Mission 2010 Updates

Open Air Concert in Barcelona

Tonight We had an open-air con­cert at a small amphithe­ater out­side of one of the metro sta­tions. It was in a great loca­tion and the Gospel lit­er­ally went out to dozens of peo­ple. Peo­ple would come and sit in the stands to watch the music and we were able to talk with them. Sev­eral peo­ple who met our peo­ple through­out the week also came to the night’s event. Music started around 6pm and it was sprin­kling when we got there. As the music started and peo­ple arrived, the Gospel began to go out and the coolest thing happened–the heav­ily over­cast sky started to move and the SUN broke through, it was crazy. It ended up being an awe­some night, a lit­tle chilly as it wore on, but con­ver­sa­tions were going on well past 9:30. Adrian (who has a bible study in his home — was saved through the Ames plant in Sin­ga­pore over 20 years ago) and his fam­ily came as well as some friends. Also we had some amaz­ing vis­i­tors from the US — Megan and Mark who said we were an answer to their prayers, they are Chris­tians who have been here for just over a month. They also took to the streets today shar­ing, as they are link­ing up with a man named Julio who trains peo­ple on how to share their faith here in Barcelona and has hopes to some­day plant a bible-believing church in Barcelona for the advance­ment of the Gospel. Julio was able to come to the event too and share with some of the peo­ple who stopped by and were watch­ing. Our dear friend and brother Sergi was also able to join us for the evening. It was great to have him and we also hope to see him and his sis­ter Gemma tomorrow.

There were so many amaz­ing con­ver­sa­tions going on all around, each per­son was some­how involved in a con­ver­sa­tion, the music or some heavy prayer that was cov­er­ing the night. It was an encour­ag­ing time for all.

The teams then dis­persed and went out to din­ner at var­i­ous loca­tions each with new peo­ple they had met. Today was an incred­i­ble day!

Tomor­row is our last day in Barcelona. please pray for fol­low up con­ver­sa­tions and last con­tacts to be made. Pray that the Gospel would con­tinue to go out and that we would be pro­tected from harm, theft, and ail­ments as many on the teams have become sick. We will head to the air­port for our short sleep over tomor­row night. Keep pray­ing as we’ll have oppor­tu­ni­ties there in the air­port as well as on the planes and on lay-overs. We’ll see you all soon, but keep praying!

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Cardiff No More, Yes to London

This morn­ing we got up and headed out of our hos­tel in Cardiff around 9 am. We went to the park accross the street where we sang together before head­ing out. We then started the trek accross town a mere 20 minute walk opposed to what was to come! We arrived at Cardiff Cen­tral and got our train infor­ma­tion around 10:30 or so. We found out that the train to Lon­don left at 11:25. Dur­ing our wait­ing time we had some chips that many peo­ple didn’t like, Salt and Vine­gar chips. So they all thought it funny to feed them to the loads of pigeons gath­ered around instantly once food is on the ground. It is quite funny watch­ing all the birds fly by barely scrap­ing the head of pedes­tri­ans! It was quite a sight to see all the pigeons that came and then once they would scare them away how fast they would scatter!

Our train left on time and put us in Lon­don at 1:30. Many got time to rest up and some got to sit with peo­ple and talk with them about our mis­sion. This is Bruce Crane’s Story.

I sat by a man named Dar­ren on the train from Cardiff to Padding­ton Sta­tion in Lon­don today. He was rid­ing the train because his com­pany car had blown a head gas­ket and they decided to scrap it, so he was going to get a new com­pany car. He had not been on a train for sev­eral years. Dar­ren was from the Val­ley in South Wales. He had been in the army in North­ern Ire­land and in the first gulf war, and had been injured sev­eral times. Though his father and mother had been active in church, he did not believe in God and thought that reli­gions were the cause of many wars. He told me of a Padre he had in the ser­vice who believed in God, but did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. I shared with him five rea­sons why I believed Jesus was the Son of God. (1) He claimed to be the Son of God, (2) He did amaz­ing mir­a­cles, (3) His clos­est fol­low­ers claimed He was with­out sin, (4) the prophecy He ful­filled, and (5) His res­ur­rec­tion. We had a great con­ver­sa­tion through­out the trip. I chal­lenged Dar­ren to read the gospel of Mark, say­ing there were 16 days between now and Easter. If he read a chap­ter a day he would read about Jesus res­ur­rec­tion on Easter Sun­day. When we were near­ing Padding­ton I gave him a $1,000,000 bill and was going to put my email address on it, but he pulled out his jour­nal and had me write my name and email address on it. He told me he would read the gospel of Mark and let me know what he thought.

- Bruce

Please pray for Dar­ren that he would con­tact Bruce and they could keep in con­tact over the a period of time. Pray that God would really speak to him and he would decide that Jesus Christ does live and he is worth to be lived for!

