Well since the last time I blogged, a fair bit has been going on. June seemed to feel like a bit of a wind down month. As the summer is long and hot here, all schools finish the end of June and don't start again until the beginning or mid-September. So I had quite a lot of teaching work around then, people wanting to finish up but then everything literally dried up to nothing! That was a fun time...lol. It wasn't that bad in the end, God was really good! I got to work at a football camp teaching English for 2 hours a day for the month of July. That was really fun, if not badly organized! I got to meet some pretty cool people in the world of Spanish football and held the real life World Cup Spain won!
Although I was only working 2 hours a day, I had a class of around 40 kids just to myself so it was a long month! At the end, I had a "relaxing" weekend in Malaga with some friends. But it was nice to get out of the city for at least a couple of days :-)
In August, both the English families (Bartletts and Whiteheads) went back to England for the month so I was here pretty much by myself! Work slowed down to an agonizing 1 or 2 hours a week but I filled my time with watching the Olympics and using the Bartlett's pool every day! I had some friends come out to see me which was fun, just did the touristy things in the city (which is almost empty during August, very strange!) and kinda chilled out lol. As beautiful as Madrid is, I wouldn't advise anyone to come out here during August though. It was very very hot and difficult to do much (apart from swim!). If that's all you want to do by all means come here but for me it's just stupid :-) but come out here any other time!
This month has been getting back to normal a little bit. Both families came back at the beginning of the month as well as (finally) the other English family -- the Capes -- who we've been waiting for for ages! It was great that everything had come together and they were eventually able to move over. So this month has been a challenge for them, two children have come over with them too so we've been working together to get them sorted out and settled as quickly as possible, especially since we all remember what the first few months here were like! English teaching has very slowly started to get going again, hopefully by next week things will all be back to normal. It's been a real testing time financially, didn't realize quite how difficult it was going to be, but God has been ridiculously faithful like normal and has always provided for me!
As for us as a group, we are now around 17/18 people including kids plus one or two others who are showing interest so we're too big to meet as a group in the Bartlett's flat. At the beginning of this month, we found a local to meet in, a little bit more in the centre of the city. It's a great space and we've tried it out a couple times now, meeting Sunday evenings altogether which have been great. As we're still at the birthing stage of all of this and not yet really wanting to launch but yet needing to do something slightly more public, we've been trying to find the right balance of what to do. After this Sunday, we are going to try meeting up as 2 small groups every week, perhaps one in Spanish and the other in English for now as English is still very much something that draws people in, then once a month use the local to meet altogether. It's something that none of us really knows how it will go but we feel it's the right step forward and the best way of growing this church plant the way God wants it to. So we'd really value your prayers especially around this :-) since moving into the local, we started doing our meetings in Spanish translated into English and every single team member has really stepped up to the plate. Kevin has done an awesome job preaching in Spanish, Al has been excellent leading worship in Spanish and everyone else has done a fantastic job translating into English! It's my turn to translate the preach into English on Sunday which, now thinking about it, I'm nervous about since everyone has been so brilliant before! No pressure :-)
As mentioned before, God has really blessed me these past few months -- well, what feels like more than normal at least! I was given a free ticket to go watch Real Madrid play a few weeks ago, thinking it was going to be a cheap seat, but still happy! Turned out to be about 10 rows from the pitch (I could shout at Ronaldo to stop being a baby loud enough for him to hear) and right next to the VIP area, so I met a couple of famous Spanish people too!
Other crazy stuff has happened which, believe it or not, feels like I just stumble into! But I know God is just being amazingly gracious to me :-) Some of my English students too are in very interesting positions which I get to talk to them about and also makes me think that if they became Christians, their world of influence would be huge!
So all in all, things are going very well! There are some major challenges to face, especially still in everyday life, but that's to be expected and to be honest is great as it's character testing and really makes you live what you believe rather than just saying it.
Prayer points:
- Please pray for the Capes to settle in very well quickly, make friends and feel at home.
- Please pray for us as a group that this next stage is a real fruitful time in relationships, finding people interested and that we move on into the plans that God has in store for us here.
- For me personally, please pray that I pick up a little bit more work, still not enough yet but more importantly that God uses me in the lives of the people that I come into contact with.
Dave
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