Reflection on Barcelona Experience

At all the meet­ings lead­ing up to Spring Break I was asked what my expec­ta­tions were for the trip, and every time I would reply, “I’m not sure I have any…?” In my mind I put all pos­si­ble expec­ta­tions aside because I knew that ulti­mately God’s will would be done and I had no idea what exactly that entailed besides shar­ing the gospel with the peo­ple of Barcelona.

Well, I was blown away by how great God’s will for the trip actu­ally was. I had no idea how many lives we would affect while being in Barcelona or what effect it would have on my life. The first day we went out shar­ing I had to imme­di­ately step out­side my com­fort zone but it turned out to be amaz­ing. Although I have con­sid­ered myself a Chris­t­ian for some time and have been on numer­ous “mis­sion trips”, I had never shared the gospel with some­one directly before this trip. In the past, the trips mainly con­sisted of help­ing to rebuild or clean-up a church or neigh­bor­hood and/or tak­ing food to the home­less liv­ing in city parks and ask­ing them about their belief in God. How­ever, on the after­noon of the first day in Barcelona, I went out with Alex Gon­za­lez, the pas­tor at the Madrid church and had a “divine appoint­ment,” as Alex would call it, with a young man named Borja. The divine part about this appoint­ment, or rather ran­dom meet­ing, was that Borja was extremely open to talk­ing about reli­gion and also insisted that we speak Eng­lish. I, not know­ing really any Span­ish at all, thanked God for tak­ing down the lan­guage bar­rier and also pro­vid­ing some­one who was just so easy to talk to in general.

After talk­ing with Borja for about an hour about what he believes about God and what he thought other stu­dents in Spain thought about reli­gion as a whole, we began shar­ing the gospel with him and our tes­ti­monies. He said that he believed in Jesus Christ and that He died for our sins and then later prayed to receive Christ as his Sav­ior. After receiv­ing a phone call it was evi­dent that Borja had to leave to meet with some friends so we said good-bye and good luck to Borja. Alex and I walked away try­ing not to make a scene by jump­ing for joy and prais­ing God for such a “divine appointment”.

The time with Borja and just hear­ing about the peo­ple who had prayed to receive Christ that day got me so excited for the rest of the week. The fol­low­ing days were just as excit­ing. Even though I didn’t see any­one else receive Christ per­son­ally, it was just as grat­i­fy­ing and excit­ing to hear about the oth­ers who had. We con­tin­ued to go around the city and talk to any­one close by about their thoughts about reli­gion and shared the gospel with them. We also met up with peo­ple who we had met ear­lier that week, or that groups in the past had met in pre­vi­ous years. Although I loved meet­ing new peo­ple from Barcelona every­day and shar­ing the gospel with them, my favorite part of the trip was meet­ing up with peo­ple we had already met. It was great to build rela­tion­ships with them and get­ting to know them and the cul­ture bet­ter. Although some of them still didn’t believe in God or the Bible after we left them, I def­i­nitely believe that a seed was planted in their hearts and pray that God keeps work­ing in them and the oth­ers that we met in Barcelona over Spring Break.

The trip impacted my life in so many dif­fer­ent ways. I feel way more com­fort­able now shar­ing the gospel with oth­ers now, con­sider myself so much or blessed then I did in the past, to have grown up in a church and around great Chris­t­ian friends, and now truly believe that any­thing is pos­si­ble through Christ.

Amelia

Thoughts 5 Days after Return; Good News for All

As I’m sit­ting here writ­ing this blog, it’s offi­cially 5 days after we have returned back to our homes in Iowa. I’ve had 5 days to soak in all that God did dur­ing our week in Spain and yet it seems like I have just scratched the surface.

