Outreach again

Well, it’s been quite a cool time here. This week we have been preparing for our outreach in Valencia. We leave tomorrow. It is supposed to be a pretty big outreach. Not only will our school be there, but YWAMmers from all over the country will be there too (as I understand it). Churches all over Spain and the world will be praying for us. (I hope you pray too.) We have all kinds of dramas and dances and kid’s games prepared to do. I might even do some painting out on the street. It should be pretty cool. After outreach it’ll be a week and a half and then I go home. Wow. So fast.

Morocco, part 1

Well, How about more news from our outreach to Morocco? I like pictures, so I'll show you some pictures and share the stories that go with them. Please be aware that many of the pictures are just pictures of something typical that you would see in Morocco. Also, this is not all that I will show you. Oh, yeah, they aren't exactly in chronological order either. There is more to come. This is just the start.

First, I think I'll introduce you to our team. In the back is Guilhermo, behind me is Magdalena, to the right of me is Jim. In front of Jim is his wife Claudia. Inside of Claudia is their unborn child. In front of me is André. The front row from left to right is Jona, his wife Vanessa, Emily, Hannah, and Cristian

Well, this is just a typical door in Morocco. It is in a town called Meknes, where we went on a tour of a very old underground prison and where we also got to go into an old mosque that is no longer in use for religious purposes and which is the only mosque tourists are allowed to enter.

Well, this is inside the mosque. The gentleman (who was our contact man in Morocco) is demonstrating how the muslims worship with their faces toward Mecca as indicated by the little hole in the wall.

This is just a typical alley in Meknes.

Our guide (who is a fellow "worker" from Argentina) in typical Moroccan garb walking past a rather interesting sign in Meknes.

This is Buahmed, a tiny town on the north Mediteranean coast of Morocco where we spent a few days painting the town school. I should be getting more pictures of the school later.

Here is Pedro and I at McDonald's in Tanger. Pedro is one of the people with whom we painted the school in Buahmed. You know you are on outreach when you think of McDonald's as a high end restaurant with the cleanest public bathrooms around. :-)

Here are a few typical sights that you would see from the car window in the Moroccan countryside.

The last several days of our outreach were spent in a town called Chefchauen. It is a tourist town. It has a rather interesting atmosphere. On the one hand, it has all of the signs of typical Moroccan life. On the other hand the money from the tourism has allowed them to make the town a little bit nicer than the typical town in Morocco. For example, all the streets in the touristy part of town are all painted sky blue and white. It's pretty cool. On the other hand, most of the tourists are there to get the drugs that the town has to offer. It is rather hard to walk down the street very far without being offered hashish and pot. We got a few strange looks from both locals and tourists for not accepting. For the most part, our "mission" in this town was just to be praying for the town. Some of us had opportunities to talk to some of the tourists about spiritual things. One of us talked to an Israeli guy who was staying in our hotel and got him excited about looking for Jesus in the Old Testament, especially Isaiah. That was cool.

Well, this is a typical street in Chefchauen. As you can see, there is a Moroccan carrying a huge pile of sticks on his back.

One day, some of us climbed up the side of a mountain next to the city. Here are a couple pictures of me at the top. It was beautiful and fun.

Back to the old grind

Well, it's been a great outreach, but it's back to the old rythm of classes and sleeping. I'm totally okay with that. We had an amazing time in Guernika. Much of our time was spent praying for the town. We also often walked through the town and got into conversations with people. Some of our group had the oportunity to personally bless the president of the Basque Country. Others found themselves in a formal dinner with a bunch of influencial people and shared the gospel with a few of them. One man, who was German had the opportunity to ask survivors of the bombing to forgive his people for what they had done. Below are some pictures from a prayer/worship meeting we had on top of a mountain near town. It was very beautiful.







Well, more later, but for now I have to go.

Eternal Life

The past week and a half have been incredible. God has been speaking to me in a very strong way. I’ve been challenged in new ways and I’ve shown obedience to Him in ways that I hadn’t before. I’ve gotten rid of some junk in my life that was getting between me and God and I’m hearing God’s voice with new clarity. I have been learning to lay my all on the altar of sacrifice, as the hymn says. This week was been great. The teaching was amazing. The topic was evangelism, but we talked about everything from what it means to be a Christian to raising funds for ministry.

One of my roommates came to the DTS not really knowing what he was getting himself into. He’s a Spaniard and his name is Cristian; but when he came to attend the DTS, he wasn’t a Christian. Last night, my other roommate, Guilhermo, and I stayed up really late last night with Cristian explaining to him some of the things that we have been taught throughout the school. Cristian had already kind of prayed the “sinner’s prayer” earlier in the DTS; but he didn’t really understand what it means to be a Christian. We basically explained the Gospel with him using the things that the man who was teaching this week taught.