Once we arrived in Lon­don we headed on our way towards our hos­tel. We took a slight break for apples, oranges, and some diges­tives (cook­ies with choco­late on one side. SO GOOD!) Then we fol­lowed Bruce, since he was the one with the direc­tions! It was quite the jaunt! Our hos­tel was about 2.5 miles away, but it was such a moment to rejoice. Cardiff is the flat­est city in the UK so we had no hills and walk­ing wasn’t really an issue in Cardiff, but here wow. God really pro­vided strength and grace to get there and I did not hear one per­son com­plain! He hasn’t given us a rea­son to com­plain any­ways. But we did finally get there and it was lovely. Jake Ben­nett noticed that the there was a restu­rant hooked to the hos­tel and he went to talk with him. It turns out that he is a believer and gave us a pretty good deal on din­ner and it was deli­cious! His name is Marco if you want to pray for him! The Lord is so good, and Marco was talk­ing with Steve Rude and Bruce and he men­tioned that he had some friend that had vans. He said he would talk with them about taxi­ing us to the air­port since we have some early fights on Sun­day morn­ing. Pray that this could hap­pen affordi­bly! This would be such a blessing!

Tomor­row the Ply­mouth team arrives and we get to go on a tour of the city. We are excited to see the city and all the his­tory behind the streets of Lon­don. Pray we would con­tinue to be mission-minded even when we are enjoy­ing a sight-seeing day. Pray for strength in the final hours of the trip and for flights to be on time.

Your prayers are bless­ings! and thank you all for com­ment­ing and read­ing the blog! It bright­ens my evening! God is good all the time, even when we leave a piece of our heart in another city. He will be faith­ful to show him­self to peo­ple there just as he is to show him­self to us here!

Have a fan­tas­tic night! Cheers!

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Update Blessings and Thankfulness

Jacob & I have been in awe of the beau­ti­ful rela­tion­ship form­ing between us and Fer­nando & Judith. We met them the first day we got here, and have been able to meet with them 4 times!!! Yes­ter­day, they men­tioned that they have learned so much in just a week, and would like to con­tinue to read the Bible to gain more under­stand­ing about God. We praise God for His faith­ful­ness because the soft­en­ing of their hearts has every­thing to do with Him! Our speech has been far less than elo­quent, and our efforts to love these two young peo­ple pale in com­par­i­son to Godś love for them. Tomor­row we have one more day to share with them. Please pray fer­vently that they will accept Jesus as the only Way, Truth, and Life for them.

Our group is also blessed & very thank­ful to have friends from Madrid come shar­ing with us, and help us trans­late the Gospel with peo­ple. Yes­ter­day, Ale­jan­dra, Nathan & I met a man named Rafa at a park out­side the Uni­ver­sity. He invited us to attend a mini Imax show about ani­mal rights… We never thought we would expe­ri­ence this while here in Barcelona, but “Become all things to all men” (1 Cor. 9:22) is very impor­tant!! After­wards, he joined us for cof­fee. Ale­jan­dra & him spoke most of the time, as Nate & I lis­tened and prayed. He said he hates the church and all its rules. He wishes there was more mean­ing to life. He would like to be cer­tain that he would go to heaven if he died. Then she shared the Gospel with him. It was so amaz­ing to grad­u­ally see his eyes become softer and his shoul­ders relax while hear­ing this News that he had never heard in his life! Rafa promised to keep read­ing more about God’s love and agreed to attend our wor­ship ser­vice this evening. Please keep Rafa, and every­one else that has now heard Truth, in your prayers. Pray that they will keep meet­ing oth­ers that believe and can help them bet­ter under­stand. Pray also that the peo­ple we have invited to come to our wor­ship ser­vice will come and be changed by God.

Haley (on behalf of Jacob, Nathan, Trisha, Jess, Shaly, Tay­lor, Phil y Alejandra)

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Hello from Plymouth

Hello from Plymouth!

Men in our group have con­tin­ued preach­ing from the sun­dial in the city cen­ter and each day makes spir­i­tual oppres­sion in this city more and more appar­ent. We met a woman named Roxy who came over to us spew­ing hos­til­i­ties and was obvi­ously under demonic influ­ence. We answered her using the name of Jesus Christ and she left us. She said that until a cou­ple years ago, she could go about the city cen­ter and never hear about God and be left in peace, but now peo­ple are talk­ing about him all over the place. What was meant to be an attack from the devil, God used to encour­age us and make appar­ent that he is at work in this city.

“Though we walk in the flesh, we are not wag­ing war accord­ing to the flesh. For the weapons of our war­fare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strong­holds. We destroy argu­ments and every lofty opin­ion raised against the knowl­edge of God, and take every thought cap­tive to obey Christ.” 2 Corinthi­ans 10:3–5

As we met yes­ter­day morn­ing on the Ply­mouth Hoe to begin our morn­ing with songs and prayer, Jim and Sam took up con­ver­sa­tion with a woman named Pavla who had pre­vi­ously believed in karma and rein­car­na­tion. She had a clubbed foot and was quite bit­ter at God for it, but Sam was able to con­nect with her because of her own cere­bal palsy. Pavla asked Sam how she was able to have so much joy, even though sam’s feet were in worse con­di­tion, and Sam was able to use the con­nec­tion to share the gospel.