Our Mis­sion Barcelona group saw 28 sal­va­tions through­out the week. That within itself amazes me, as it is a sign that people’s hearts are soft­en­ing towards God’s truths in Spain. There were 3 of us from Wal­nut Creek Com­mu­nity Church’s sis­ter church here in Ames, that teamed up with the group going to Barcelona. I knew some peo­ple going on the trip, but most of them I had min­i­mal if any acquain­tance with. One thing I got to expe­ri­ence first-hand was the love and unity that every­one had with one another. As sort of an out­sider myself (at the begin­ning), it was so obvi­ous to me that this group of peo­ple were com­pletely com­mit­ted to one another and their love for each other was not a kind of love you can find in this world. Peo­ple were ATTRACTED to this love we had for each other. The world is always yearn­ing for love—people search for it in all shapes and sizes and yet the ironic thing is that love comes from God and not from this world. The peo­ple we reached in Barcelona got to see this love and got to see it first­hand. I think God really blessed our love and our will­ing­ness to just open our mouths and be will­ing to be used for His glory. Read the rest of this entry »

Reflection on Time in Cork

This year in Cork the mis­sion trip was a lot dif­fer­ent than I had expected it to be. In the weeks before the trip, I read and prayed daily that I would be strength­ened and pre­pared for the trip because last year I didn’t do enough of that. I claimed Psalm 27 as my mis­sion trip pas­sage and mainly focused on verses 13–14. (I still believe that I shall see the good­ness of the Lord in the land of the liv­ing. Wait for the Lord;be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.) And that verse couldn’t have been more perfect.

The first night of the trip, I got the stom­ach flu. I spent Fri­day night and Sat­ur­day morn­ing sick to my stom­ach. And that is not what I had spent weeks prepar­ing for. Lay­ing in bed all morn­ing Sat­ur­day, I quickly real­ized that God was try­ing to tell me some­thing. God is in con­trol. I thought that I knew what the trip was going to look like. But the only one who really knew was God. I was able to pray while in bed for the group that was going out and serv­ing with the Lee Val­ley Church. And after a doc­tors visit and a nau­sea shot, I was able to expe­ri­ence a lit­tle TLC by spend­ing the after­noon with a woman from the church. I was able to expe­ri­ence the good­ness of the Lord in the land of the liv­ing through her. And after the first few days of the trip, I was able to get back out with the team.

On the UCC cam­pus Mon­day and Wednes­day, we were able to get into good con­ver­sa­tions that really got peo­ple think­ing. Tues­day, the group passed out over 4,500 tracks at the St. Patrick’s Day parade and we were able to start con­ver­sa­tions with a few teenage girls. Thurs­day after­nooon, Nate, Sta­sos, SueAnn, and I were able to go shar­ing with peo­ple from the UCC Chris­t­ian Union. SueAnn, a girl Grace from UCC, and I got into an hour long con­ver­sa­tion with a few girls and they were def­i­nitely thinking.

Every­day it was evi­dent that God was giv­ing us our divine appoint­ments we had prayed for. In total we saw six sal­va­tions, and there were many peo­ple who were close to accept­ing Christ. Each morn­ing dur­ing tie-down, we would sing “God Of This City”.. And that song fit the trip per­fectly. God is mov­ing in Ire­land. I believe that greater things are still to be done there. God’s not fin­ished with Cork yet. As Psalm 27 says, we just have to wait for the Lord. He’s in control.

Reflections on España

Group 5 (Chris, Robby, Bethany, Daphne, and Hannah)

So many amaz­ing things hap­pened in the week we spent in Spain.  As more and more peo­ple repented of their sins and put their faith in Christ I was con­tin­u­ally reminded of a pas­sage in Luke 15– “there will be more rejoic­ing in heaven over one sin­ner who repents than over ninety-nine right­eous per­sons who do not need to repent.”

Just to put that into prac­ti­cal terms, I thought about how many peo­ple went to Europe this year—almost 80.  Accord­ing to Christ, there is more excite­ment in heaven because of a sin­gle sal­va­tion than if every sin­gle per­son who went to Europe (plus about 20) were to live a per­fectly right­eous life.
That thought eas­ily made the whole trip worth it for me.  The long days, weird liv­ing con­di­tions, and con­stant strug­gles to com­mu­ni­cate didn’t mat­ter because this mis­sion is really that impor­tant to God.

Please con­tinue to pray that we will be able to stay in con­tact with our new broth­ers and sis­ters in Christ as we return to the States and that God would give us grace with dis­ci­ple­ship from across the Atlantic Ocean.  There are also a few peo­ple who were not ready to start a rela­tion­ship with God in the time we spent with them as they con­tin­ued to sort every­thing out in their minds.  There will be con­tin­ued com­mu­ni­ca­tion with many of them, and any prayers on their behalves would be appreciated.

