Missionary to Spain?.doc
Please open this document to get started, and forgive any flaws in this blog. If the letter I attached doesn't interest you, just check out, no need to bother with more clutter in our lives.
If it interests you or would interest someone you know, feel free to pass it on.
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Long years of drought in Spain have eroded the land, and now the cracked surface is more ready than ever before to receive the rains that God has promised.
ReplyDeleteWe rejoice over signs of the early showers, and can hardly wait for the heavenly downpour!
Are you testing a call of God to come to Spain? Is the Lord of the Harvest pointing you towards these lands?
There is room and need for all the helping hands God wants to send! Spain is a wonderful country that will open its arms in welcome if you come to love and enjoy her gifts, too.
This blog is something I never dreamed I'd start, but somehow, it just got started by itself, during a health related leave from my English teaching job, and in spite of a aching wrist! I also have a daughter who came to visit at just the right time this weekend.
Don't think for a moment that I know what I'm doing. I need to get to the health store quick for Korean Ginseng, because my brain keeps washing out! I secretly hope that a grandma like me can live longer with a clearer mind if I can just keep trying to learn new things in the computer world.
All this started when I came in contact through facebook (yes, I love facebook!) with children of missionary friends, otherwise known back in my time as MK's and now as Third Culture Kids (went to a Mission Seminar to learn that concept, and it took me a while to realize what they were talking about when they referred to TCK's!)
Anyway, this lovely young family is getting ready to head to Spain, and asked to start some conversations with me. To be better prepared, I talked to a pastor friend in the city this couple and their team plan to plant a church. We talked on Skype. Right after that, I attended a worker's retreat and had conversations with other missionaries that really sparked a fire in me. I wrote my young friends a letter, the one that is in the
Missionary to Spain?.doc above. The next day I proceeded to send some other couples the same letter because of their situations, hoping it would be helpful. I am thankful for the responses I've had, and hope for more, but above all I pray this will be a place where others who are planning to come to Spain, or have already arrived, can benefit by the conversations and reflections found in this blog. I have no idea if this will work, but it's fun to get started knowing that God loves the Spanish people much more than I ever will, or all of us together, and that He has a calendar in His heart with the time slot marked for His Rain to Come to Spain!!
Above all, I pray God will bless and lead every heart that is being turned towards Spain. Feel free to remark, add, disagree, share, ask... knowing that we can grow together in passion for God and His mission in the world, if we walk together displaying His love!
Connie, I love your heart and I will enjoy reading and praying with you...we look forward to having a young family stay at our house who plan to come to Spain as missionaries. They'll be with us in April for a few days!!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter tells me she can't open the document attached above... I tried pasting it, but can't find it now, nor did I buy any Ginseng! I can open it just fine! =)
ReplyDeletenot sure if u wanted me to post here or on ur google doc but here goes it...
ReplyDeletefirst of all i thank you for including me in this. All i can say is wow, what a legacy you and Dennis have left so far. 29 years!! crazy to think you've been here so long living through all the major changes Spain went through after the death of Franco. i admire ur persaverance, for running that race for so long so thank you for staying in there for the long haul and for being an example to us younger folks. I really don't have any comments to add but I will say i agree with everything you've said. One thing you wrote made me think for a bit about how Christians are standing firm, maturing and waiting. As i look back at just the last 10 years, i see so much more hope for this country. growing up as a child/teen here i didn't really know too much about any ministries that were effectively discipling/mentoring the spanish. the materials i had seen used seemed so archaic, with USA stamped all over it....and i sat back just shaking my head knowing this was not for Spain and was like gosh you older missionaries dont get it....you arent on the same page as the rest of us youth are and we are in Spain not the states and we are not in a modern society anymore but much more of a postmodern one. I just felt like missionaries were coming in with their own glorious agendas and they never really ended up engaging the culture at all-though there were a few exceptions. the churches i saw just stuck out like sore thumbs with no relation to my generation at all. these thoughts and others we can talk about another time over coffee but these inner urgings back in 2003 among others are what eventually brought be back to Spain in 2009. i will have to agree with you also that in the last few years i've seen God step in and raise some key leaders here that i think have got it. I see a vast army of very firm Christians waiting for the Lord to act and fulfill those prophecies that i too have heard since the 90's. I can't wait!!! and i believe that time is coming soon as i see many people finally getting it, leaving the church building to become the church in their neighborhoods and sub-cultures they belong to. this is exciting stuff. and these are spanish people brainstorming and being inovative and not just "us" foreigners.
My only thought to tell them would be this: don't think because they've been to latin america or do ministry with latinos in the states that they can do the same VBS (vacation bible school) hand out track kind of mentality. it works there (as i've been over 8 times) but not here. i would tell them not to come with any agenda, no prepared ministry activities but to serve/love and encourage those who are here. To let God break their hearts for Spain that they might go back and inspire more to pray for His anointing over this peninsula. we don't need more missionaries to come plant "their" churches but missionaries who are willing to stay for the long haul (like you said) to listen and serve and partner with those already here. We need more nationals raised up here not more foreigners ha ha. hmmm maybe i should just kick myself out though im not really a national or foreigner (3rd culture kid je je)..... so in whatever way they can support the nationals in training and mentoring (be it supporting nationals financially instead of sending missionaries, to providing materials/training seminars...even helping translate materials....so many good classic authors/seminary texts that have yet to be translated into spanish...i find myself talking about books that my friends have never heard off)....in the end i think the spanish just need more encouragement-mentoring then a greater missionary work force.
those are my two cents worth for now, bendiciones, Chris
Hi Connie,
ReplyDeleteAs you already know Noelia and I are in total agreement with you. Our experience so far in Spain has been a positive one, in many ways because we have the privilage of working alongside of an existing church here. A place where we can use the gifts God has given to us to encourage others, but also a place where we too feel encourage and blessed by others. There are so many small churches here in Spain who would be greatly blessed to have a missionary or missionary family come alongside of them to serve them, encourage them, pray with them, grow with them, etc. Very good work! I look forward to hearing more stories and experiences from others. Blessings, Brian