May 2006 Update

The highs and lows of church planting

Hello All,

I hope you’re having a wonderful spring. How on earth is it mid-May?

I get the question, “How’s it going?” often, or maybe “How are things in Spain?” The short version is the ever so popular “fine.” This month, you get the long version. I love my life here, but church planting, international living, and life in general has its highs and lows. This month I simply want to give you a few recent “highs” to praise God for, and a couple “lows” to pray about. So here goes!


The highs
Easter Retreat
The Easter Retreat was awesome! We had 30 people stay all weekend, and then several more came out Easter Sunday morning to celebrate with us. All the pictures on the left are from the retreat. We had plenty of time to rest, worship, pray, hike, and generally get to know each other. I feel like it was a great community building time, and already we’ve had people asking, “When are we going to do another retreat?” That’s a good sign!

God surprising me
An acquaintance that I have a sculpture class with on my day off came to an Oasis service on Saturday. This had to have been entirely God’s doing, because she and I haven’t even talked about things relating to church. She text messaged me on Saturday afternoon asking if I wanted to go out, and I texted back saying, “Sorry, I have church.” I thought the conversation was over, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask her to come along. But then the phone beeped again and she was asking for the address—it was only then that it struck me that maybe I should invite her. About 10 text messages later, she had decided to come, even though she was really nervous because she hadn’t been in a church in years. She ended up having a great time, and coming to a birthday party with us afterward.

I have no idea what God is doing in this friend’s life right now, but hey, coming to church and not freaking out is a start! I’m glad she came, and I’m glad God showed me that He is working in people even when I’m not paying attention—any of you that know my attention span are thankful for that, I’m sure! It’s definitely a high to know that God is working here.

Spring in Madrid
I love Spring in Madrid—the deep, bright blue sky, open windows, the sun, flip flops, terraces filled with people enjoying their lunch or their café con leche, the park. I love that strawberries are dirt cheap and cherry season starts soon. I love that the temperature isn’t unbearably hot yet—actually pleasant! I love that it has rained enough that things actually look a little green.

I love how the city seems to come out of hibernation in the spring. Mind you, Madrid is never quiet, but something happens in May and things just seem to come to life. People just seem to enjoy life more when the sun shines. Every spring I remember how much I love this city.



The lows
Adjusting
Living here is a constant state of adjustment. Depending on my mood, sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it frustrates me to no end. Recently I’ve been leaning more to the frustrated end. I’ve lived in this neighborhood 6 months and don’t know it as well as I’d like to. Everything I’m doing right now, I’m fairly new at it, so it’s more difficult than I think it should be, and then I get frustrated with myself that I don’t “have it all together.” Please pray that I’ll be willing to let God work through this period and that I’ll grow through it rather than whine about it.

Battle
It seems like our team, and several others in our church, are fighting one thing after another. We’ve dealt with sickness, injury, financial problems, homesickness, family issues, you name it. Please pray for God’s protection for our church right now.


So that’s the long answer to how life is in Spain. It was nice to write this down and realize once again that the highs really do outweigh the lows—no contest. So yeah, the short answer? Fine. I’ll stick with fine.

Thanks so much for your love, prayers, encouragement, and support. I thank God for you!

Kelly