The rain held off until yes­ter­day after­noon and after another morn­ing of shar­ing and preach­ing in the city cen­ter, we went inside for lunch, wor­ship and prayer, and the rain finally came. We spent the after­noon catch­ing up on rest and prepar­ing for the “Inter­na­tional Din­ner” we had been plan­ning for all week. Around six, peo­ple started show­ing up at the hos­tel and we served din­ner for all sorts of peo­ple, bro­ken and home­less, believ­ers and non-believers, and it was a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to bring peo­ple into our makeshift home and group for believ­ers to show them God’s love in action. Mark and Amy, who invited us into their home on Sun­day, came as well. As usual, con­ver­sa­tion went late into the night.

This morn­ing we went out to the sea to bap­tize David, who made a pro­fes­sion of faith ear­lier in the week. He, who before was under the bondage of drugs, has now been com­pletely trans­formed by the power of God and has been an encour­age­ment to us all with his obvi­ous trans­for­ma­tion through the heal­ing power of the Holy Spirit. It is our last day in Ply­mouth and while the devil is hard at work to keep the truth from being spo­ken and keep­ing even the believ­ers here com­pla­cent, we have seen God’s work in peo­ple enough to know that it won’t stop with our depar­ture. He has answered our prayers for divine appoint­ments and soft hearts and He will yet be glo­ri­fied in this city.

“God chose what is fool­ish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to noth­ing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the pres­ence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wis­dom and our right­eous­ness and sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion and redemp­tion. There­fore, as it is writ­ten, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ ” 1 Corinthi­ans 1:27–31

This being Ply­mouth, the port of depar­ture for the Mayflower, I (Katie) have been think­ing about the pic­ture that voy­age pro­vides for us as believ­ers. If the 30-some pas­sen­gers who sur­vived that voy­age can repro­duce mil­lions of off­spring, cer­tainly God can use a hun­dred faith­ful Eng­lish Chris­tians and a rag-tag hand­ful of Amer­i­cans to save a city. Pray that God will raise up faith­ful labor­ers in this city who are will­ing to be fool­ish, weak, and despised for the sake of the Gospel. Also pray that as we return home to Des Moines we would have hearts to do the same. God’s Spirit will only move in accor­dance with our faith and bold­ness. This week we’ve truly got­ten a taste of the kingdom–preaching from the city sqare, sin­cerely lov­ing strangers off the street, pro­vid­ing meals for the home­less, speak­ing heal­ing truth to the hearts of the sick, the deforemed, the abused, the socially out­cast and those in bondage to all kinds of addic­tions. God is more than able to raise up Ply­mouth and Des Moines as sis­ter cities being turned upside down with the power of the Holy Spirit and the grow­ing knowl­edge of the truth of the Gospel.

Morn­ing wor­ship and prayer at the Hoe

David’s bap­tism by the sea

Amer­i­can Foot­ball with some locals

Matt, a local believer, preach­ing from the city center

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Hola from Equipo Supremo

Hola from Equipo Supremo (Jason, Nick, Heather, Randi, Becky, Lisa, y Dayna),

Today, fel­low broth­ers and sis­ters from our sis­ter church in Madrid arrived. They trav­eled all night by bus to join us in Barcelona! We are so thank­ful for them, because they have brought our com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the next level. The Gospel was able to go out more clearly with their help.

Our team again went to the Uni­ver­sity and nearby park. God con­tin­ues to be faith­ful by bless­ing us with encour­ag­ing con­ver­sa­tions. We are run­ning into more and more peo­ple that are will­ing to talk about their faith, or at least they are will­ing to lis­ten to our mes­sage. For the third time this week, we have vis­ited our friend Iftikar’s Kebab Restau­rant for lunch. Some of our group mem­bers were able to talk to him and his employ­ees about why we were in Spain, and we were able to leave them with Bibles. Pray that they open them up and let the Word speak for itself.

A few of us were also able to have din­ner with Sergi Vila’s fam­ily at their flat in Barcelona. His mother pre­pared an amaz­ing 3-course meal for us, com­plete with cafe con leche. If you have never been to Spain, come soon to taste fan­tas­tic cof­fee! How­ever, do not have it at 11:00 PM, oth­er­wise you will still be up at 1:30 AM. Aside from the food and drink, the fel­low­ship was incred­i­bly fun and refresh­ing. I pray we were a bless­ing to Sergi and his family.

God’s Truth has soft­ened many hearts today, and here are a few names to lift up in prayer: Bet­tina, Arleta, Nuria, Xavi, Jaume, Ser­gio, Marta, Ger­ard, Nor­man, Clara, Anna… and many more. Don’t worry about pro­nun­ci­a­tion– God knows their names!

Rely­ing on His Strength,
Equipo Supremo

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