Final Post from Plymouth

The last days in Ply­mouth were filled with cold-turkey evan­ge­lism and meet­ings with new friends. Again, we must point out that the weather was per­fect and sunny for the 8th con­sec­u­tive day. The Hoe, the City Cen­tre, and the Uni­ver­sity were filled with people.

Caleb and Matt met with a Uni­ver­sity stu­dent who we have had con­tact with all week. They were able to thor­oughly explain the gospel to him. The young man’s heart was soft and he plans to think about it more before mak­ing a deci­sion to fol­low Christ.

Caleb and Matt met up with a mem­ber of the Chris­t­ian Union with the pur­pose of encour­ag­ing and equip­ping him to bet­ter serve God in Ply­mouth. They were able to answer many of his ques­tions and share our church’s plans for build­ing up the body of Christ.

Trisha and Stephanie met with a girl who they had estab­lished a rela­tion­ship with at a cof­fee shop ear­lier in the week. Upon find­ing out that her friend would be join­ing them, they prayed that this per­son would not hin­der the gospel from being spo­ken. It turns out that the girl’s friend is a Chris­t­ian (God is faith­ful) and she helped Trisha and Stephanie share the gospel. They were able to explain the gospel thor­oughly many times but the girl was not ready to accept Christ as her sav­ior. Pray that her friend will con­tinue shar­ing with her even with­out our pres­ence, and that she will under­stand that it needs to be a rela­tion­ship not a religion.

While this con­ver­sa­tion was tak­ing place the girl at the next table was obvi­ously lis­ten­ing. Trisha and Stephanie talked to her after­wards and found out that she was a Chris­t­ian and had been pray­ing for the con­ver­sa­tion. They were able to encour­age her and be encour­aged by shar­ing tes­ti­monies. This will hope­fully be a last­ing rela­tion­ship that will show that the body of Christ is not lim­ited by location.

Adam and Josh met a Chris­t­ian who just arrived in Ply­mouth from the Philip­pines. Josh and Adam showed him around town and got him in con­tact with Mut­ley Bap­tist Church and the Chris­t­ian Union at the Uni­ver­sity of Plymouth.

Caleb and Matt were able to meet up with a uni­ver­sity stu­dent that they met ear­lier in the week. This man and a few oth­ers went bowl­ing and for pizza with some of the group ear­lier in the week. After hang­ing out with him for a while, Matt and Caleb shared the gospel with him. He was very recep­tive to the gospel and it seems that he wants to make a deci­sion to make Christ Lord of his life.

Katie and Jess were able to talk with three girls who were fairly recep­tive to the gospel. One of the girls said she was an athe­ist and had many ques­tions such as why God allows suf­fer­ing. Jess and Katie tried to answer their ques­tions. Pray that they would read the tracts they were given and that they would con­tinue to think about the mes­sage they heard. Jess and Katie were also able to talk with another girl while they were on the Hoe in the morn­ing. This girl said that she has some room­mates from the Chris­t­ian Union at the uni­ver­sity. Jess and Katie were able to fully share the gospel with her and answer some ques­tions she had. Pray that she will fully under­stand her need for a sav­ior and talk with her Chris­t­ian room­mates about what she heard.

Tomor­row we will take a train to Lon­don for the day and night. Pray that it would rain in Ply­mouth so that peo­ple would rec­og­nize God’s hand in the good weather. On Sun­day we all fly home so please pray that we would have safe trav­els and that our flights would pro­ceed flawlessly.

Until next year,

The Oh! Nin­ers + Mike and Sasha

Final Cork Update

Cork: Greater Things Have Yet to Come, Greater Things Are Still to be Done in this City…

We’re pack­ing up. Many of us were asked today how we felt about leav­ing. I think most of us are on the same page—we’ve been so encour­aged and grown so much in our faith, our love, and our unity. We’ve built rela­tion­ships that we would love to invest more time in (and plan on pur­su­ing, thanks to the Inter­net). But at the same time we’re excited to get back to our friends and fam­i­lies in Des Moines and make that our per­ma­nent mis­sion field in a fresh new way. So after singing God of this City one last time and pray­ing for those we met today, we may or may not sleep for a few hours. Then it’s on to the air­port bright and early tomorrow!

