Navidad 2008 en Parque Este, !GRACIAS!

El último domingo del año nuestro servicio se llama ! GRACIAS! Queremos celebrar

las grandes cosas que el Señor ha hecho y también decirle GRACIAS a todos los que 

han hecho posible Parque Este en estos dos años.  Nuestros pensamientos y nuestros

corazones están con vosotros.

Gracias de Parque Este

Gracias de Pepe, Mari, Dani, María y Pablo

Navidad 2008 en Parque Este. Evento de Navidad en la iglesia

El 20 de Diciembre celebramos un evento en la iglesia con música, un sketch, una charla y algo de comida.  Pudimos invitar a nuestros amigos y algunos vinieron.

Navidad 2008 en Parque Este. Los niños de "La Estación" invitan a sus amigos y celebran una fiesta de pijamas en la iglesia

Navidad 2008 en Parque Este. Los niños de "La Estación" recogen juguetes para niños necesitados

Saludos a todos desde Sevilla.

Os deseamos una feliz Navidad y un feliz año 2009.

Hemos estado muy ocupados con los diferentes eventos que hemos organizado para Navidad.

Os comento algunas fotos.  Arriba los niños de "La Estación"  han recogido juguetes para niños necesitados.

And again... (last time, i promise)

As i told you guys this is no longer going to be a new in the blog. From now on you have to think in our sunday service as a place full of people.
Almost no chairs and a bunch of the regulars were not there, again.
We have to realize quickly how are we going to solve this -great- problem.
We're gonna run out of chairs so soon...

Again we would like you guys to pray for:

• Please, pray for wisdom for us to lead this situation.
• Please, keep on praying for more people to come.
• Please, pray for us to be ready for this new people.
• Please, pray for our new building in Vilanova to be finished as soon as possible.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

And again...

Well, looks like this is not gonna sound as a new anymore...
Yesterday, in Sitges, we had a great service.
The worship time was absolutely amazing, this guys rock!
Also Eugenio talked about "invest and harvest", he was great as well.
The church was almost "sold out", only a few empty chairs left, and again some of our regulars were not there. Again new people.
Well, looks like we have been investing our time very well lately and people is coming more and more...
We're gonna run out of room for everyone in the sunday service so soon...

Now, this is your homework:

• Please, pray for wisdom for us to lead this situation.
• Please, keep on praying for more people to come.
• Please, pray for us to be ready for this new people.
• Please, pray for our new building in Vilanova to be finished as soon as possible.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Happy Thanksgiving

"Memory is the mother of gratitude"

We remember you bay name before His kingdom.

Blessings all for a Happy Thanksgiving.

Eugenio, Sara & Marc

ICG packed again...

Sarah wrote about that two weeks ago after last sunday service.

Well, yesterday was the same. The church was almost overflowed. And again some of our regulars weren't there.
Yesterday realized that i don't know the name of some of the people there... amazing.

We've been investing in relationships and also in time to get an atractive church.
Looks like we're starting to harvest our investments.
And there are more to come...

Thanks for your prayers and support.
Please, keep on praying for more people to come.
Please, pray for us to be ready for this new people.
Please, pray for our new building in Vilanova to be finished as soon as possible.

Hi everyone,
I just thought I'd share this newspaper article with you all.... the Diari de Vilanova (the weekly paper of Vilanova (it's called a 'Diari', a daily, but it's a weekly...) wrote about last week's flea market, and look at the picture they used to illustrate it! If you look closely, you can see Isma, Isaac, Marc and Miquel. And the Grupo 5/14 sign made it too!
Sarah

5/14's first projects

This weekend, we officially kicked off Grupo 5/14 (our new community service group) with two projects. On Saturday, a small group of us volunteered at a disabled activities center called L'Esplai de Trobada. We had a great time getting to know the kids there, and we're excited about spending more time with them in the weeks and months to come.

On Sunday we set up a table at the Sitges Second-Hand Fair. It was basically a community flea market, and we all had a really good time negotiating and selling stuff! Miquel and Marc were in charge of marketing, and thanks to them we had a table full of fun price tags and signs (all the neon-colored things in the pictures). By the end of the morning, we'd made €335 for future Grupo 5/14 projects, which isn't bad considering that this was our first fundraiser. The whole flea market thing isn't really 'done' in Spain, but as you can see from the pictures, this one was a big success, with a lot of people selling and a lot buying! We also had a really cool sign (thanks, Isma!!), which invited a lot of people to ask us about the church and about our group. All in all, it was a great start! I just wanted to let you guys know how things are coming along, since I know a lot of you have been praying for us in this area!
Sarah
PS- People kept making offers on Carolina's stroller... so we finally had to put up a 'not for sale' sign on it. It looked pretty funny when we sat her in the stroller with that sign above her head. She drew more attention than anything we were trying to sell!! :)

October 2008 Vilanova Team - Post Trip Dinner

Hola a todos!

