Small Steps. Big Faith.

Please forgive the pause in communication recently! Last week, I started feeling bad and Aaron joined me the next day. He was home from Wednesday through Friday! We started with all the typical home remedies: chicken soup, Tylenol, extra liquids and extra rest. However, on Thursday morning Aaron woke me up saying that he could not breathe. So, I  put Aaron in the bathtub with hot water running, hoping the steam might open up his airways while I made an appointment at the local primary care center. We waited an hour past our appointment time, but finally the doctor was able to see Aaron. After listening to his lungs, she said that, indeed, he was suffering from a strong case of bronchitis. Right there in the office, she gave him some medicine to breathe in through this plastic mask. Later that afternoon, we bought the prescribed medicines to nurse him back to health. I am so grateful to live in a country where we have almost immediate access to doctor care and medicine. A...

Sometimes it's hard to live the life of an ex-pat. I don't have my family and old friends with a long history here. I sometimes still miss cultural cues that would help me to know how to respond in certain situations. Being from another country does have its benefits though. A good portion of my staff career, the formative years, were spent in the U.S. and some significant relationships were formed during that time. Those connections can be useful at times when there is a need to resource one of our Spanish staff. Mariló Fuentes is an incredible staff woman who has begun to serve as the Director of the Campus Ministry in Málaga, in addition to serving at our national office in the areas of MPD, Donations and Reimbursements. Recently she has begun to experience a restlessness in life, sensing that God may be calling her to make a change, to look for more training, to pursue even greater growth. I had the privilege to chat with Mariló in February about her situation. A...

Today I traveled by train to Terrassa to meet with Gema Pérez, Spanish staff member who serves on the Area Leadership Team for Ágape Europe. She has gently taken me under her wing over the last few years to check in with me, to see how I am doing, to share life, to pray together. She has been a great encouragement to me as I am still learning how to fit in to Spanish life and culture. Gema (pictured left with her husband, Javier García) and I also attend the same church so I told her about the plans for the Evangelism Module that I will facilitate this fall at church. She encouraged me and gave me several ideas that I hope to implement during this learning opportunity. Thank God for Gema's initiative with me and for the privilege to have an older woman to connect with as I live life and do ministry in Spain. Pray for Gema that God would continue to bless her in her life (she's a new grandmother!) and her ministry.  Pray that God would use our relation...

Last month, I met with Ruth, co-pastor of my Spanish church, and Miriam, director of evangelism at the church and Nacho, our national Ágape Director  to consider how Ágape and our church can continue to grow in partnership to take the gospel to Spanish people. One of the needs that was surfaced during that meeting was an effort to better equip church members in their "natural witness," increase their capacity to initiate one-on-one spiritual conversations and to share their faith with the people around them. The idea we landed on was that Ágape could provide a 4-5 week Sunday School class where members could explore the biblical basis for personal evangelism, prepare their own personal testimonies and also learn about relevant evangelistic tools that they could learn. I am very encouraged about the possibility to facilitate this Module on Evangelism and have prepared a proposal of topics to touch on during this class that will be launched this fall. Pl...

Sometimes life throws curve balls. The month of February has seen the loss of the fathers of two different friends here in Sant Vicenç. In addition, the older daughter of our LDHR Directors required surgery for a serious heart condition. When we pass through a crisis like these, everything comes to a halt for a time. (I know this all too well from experiencing our car accident in 2007  or my miscarriage in 2012 . .) As companions in the journey, we pray, we call, we support....but our lives may not necessarily stop in the same way. Our lives and responsibilities continue. At the same time, while our friends/co-workers are absent, sometimes it creates a hole or a pause in our activities as well while we wait for grief, for logistics, for healing. This pause, this " white space " is something that I experiencd today during our normally-scheduled LDHR meeting on Thursday mornings. Because Rex and Gema, our LDHR Directors were out of pocket, another staff member, Garr...