Some SWEET things that hap­pened today:

We split this after­noon… most of us headed out to Blar­ney Cas­tle and kissed the stone of elo­quence (or ele­gance, as the case may be). We had another gor­geous
day and we all really enjoyed God’s cre­ation and each oth­ers’ com­pany. We also had great con­ver­sa­tions on the bus. God con­tin­ues to pro­vide open doors and soft hearts… we explained to one group of Amer­i­cans why we were here, and their response was, “Ok, pre­tend we’re Irish. What kind of ques­tions would you ask us?” …ok, if you say so…

Four from our team went back to UCC, teamed up with three mem­bers of the Chris­t­ian Union, and went out shar­ing again. Not only were walls taken down and peo­ple recep­tive, but it gave us another chance to come along side these saints and encour­age them in what they’re doing.

We went out with a bang… a big spaghetti din­ner for the whole hos­tel. Many of the guests joined us and heard the gospel for the first time, AND sev­eral peo­ple joined us that we had met through­out the week. A girl that was shared with yes­ter­day brought a friend, and dif­fer­ent Chris­tians involved came as well. After lots of spaghetti, we bonded over spir­ited games of spoons. One of the coolest things about tonight was watch­ing dif­fer­ent Chris­tians here in Ire­land find each other and know that we were a part of that link. Some­times I could sense the dis­cour­age­ment in some of their atti­tudes, as the gospel seems some­times to progress slowly or saints don’t feel equipped, but our exam­ple was an encour­age­ment to them to keep on press­ing. And it was really chal­leng­ing for us to see their faith­ful­ness and will­ing­ness to preach the Word in sea­son and out of sea­son. How blessed we are to have such a fam­ily back home to spur us on! We believe He can do the same thing in Cork! So many sto­ries, and you’ll def­i­nitely have to ask us for more details.

Thank you again for your sup­port and your prayers. It was so evi­dent every day that God was super­nat­u­rally work­ing in every circumstance!

The Gospel Goes Out at UCC and CIT

Today we split into groups and headed out to preach the gospel at the two major cam­pus here in Cork: UCC and CIT. UCC is a beau­ti­fil cam­pus with thou­sands of stu­dents and it it some­what sim­i­lar to a large state school. CIT is a techini­cal type school that has many math/science pro­grams. The cam­pus set up is very sim­il­iar to that of a com­mu­nity col­lege back home, right down to the cafe­te­ria food, with many stu­dents not stay­ing around after class.

Each of schools has a CU (Chris­t­ian Union). Kyle, Becca, Laura, Kris­ten, and I were joined by Shane, Sheena and Sheila from the CU. The UCC group was also joined by 3 CU stu­dents as they went out sharing.

After shar­ing for the day, we all went to CIT to play music and encour­age them at thier CU meet­ing. It was a very encour­ag­ing time in Fellowship.

We pray that God would con­tinue to encour­age them as they try to win souls on cam­pus. Many of them already have the desire to reach stu­dents with Christ and they have recently begun spir­i­tual inter­est survey’s sim­il­iar to what we do in DSM.

5 HUGE PRAISES:

• We all agree that our group unity is very spe­cial here. It con­tin­ues to increase every day.
• Last week it rained every day. This week it has not rained yet.
• We met sev­eral out­reach minded Chris­tians this week.
• We lost a wal­let on the bus and were able to get it back in a lit­tle over an hour. Accord­ing to the locals, that never happens.
• Peo­ple are hear­ing the gospel for the first time and get­ting saved!!

Answer to Prayers: Building Relationships

‘Ello there mates! Sorry about the lack of a blog yes­ter­day, we had some outlet/converter man­age­ment issues. We had a blog out­lined yes­ter­day, but praise the Lord we weren’t able to type it up because yes­ter­day peo­ple didn’t seem to be very recep­tive, but today was just the oppo­site. Each group of two had great con­ver­sa­tions where peo­ple were truly affected by the Gospel. The peo­ple we talked to def­i­nitely left the con­ver­sa­tions think­ing about eter­nity and ideas of how this truth should really impact their lives.