Esta noche, nuestro equipo de Buckhead Church tuve un reunion final en la casa de mis padres. Nosotros tuvimos comida, jugemos "agujero de maiz",  y miremos un exposicion de fotagrafias del nuestro viaje en octubre. Esta noche es la oportunidad de recordamos los razones por nuestro viaje, y tambien a continuamos a rezar por la gente de Espana.

( What I am trying to say in my broken Spanish above is)...

Our team had our post trip meeting tonight at my parents house in Marietta. It was a time for fellowship with our team, an opportunity to share our trip with friends and family, as well as a reminder to all of us to continue to pray for the church in Vilanova and Sitges. We played some cornhole, had a wonderful meal together and watched a slideshow that I made from the 2000 pictures that our team took on the trip. It was really great to have everyone meet up again after having some time to think about our trip these last few weeks. I'm especially thankful that we are able to share our trip's experiences with many of our friends and family here in Atlanta. Tonight we invited Wade, Cheryl, Courtney, Carolyn and Tammy to join us as well. More and more people are being exposed to what God is doing in Spain, and we are excited about what this means for future trips!

Our team was so blessed to be able to witness firsthand the progress that is happening in Vilanova and Sitges with ICG. We feel so honored to be able to partner with ICG to reach the people of Spain for the Lord. Every time we see members of our team here, we are reminded of what God is doing in Catalunya. We pray for God's continued blessings for the unreached in Spain.

By the way, has Monse and Olga come to church yet?

Here are some pictures from our post trip meeting and dinner at my parents house. Michael and I were humbled in cornhole by the girls...

Love, David

My first blog ever!

Once upon a time a group singles from Buckhead church traveled to Vilanova, Spain in hopes of impacting the lives of a group of people. Little did they know how this very special group of people would impact them.

As I sit here on election night in America, I think of how I have never known what it is like to be told I have to worship a certain way. I never realized what a luxury it was until I got the opportunity to see a small glimpse of what forced religion can do to our souls. Our God is so great to give us free will and I freely love Him.

Thank you to everyone in Sitges and Vilanova for opening your homes and sharing your hearts. Thank you for allowing us to pray for you and with you. I've always believed that prayer works and I'm glad that you guys are seeing all of our prayers answered in a very real way. Sarah, we were so excited to get the news of your attendance on Sunday!

I have never written on a blog before and I was told to just write what touched me the most. Well in order to do that I would have to choose between hiking to the top of beautiful Montserrat and being able to put my feet in the Mediterranean Sea. Between walking the streets of Spain while praying aloud to our Father for His blessing over these people and listening to the sounds of people worshiping Him in a language I can't speak. Between connecting with some amazing Christians and praying for the people there that aren't. All in all, this trip exceeded any expectations I might have had. My eyes and heart have been opened even more.

You guys continue to be in my thoughts and prayers and I hope to be grossed out by your food again very soon. ;)
Much love to my extended family in Spain,
Jill

Church in Vilanova: Prayer for Monse and Olga

Hey everyone-

A wonderful thing happened during our trip to Vilanova a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to share...

On the plane trip to get to Barcelona, our team sat next to two ladies who were traveling back to Spain from a NYC excursion. Their names were Monse (short for Monserrat, wow!) and Olga. Our seats were mixed up with theirs, so in the course of finding the

 right seats, Cibele struck up a conversation. They spoke no English. Turns out that these two women were both widows, and they spent a lot of time traveling together. Cibele found out that one of them was Catholic (but never really went to church much) and that the other called herself a Buddhist but that she was still "searching for something." Cibele communicated to them that we were going to Spain to serve with a church in Vilanova and Sitges... and they said that they lived IN VILANOVA!!! They were curious about the church, so Cibele got their contact information to see if they might want to meet up during the week.

Both Monse and Olga were told about the prayer night that we were going to have at the church on Friday night late in the week. It wasn't until after the prayer night that we found out that they had gone to several churches in Vilanova looking for us so they could attend!!!! Cibele and Eva were so excited that they wanted to meet up so they could get connected.

On Saturday after our service project of cleaning up the property around the Vilanova church, Eva, Monse, Cibele, Olga and myself went into Vilanova to meet up for expressos. They were having such a great time together that I hated to tell them we had to take off in order to make it to dinner at Alvaro and Raquel's. Eva got their contact info! I wanted to post this picture of Eva, Monsa, Cibele, and Olga for you to see (from left... Eva, Monse, Cibele and Olga).