This week, Donna, my LDHR teammate, (pictured left with her husband) and I met again in Terrassa, the city half way between hers and mine at a restaurant called Viena.                                                                                                             During our weekly meeting, we  catch up on our personal lives, pray together and, this week, to talk through priorities for New Staff Training (NST) over the next few weeks. As we reflected over our time of working together, it is amazing to think about how God has used Donna to bring structure and order and to lay a strong foundation for our incoming staff and, really, our entire ministry, through her leadership and supervision of our...

The question I am asking this week involves partnership : What does teamwork or partnership look like? How do we agree on common objectives and at the same time allow the various partners to focus on different priorities? How do we ensure that each partner looks out for the good of the common objective, rather than merely looking out for himself /herself? (Even as I write this, Aaron is at school talking through some problems with his teacher as he and a couple of classmates develop a group project. One student is pulling more weight than the other two.) This challenge of teamwork is not unique to the 21st century. Even Jesus' disciples struggled with this. Consider this comment from the book of Mark... “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”  “ Do not stop him ,”  Jesus said.  “ For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me,   ...

So many things, activities, processes, initiatives fall into the category of Staff Care. An orientation for New Staff does too. Hear what our 7 new staff said about being cared for at their NST experience last weekend: "I have loved the quality of this event, especially the high spiritual and human quality of its leaders and the atmosphere of love and communion that were created." "Oh, how they have cared for us!" "It's been a pleasure to meet the staff kids. I see that family is important." "Something, I think you should keep doing in the future is the puzzle idea as a way of integrating the new staff. As we were putting it together, we had moments to talk and get to know each other better." "This event should last longer!" "It helped me a lot to connect with God and I was moved by the prayers for each person and the anointing with oil. Excellent." "The Sunday morning devotional helped u...

With their own words from their responses on the NST Event Evaluation, the new staff included notes about things they learned during the sessions...  "The main points are very pertinent for the process and path that we are initiating." "The Bible passages were right on mark with clear examples of God's calling and the traits to develop as a leader." "It is good to understand how everything started, how it works and why." "Learning the history of Bill Bright and the 3 things that He asked the Lord for were very inspiring." "Ágape has as its mission to help fulfill the Great Commission and reach people so that they know Jesus and His gospel." "Knowing the main mission of Ágape helped me to strengthen my conviction regarding joining staff." "I love the vision of the Kingdom and the openness in sharing materials, vision of discipleship, etc." "Reaching all the nations with s...

  With their own words from their responses on the NST Event Evaluation, the new staff praised the community that God created during our time together.... "Thank you for creating time and space to have this time of community." "Very good time" "Much harmony among the whole group: trainers and new staff." "The time for games was very fun!" "We had a really good time playing and chatting." "Excellent times of communion. High quality people and harmony and love among the all of the group." "Pleasantness and empathy"

Remember my conversation with Soi back in January?  Soi is a Korean school teacher in Germany where she lives with her family. She teaches Spanish. She had written because she was interested in using her vacation time to serve the Lord and improve her Spanish. As you can see in this screen shot from my phone, we had a Hangouts session this afternoon and were able to confirm this idea.  After our initial conversation, I talked with several of our staff and a few church contacts to see if we could find a fit for Soi. In the end, my dear friend Carlota Verdura, who pastors a church with her husband in Cádiz, was able to find a role for Soi at a church camp.  In addition to serving at the church camp this summer in Cádiz, Soi will also serve at Carlota's church as well as be available to serve with our ministry Todo por Una Sonrisa   directed by Ágape staff member  Gloria Rosado (pictured 2nd from right on back row.) Please pray that ...

This weekend Ruben and I attended a talk at church. It was advertised like this: "Honey, We Need To Talk"  Reflections on Marriage  in a Changing World We both understood it to be a talk about marriage and how to improve the communication between husband and wife. Living in a cross-cultural marriage, I always welcome tools that can help us communicate better with one another. I was so encouraged by Ruben's iniative to attend. He had worked since 6am that day and requested 2 hours off to be able to attend the 5pm event. So, there was an aspect of individual marriage that was addressed, in reality, the presentation was actually about the role that women play in the church in speaking and in ministry. While it is not the topic we expected, it was an interesting talk that gave me greater insight to the historical views of women and their role evangelical church in Spain over the years. Please pray... --Thank God for Ruben, for his leadershi...