HOLA...

A looong time ago, in a country not so far away… called Spain, a beautiful team found themselves in the interesting city of Villanueva de la Vera. They were very excited to work with people, and do Open Air-Evangelism and Kids Clubs, and stuff like that… but the real truth they found was: Figs and Tomatoes.

There wasn’t an Open Air or a Kids Club… but it wasn’t bad, in fact, it was very fun. There was also something else like, a video that we made about the area, and an English Café. At the café we talked with many people (in English of course), and we made good relationships with them. In the beginning we didn’t know if we could share the gospel, but in the end (like, the night before we left), we did share about the bible and our faith with one guy we met at the English Café.

It was very WOW how the people were very interested in our travels, and not just people from the English Café, but also from the hostel we stayed in (yes, we stayed in a hostel, but just for one night ). Well, they are right, a normal person would not travel in a van with 7 people for 5 months, and that is helpful when talking with people, it starts conversation. Maybe we will not share the gospel with everyone, but we can say that we are Christians, and that we are helping churches in different countries because we believe that God wants this. That is very small, but it plants a seed, and God will work in that.

After Villanueva de la Vera, we were one week in Algeciras. We cleaned a church and a warehouse, and we helped with an English Café. In Algeciras we had the opportunity to perform Open-Airs, but the only problem with this was how we can present the gospel, because was MANY muslims from Morocco (around one hour from Algeciras until there) and was not easy. Making strategies, plans, etc, and asking what to say and what no. We did two Open Airs in the Plaza Alta, and there were a LOT of people that saw us and heard what we had to say. Quite a lot of them spoke with people from the church. There were very good conversations after the first Open Air, so for the second we decided to share something more evangelistic, something more direct… and the people received this very well, and it led to very good conversations.

This made us think that one of our purposes is share the love of God, inclusive in this places. Just was two days of Open Airs, but was something very important for the area (long time ago that nobody do Open Airs or something like that) and we could see in how the people react to this. Othe little seed, but we know that God is working in that area.

Now, in this exactly moment, we are in France passing the night. Tomorrow we go to Italy and (again) we don’t know exactly what we will do, but after all this things, we just trust in God. Anyway, from Algeciras to Italy are two days and a half, quite tired, but funny.

The Art of Kissing

So the fun thing about travelling is experiencing different cultures. This leads to all sorts of amazingly awkward yet memorable situations. One of the most memorable experiences for our team so far has been...well, kissing. In France it was three, in Portugal two, and when we stepped off the van last night we discovered Spain is not to be left behind in the kissing world...they also go for both cheeks.

In some cultures you greet with a handshake, in others a hug, but for most of our team this kiss and greet thing is a new experience. Lila was prepared the most...but even in Chile it's just one.

So we'll share a little of what we've learned from the past few weeks of kissing. It goes like this, be afraid, be very afraid. Fortunately it goes pretty quickly and most people realize you're a foreigner and don't know what you are doing. When unsure whether the other person is going for the kiss or not, and there is a 50% chance that they are, it's best not to panic. However, as Erin found out the other day, if they hug you first, best to consider that hug as kiss Numero Uno and go straight for the second. If you don't, it leads to awkward almost full-on kisses....sometimes with children...and nobody is quite ready for that. As Lila puts it, best to go straight for the kiss because if you hesitate....it gets complicated.

While some of our team found this painful....you never know if the other person will actually make contact with your face or just the air....some of us found it fun...and some of us just really enjoyed making the kissy noises regardless.

There is more things that we can say... but they are private... no joke.
Anyway, in this moment we are preparing our team for Algeciras, Spain. And after we go to Italy... will be an interesting travel, long, but fun and exiting.

was a very cool "Special Time"...

Portugal is gone... two very hards weeks, but full of the love of God. The communication is something interesting and complicated, and to understand it you need A LOT of patience... and we have it :)

Anyway, Portugal is awesome, and the people are amazing, we could see the love of God through them. They helped us in ministry, they showed us the city, they cooked MANY beautiful and amazing things for us... The people of Portugal are so friendly and full of the Spirit.

The two weeks we spent with them we presented ourselves to the church, we did sketches and we played music. We also did a Kid's Club, and it was so much fun. We helped with a Cafe Concert, were we played music (of course).

We went to a skate park, met a few skaters, and skated with them (well, just Kayla, because she is the skater on our team). The people there were soo open to us, we had a few conversations with non-believers, and we invited people to the Cafe Concert and other activities, like a Movie Night.

These events were for people from the neighborhood and church members, but we didn't expect many to come. When we gave out invitations, we did it in one day for only 30 minutes, so we weren't expecting a big turn-out. We hoped to see around 17 or 20 people, mostly church members... but that night we saw around 55, and more than half were non-christians!

We worked with two churchs: Baptist Evangelique Church and CCVA. Together the two churches hosted a free Acoustic Concert (which also had free soup, that was very good :) For this we distributed invitations, and at the concert we performed a sketch and live art. This was also very interesting, because two churchs of different denominations working together is not common in Portugal. Right now there are 10098877365252673765434218.78899 (a lot) of church denominations, and they usually don't mix.  So to see these two churches working together was very encouraging.

We left Portugal for Spain on the 6th, and it was amazingly normal. We have an idea of our ministry here: every evening is an English cafe, where we will help the locals with their English. We also will make a video, do practical work, and try to survive the HUGE insects that are here, etc... it will be interesting, but of course, awesome.

:)