Small Steps. Big Faith.

As Ruben and Aaron and I drove across the north of Spain toward Galicia, hundreds of pilgrims, represented on the map above) were doing their own pilgramages from different points toward the city of Santiago, Spain. Chris Pratt, a fellow teammate from my days of planting the campus ministry at the University of Granada, and his wife Anna Pratt invited us to join them and two other families for a week in  Ligonde, Galicia, Spain  to serve the pilgrims who pass by Ágape's pilgrim house,  lafuentedelperegrino.com .     Below left we are pictured at our first team meeting where Chris explained the history of the house and the vision and mission of La Fuente del Peregrino.        For one week our team of 8 adults and 8 children served pilgrims walking along the Camino de Santiago, providing coffee and lemonade, clean bathrooms, cold water from our fountain and for a lucky few, dinner and bed to sleep in, all free of charge. We learned how thi...

pictured above: front row - Donna, Jill, Lucía, Liz back row - Andrés, Dani, Jemima, Mateo, Laura, Israel, María, Penny 12 of us descended on Barcelona, gathering in a rented Air B-n-B apartment. It almost felt a little bit like the 12 disciples in the Upper Room. Many had come from very busy ministry schedules. Some flew in from other countries. Others were flying out to other countries after we finished.  These staff represent a variety of ministries:  GAiN , Athletes in Action , Operations and Human Resources , Family Life This group of new staff were wrapping up their two-year training period as New Staff with Ágape. Just as in the orientation, we looked together at 3 more of the 39 topics. We took time to be with the Lord. We reflected on what it means to be a servant leader, the role of coaching others and how to put to evangelize with our actions. Pictured below: María, Lucía and Laura spend time with the Lord before our first session. Pictured below: Andrés and Liz tak...

  4 I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, 5 because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus. 6 I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ. 7 Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people. ( Philemon 1:4-7 , New International Version ) Pictured above is Marian Bootello, whom I have mentioned several times in the last few years. Marian is a Spanish woman from Málaga who joined the staff of Agape 9 years ago to work with adolescents. We first met in the south when I worked in Granada and she was a student at the University of Málaga; and started collaborating together when she joined the Campus staff of Agape in Sevilla in 2002. Because we share a common background of the Campus ministry and because we are both new to the staff team in T...

One day last week I was working "on location" on a mountain top. Yes...a literal mountain top. (Sometimes I just marvel at the opportunities I have and often wonder, "How in the world would I put what I do on a resumé?") At the end of May staff leaders from all over the world will come to Spain, actually to Montserrat (about 6 miles from my little pueblo), to an event hosted by Campus Crusade for Christ, Internationl. They are coming to discuss reaching the large cities around the globe with the gospel. "Global Cities Summit" (or something along those lines) is the title of the gathering. Their planning team, based in Orlando needed help with some preparation on the Spain side and somehow this job ended up on my desk. I've helped to facilitate letters of invitation and permission for visas for specific people coming from India and from Ghana. I don´t really mind. Events like these help keep alive my vision for reaching the world. They also help me...

Just a few weeks left and it will be time for our national staff retreat...so my virtual conference team and I are busy working on details. Sometimes it is challenging to get work done when we're spread out all over the country. It can cause any good missionary to dread the cyberspace commute to work. But as is often the case, the "super Holy Spirit vision" can intervene and change the way we look at things, no matter what corner of the globe we're seated in. Today was no exception. One of staff women "skyped" ( Skype is a telephone/chat computer program that makes long-distance communication as easy as pie!) this morning to ask if I'd received in my mailbox the last important mail-out that was sent last week. We'd worked hard on this mail-out: the words were crafted just right, the grammar was reviewed and edited, special maps and directions of how to arrive were pasted together, special paper was used, the mail-out date was very specific..... ...

In 30 days we will experience a first-ever gathering for our Agape Spain family. We will travel from all over the country by car, by bus, by train and by plane to converge on a pueblo near Valencia. The purpose? a time of reorientation for and encouragement for staff a point of connection for our newer staff a place to come together a refuge of comfort a Tent of Meeting for the Lord to speak to his people The theme? Retratos or Portraits..... -a special photo wall will be dedicated to our family "portraits" -Verbal portraits will be painted of the failures and victories of our favorite Bible heroes -moments of reflection will be carved out to work on the inner "self-portraits" of our hearts -we hope to discover the Father heart of God as we worship Him together and humble ourselves before Him A bit of history.... Agape has been slowly, slowly arriving at a crossroads over the last 2 years. Could it be that this united gathering is the turning ...