Praise the Lord for how He has answered our prayers in regards to build­ing rela­tion­ships. Three peo­ple of the group of four from the ear­lier blog were able to meet a few of us for din­ner tonight. We were able to encour­age one another with our tes­ti­monies and what it truly means to have faith in Christ. We will hope­fully meet up with two of them on Fri­day, so pray that what needs to be said is said, and what needs to be heard will be heard.

Notable Con­ver­sa­tions (please pray for these sit­u­a­tions and people):

• Steph and Caleb had a con­ver­sa­tion with two col­lege girls. Both lis­tened and were intrigued, but one in par­tic­u­lar had a very soft heart and desires a rela­tion­ship with Christ. They will be meet­ing with them for cof­fee tomor­row, so please pray that they would leave under­stand­ing the free­dom found in Christ.
• Trisha and Adam had a few con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple who were really think­ing about things. The hearts of these peo­ple were very recep­tive to the Gospel, and they were all given tracts and con­tact infor­ma­tion. Pray that they would truly seek out the Lord, and that they would email us with any ques­tions they think of.
• We were able to share with some­one yes­ter­day, and he ended up going to the Chris­t­ian Union with us. Bruce Crane hap­pened to run into him today, and was able to answer ques­tions regard­ing sci­ence. Pray that he would take the Gospel seri­ously, and that he would accept Christ as his Savior.
• Katie and Matt had a con­ver­sa­tion with a guy for an hour and a half today. It seemed like his heart was soft, espe­cially in the aspect of not want­ing to con­form to the world. Pray that he would con­tinue seek­ing God out, and that he would come to know the Lord.
• Jess and Josh were able to have a con­ver­sa­tion with three peo­ple toward the end of the after­noon. The Gospel went out, and they will hope­fully be hav­ing din­ner with us tomor­row night. Pray that this meet­ing would take place, that they would get to see our love for one another, and that they would be able to hear the truth again. We are plan­ning on giv­ing them New Tes­ta­ments tomor­row, so also pray that they would read them.

Until next time!

The Oh! Niners…

Final Post from One Group In Plymouth

After our wor­ship at the Hoe this morn­ing, we had a brief time of encour­age­ment and sto­ries from the week. We’ve seen many answers to prayer. We’ve expe­ri­enced super­nat­ural bold­ness. Every day has been unusu­ally warm and sunny. We’ve met peo­ple with soft hearts, though many have been hard. At least three peo­ple have accepted Christ so far. Many have been con­victed and have said they would con­sider Christ. Most of us arrived to the coun­try on time and God kept us safe through trav­el­ing. We’ve had good unity and over­all good spir­its. We’ve met like-minded Chris­tians and con­nected to a cam­pus group and church.

We had a more relaxed start to our day of talk­ing to peo­ple. We went to the mall for a brief shop­ping trip and lunch. Jon and Emily met a guy named Daniel who was very recep­tive. It showed that he under­stood the gospel because he began count­ing the cost of fol­low­ing Christ and wasn’t quite ready. We don’t often get to that point of the con­ver­sa­tion. Sarah, from yes­ter­day, had to go to the hos­pi­tal due to a lacrosse injury – on her birth­day. She regret­ted not being able to hook up with us again but the girls will keep in con­tact. Leigha and Kalee talked to Rich and Mike. Con­ve­niently, they said they had been dis­cussing the Ten Com­mand­ments ear­lier. Some­one else had also given him a tract today so we were def­i­nitely meant to talk to him.

God has enabled us to con­nect with and bless Chris­tians here. A fel­low believer, Steve, from the stu­dent Chris­t­ian Union went shar­ing with Schreiner and me in the after­noon. It was a good oppor­tu­nity to encour­age him and spur him on in evan­ge­lism. He said what we were doing was a good spark for the Chris­tians there and the close fel­low­ship made him feel like he had known us a long time. The stu­dents I’ve talked to don’t seem to share their faith a lot. It’s just as hard here as in Des Moines, I sup­pose. How­ever, what a cool thing that Rich (above) had received a gospel tract that very day! Some­body else must also be car­ry­ing out the Great Commission!

