlife because his friend died recently. In the end the boy said he had accepted Jesus in his heart! We continued to see God work in great ways in this ministry over the next few days.
We learned a lot about the power of prayer from our officers here. After planning an outline for a meeting, the captain shared with us the vision for the church and how they seek the power of the Holy Spirit in everything they do because often men have good ideas and intentions, but without the Holy Spirit´s guidance it is futile. We were at first slightly offended but realized we did not really pray about our plans. We went back to the corps where we lived and spent a while praying individually for guidance concerning the meeting. When we came back together we shared what we had prayed and what we thought the Holy Spirit might be sharing. Ryan had received a vision concerning his apathy and unwillingness to help specific people in his past because of feelings of inadequacy. In the vision he felt chained to a wall but he heard Jesus saying, ´´Look, you are free, the chains are gone´´. When he looked the chains were not actually around his wrists but he was holding onto them. While praying, Nate felt like he needed to listen to what Ryan had to say because Ryan tripped, as is his character, and Nate thought, it´s not through the important, rich and eloquent things of the world that God often speaks. As a result, Ryan preached on Sunday and we learned an important lesson about the power of prayer.
After a week of VBS, bible study, and fellowship with the officers and congregants, we left Tenerife for Las Palmas, where we now are. Today we lead a VBS for young children and used the CBLI Teen Track Material to begin a 4 day long youth bible study. We are looking forward to new lessons and challenges before we come home. Continue to pray for our focus and endurance as we begin new relationships in a new place. The congregation here is unique and made up of believers from all over the world with only two actually from this Island.
We will try and write one more time before we take off.
Blessings and Prayers to our friends and family, and the Central Territory,Nate and Team Spain.