Cristain

We told him about how God created the world and put humanity in charge of everything. We explained how when humanity sinned in Adam and Eve, we, in effect, gave Satan the dominion that God had given to us. We explained that bad things happen not because God wanted them to happen, but because the world actually changed when we sinned because we gave Satan the authority to do bad things when we sinned. We explained that, by sinning, we rebelled against God, placing ourselves out of the wonderful world that God made for us into a new world of evil, essentially telling God that we didn’t want Him or anything from Him. We explained that, since God wants us to have everything good, being away from God's will is being away from everything good. We explained how God had a plan of salvation for humanity from the beginning. We explained how the God gave us the Law, the Ten Commandments, so that we would know that we have sinned. We explained how this knowledge of sin allows us to know our need for God; for example, we can know that we have sinned because we know that we have lied. We explained that since sin caused separation from God we are separated from God and the life that He wants for us. We explained that, although we have sinned, God still loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to live the sinless life that we didn't live and die the death that we deserve so that if we believe in Him we will not perish, but have eternal life, the life of Jesus. We explained the terms redemption and propitiation and justification and adoption to the family of God in a way that he could understand. We explained that God sent His Son, Jesus, as a sacrifice, or payment, for our sin (propitiation) to purchase us from the slave market of sin (redemption) so that we could be proclaimed not guilty of our sins (justification) so that we could have a relationship with Him (adoption). We explained that being a Christian is not just having Jesus as Savior--or Rescuer—but it also means having Him as Lord--or boss. We explained that being a Christian is having the life of Jesus--eternal life. We explained that this is not adding Jesus to your life, but exchanging your life for His life. We explained that you actually have to give your life to God in order to have eternal life just as Jesus gave us His life. We explained that the eternal life that we have in Jesus is not just living forever but it is having a relationship with the Father, like Jesus had a relationship with the Father. We explained that having a relationship with God doesn’t mean that we will live a “nice” life but that it means that, like Jesus, we have obey the commands of God and take up our own proverbial "cross"; basically, we, like Jesus, have to die to ourselves. We explained that it isn’t unfair of God to ask this of us because it is no more than what He asked of His Son, Jesus and that He doesn’t ask us to do anything that He doesn’t also give us the ability to do. We explained that, like Jesus, we obey the commands of God because, like Jesus, we have a relationship with Him and we love Him. We explained that this is part of what it means to have eternal life. Of course we also explained that having the life of Jesus means that, in Him, we share in His divine nature. We have His Holy Spirit living inside of us and we will reign with Him forever.

After we explained all this, we asked him if he still wanted to be a Christian. He said that he did. So we prayed with him and he prayed. It was great. It’s still early, but I think I’ve seen some change in him already. Before last night’s conversation, for example, he was always somewhat stone-faced in the worship times that we have various times throught the week; but this morning in worship he was actually moving his lips. Granted, he wasn’t singing at the top of his lungs or anything, but it was a change. I’m excited to see more changes in him as time passes.

This Sunday we leave for the first part of the outreach phase of the school. My group is first going to the Basque Country in Spain for a week. It will be great to see what God does through us. It won’t be easy. All of the events that YWAM had planned to do for this week have been canceled by the local government. The reason for this is that this week is the anniversary of a very important event in the area. I’m afraid I don’t know all the history of it, but during the Spainish Civil War in the 1930's a town in the Basque Country called Guernica was bombed by Nazi Germany. The city was pretty much destroyed and a lot of people died. Basically, the region is still suffering and they don’t want a bunch of outsiders coming in and disturbing their mourning. Although YWAM's grand plans of having a big event with a famous musician who wrote a song especially for Guernica are cancelled, we are still going; so please pray for God to give us wisdom to know how we can show the love of God to these people.

Picasso's famous painting, Guernica

After a week in the Basque Country, we will be coming back here to the base in Torrejon for a day. Then we are off to Morocco. The challenges here are various. First, it is illegal for people to go to Morocco as missionaries and it is illegal to share the Gospel in public. We will certainly be sharing the Gospel, but the restrictions will be a challenge. On the one hand, we don’t want to go to jail or get the long term missionaries in trouble; but, on the other hand, we want to share our faith. We need wisdom to know what God wants us to do and courage to do what He asks of us. Of course, the language barrier is another issue.

Please, pray for us. I can hardly wait to see what God will and to share with you the stories of what God will have done through us.