Ash­leigh, a non-Christian whom the girls met yes­ter­day, ate din­ner with us and Steve, and then hung out with us at the hos­tel. One game we played was “Catch-phrase.” It’s amaz­ing that even though we speak the same lan­guage, many words are not used the same in Eng­land as in the U.S. Along with the accent, this cre­ates many chances for laughs. We still crack up over a goof in a con­ver­sa­tion Leigha and I had ear­lier in the week. As a stu­dent was real­iz­ing that God would judge him by his “bad acts,” Leigha heard him say “but­tocks.” The ensu­ing humor­ous out­burst released much ten­sion from the conversation.

As I sit here in the com­mon room, Schreiner and Andorf are shar­ing with Sam, one of the guys who had eaten lunch with us the first day – an answer to prayer!

This may be the last time you hear from this group before we return home. We will sight­see in Lon­don tomor­row – our last day over­seas. The rest of team Eng­land will stay two more days. I may not have time to blog and sight­see­ing will not be as note­wor­thy as shar­ing the gospel. How­ever, pray for oppor­tu­ni­ties. Pray for safety in the travel home. We get back some time in the evening on the 20^th. Pray for con­tin­ued con­tact with those we’ve met and that God would con­tinue to soften them. Pray for God’s bless­ing on the other group stay­ing the next two days. Thanks for your sup­port thus far. We look for­ward to see­ing home again.

From Ply­mouth,

Paul for Schreiner, Leigha, Jenny, Robin, Emily, Kalee, and Jon

Days 4 and 5 in Plymouth

Day 4 and 5
Bruce, Parker, Jami, Liz, Han­nah, JO, MC, and Sasha

For the 5th con­sec­u­tive day the weather in Ply­mouth has been beau­ti­ful which has shown us how faith­ful God is in answer­ing our spe­cific prayers for good weather so that our oppor­tu­ni­ties to share the gospel with peo­ple would increase. Even the native Eng­lan­ders are shocked at the shin­ing sun and the lack of rain. Parker and Jami spoke to a group who were not con­vinced of the exis­tence of God, how­ever, they promised to seri­ously recon­sider if the weather remained sunny and rain­less for the time we are vis­it­ing. We leave on Sat­ur­day, so we are ask­ing for prayers that the rain would hold up until then.

On day 4 sev­eral of our group mem­bers prayed that we would see one sal­va­tion that day. One of the first peo­ple who Mike and Liz spoke to was a young man named Dave. After hear­ing the gospel, Dave pro­fessed faith in Christ. He seemed excited about the prospect of spend­ing more time with us. Pray that we would have an oppor­tu­nity to meet up with him again before we leave.

Another note­wor­thy hap­pen­ing comes from last night when Parker had an oppor­tu­nity to share the gospel with the own­ers of the hos­tel, Paul, Phil, and Mary. Other mem­bers from the group have also had oppor­tu­ni­ties to share with Paul over the past few days.

Thanks to the favor­able weather, Bruce and I had a won­der­ful day shar­ing at The Hoe where hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered to relax, play sports, and chat with their friends. We approached an 18 year old girl named Emily. We dis­cov­ered that she agreed com­pletely with the gospel of Jesus Christ. She said that she would go home and pray to accept Christ into her life. Please pray that Emily would choose to accept Christ and that we would be able to get in con­tact with her again. Bruce was able to effec­tively talk sci­ence with the many Eng­lan­ders who claimed to believe in evo­lu­tion. We offered them evi­dence for cre­ation­ism and pro­vided resources for them to look into on their own. Pray that those who choose sci­ence over God would turn to believe in the One true God.

On Day 5, the groups spread out at the Uni­ver­sity of Ply­mouth and the city cen­tre. We engaged in many spir­i­tual con­ver­sa­tions and passed out many tracts and gospel lit­er­a­ture. Please pray that God would grow the seeds that we have planted. Also pray for save trav­els as Jami, Liz, Han­nah, JO, and Parker are head­ing to Lon­don tomor­row morn­ing and then back to Des Moines on Friday.