Evangelism Week

This week we have not been having classes. Instead we have had evangelism week. It’s been great. We’ve been practicing “servant evangelism” as well as some more traditional street evangelism. Monday we went around the neighborhood with brooms and trash bags to pick up trash in the streets. Some of us saw a city clean up crew in a nearby park and offered them a hand. They were surprised. When they figured out that we were serious about helping, they started letting us use some of their tools. It was good. The next day, we went out onto a street corner in Torrejón with three signs, first saying, “God loves you,” (in Spanish, of course) the next saying, “and we’ll wash your windshield for free.” The last said, “Because you’re worth it.” The last one was a quote from a famous cell phone ad. Wednesday, we went to the middle of Madrid and worked together with a ministry called “Kilometro Cero” that does evangelism on the street in Madrid. We literally stood on a box and preached the gospel right in the middle of a busy pedestrian street. It was great.
Yesterday, we went to a big park in Madrid and set up a couple of tables. At one table we gave away free coffee with milk and at the other we had a sign that said “free prayer.” Practically the whole time we were there, we had some of us singing worship songs and playing guitar. One young lady who saw the sign stopped and after a brief conversation with Alba, one of the students, prayed to accept Christ. It was cool. I heard part of the conversation. It went something like this. “What’s this?” “We are giving away free prayer. Would you like me to pray for you?” “Sure.” “Okay, is there anything in particular you would like me to pray for?” “No.” “Would you like to pray to accept Jesus into your heart?” “Yes.” And from there, Alba explained the gospel a little and led her in the “sinner’s prayer.” It was cool. It emboldened me to be a bit more direct when talking to people. A bit later, I saw a man watching the worship, and walked up to him. After a short conversation about who we were, and what we were doing, I asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus. He said yes, so I called one of the native Spanish speakers to come and lead him in prayer. The man was a Peruvian named Freddy. I hope to see him again. Tonight we will go to the train station here in Torrejón and do something similar to what we did in the park yesterday.

Here are a few pictures from the day we washed windows:

This first one was taken before I got the camera in my hands

This is Alba; she's from Spain

This is Margarita (Chile), ready for battle with the dirty windshields

Vikky (England)

Guilhermo (Brazil)

Don't ask me what Jona (Spanish) and Alba are doing, maybe it's spiritual warfare or something

Handing tracts to drivers
Rebekka (Faroe Islands)
Maria José (Chile) Carlos (Spain) and Alba talk to an intrigued passerby

Hello, again!

It's been a while since I've updated. I suppose it's time to catch you all up on how I'm doing. I'm doing fine. I suppose nothing quite as exciting as giving away a professional camera or getting robbed has happened in the last couple weeks, but some other cool things have been going on.

Last Sunday I cooked a meal for 35 people! Well, I had some help, but I was in charge. This was a definite challenge, and I had a blast. Mostly. It was a bit stressful at times, especially when I was looking all over Madrid for tapioca pudding. I couldn't find tapioca pudding, but everything turned out fine anyway. I used my mom's recipie for Firecracker Casserole and another for her fruit salad. A side of chips and salsa (also hard to find) made for a great meal. Finishing off with a dessert of vanilla ice cream with peanut butter was just perfect. Well, it all turned out great.

Last week's teaching was good. The topic was supposed to be about relationships, but as he took questions, the teaching went pretty much all over the place. It was good.

Today we had our first outreach meeting. On April 30th we'll be going to Morrocco for our outreach. We'll be there for three weeks. It should be exciting.

It'll be cool to see what's happens.

I Still Have My Computer

“Why you want know my name?” the guy who had stooped down next to me and started chatting with me asked me in broken English. He was young, about my age. Caucasian, not exactly fat, but certainly not skinny. He wore blue jeans, a blue Puma brand sweatshirt, and nice shoes. He didn’t look like a needy person, physically speaking.
“Okay, don’t tell me,” I said. Geez, it seemed like a fair enough question. I knew Spaniards weren’t exactly friendly to strangers but, wow, this is strange.
It was a beautiful day. It was about 1:50pm (Madrid time). I was sitting on the ground on top of the “mountain” in the park behind the YWAM base thinking about the class we had just had and writing a few thoughts on my laptop. The class had been about the cross of Christ. The class was really good. In fact, I actually cried in it. (In case you don’t know, I don’t cry often, but thinking of the cross does occasionally bring tears to my eyes. This happened when the teacher was talking about the meaning of the last words of Christ, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”)
“I want money,” the young man said.
Ah, yes of course, he’s robbing me!
“Sorry, I don’t even have a cent on me right now,” I said, truthfully.
“Oh, I sorry,” he responded, pointing to my laptop. “I going to have to take dat, den.”
I laughed nervously. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“No, give it to me.”
“Why should I?”
“If you not give me dat, I punk you.”
Okay, good. He doesn’t have any weapons.
“You’re going to punch me, are you?” I asked, standing up. He stood up also. He came up to about my shoulders. What a sad theft attempt. He’s alone, unarmed, smaller than me. Poor rich kid.
“Take off your glasses,” he tells me. “I not want dem break.” I took off my glasses cautiously watching him. He didn’t hit me. The act reminded me of Inigo Montoya, the Spanish fencing prodigy in the Princess Bride, when he helped the man in the black to get to the top of the cliff and even waited for him to clean out his shoes before attacking him.
“Okay, hit me,” he said.
Isn’t that your job? I thought. “Uhhh, no,” I said aloud. "I'm not going to hit you."
“Hit me, hit me,” he insisted.
“No,” I said. “Hold on a sec. I’m going to put the computer in the bag so we don’t break it while we’re fighting.” I kneeled down and put the computer in my backpackThen I stood back up, ready to fight or flee. We looked at each other. Then he looked behind me squinting.
“F***ing police!” he muttered. He repeated his interjection once or twice and slowly began to walk away. I looked around. I didn’t see anything.
“Thanks, Lord,” I said and walked back home for lunch.