In the months leading up to our trip as well as during the trip, our team and the church prayed for God to bless the church in Vilanova. We prayed for God to continue to bring new people in, to grow the small groups, to cultivate more small group leaders as well as to provide the funds necessary to finish the new church building in Vilanova. This continues to be our prayer.

Thank you Lord for your faithfullness in blessing the church members in Vilanova and Sitges. We pray also for Monse and Olga, that they will have future opportunities to interact with Eva and to be able to attend ICG in the future. Thank you for using the church members in Vilanova and Sitges to spread your word all over Catalunya and Spain. Amen.

Ya'll have a great day! Please pray for God to guide America's electorate as we choose our next leader today...

David

"CONGRATULATIONS"

Hello Guys:

Today it will be one very special day in your country, an also for the rest of the world. For those that we have lived in a contry in the one that was porhibited to vote, we know very well in a very special way what meaans this big party of having the freedom fot to go and choosing our leaders.

For this reason "CONGRATULATIONS". Enjoy this day and remember: God always has a plan behind everything what happens in our history.

We are praying for all of you and your contry.

"God blesses America" especialy today

From Spain: Eugenio

the power of prayer

So.... do you guys think that it was a coincidence that on the first Sunday after the Buckhead team's prayer trip here ICG was PACKED to overflowing? This past Sunday, it was standing room only, even though a significant number of our regulars weren't there for various reasons. Half the people there were new faces.
So, a coincidence? I don't think so! It's so amazing to see prayers answered so quickly!!!
Sarah

Un video de la Iglesia Cristiana del Garraf

En este video.... Julian, David y Alvaro practican la cancion de "Indescribable" en espanol antes de la servicio de la iglesia en Sitges.

It's David. I am going to try an post in Spanish every once in a while so I can learn, so hopefully the previous sentence made some sense. 

It has been a week since we returned from our mission trip with you guys. Be encouraged... we were so amazed at the progress that has occurred there in the last year! I look forward to seeing you guys again soon, and our team continues to pray for God's blessings in Vilanova, Sitges, Catalunya and all of Spain.

One of the things that I always look forward to when I visit is having the opportunity to sing  my favorite praise songs in Spanish... so I just had to post this video that Scott took. Enjoy!

David

GRACIAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, what a wonderful week we spent with David, Michael, Scott, Bobby, Jill, Cibele and Laura. First off, a huge THANK YOU to the whole team for sharing your time, your hearts and your prayers with us. As a church (and for me personally), it's a huge encouragement to spend time with people who have come so far just to show us love. It just makes me realize yet again how special it is to be part of God's family. It was wonderful to get to know all of you, and I know that this trip was only the beginning of relationships that will last a long time.

You guys did a great job keeping the blog updated - a hard thing to do when your days and nights here were so full!! But it's great fun to look back and read about the week and see the pictures (though I know you just posted a fraction of them - there must be zillions between all the cameras!!)

I'm sure we all got something different out of your trip, but it was definitely a growing experience for all of us (and a lot of fun too!) This past week was great and gave us some wonderful opportunities to spend in prayer, but I'm also really excited to see what blessings will come out of this time. The Lord was listening as we all prayed for Spain and for our church here!

I'm sure I speak of behalf of the whole church when I say that we are grateful and humbled by the fact that you all made such an effort, and in some cases a real sacrifice, to come here to Spain just to be with us, to pray for us, to know us and to love on us. What a huge blessing! I hope I see you guys again soon - either here in Spain or there in Atlanta!!

Lots of love,
Sarah

The next series in East Park Church

Por favor, 

orad por la próxima serie de dos partes en la que 

Marcos  tratará el aspecto práctico y las implicaciones 

de ser creados a imagen y semejanza de Dios. 

Mira el clip de video que Josué ha preparado.

Gracias,

Pepe

October 08 Vilanova Team: Final Day

This is our last shot from the beach in Sitges, Spain. We just finished praying for the church and sharing again how wonderful our week was here. We'll post more pictures and stories from the last few days in the morning... 

David

Speaking Frankly, by Michael Frank

Tonight we come to a close on our mission trip to Spain. It was a truly great trip. I am so very thankful to each and every member of the church here in Garraf. Everyone here as opened up their homes, and their hearts to us. I can only hope and pray that they were even remotely as blessed to have us here with them as I feel we were/are blessed to have them in our lives. Our friends here in Spain have an amazing heart for God, and a desire to know Him, to serve Him, and to bring others to Him.

My hope and goal that a day will come soon when I come back here on another trip, and sit in their new church in Villanova, and witness a service in full attendance!

I am thankful for these people, for their hearts, their hospitality, and most importantly, THEIR FOOD!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you. I will see you again.

Speaking Frankly, by Michael Frank

I've been to church

I've read the book

I know He's here, but I don't look

near as often as I should

Yeah, I know I should

His fingerprints are everywhere

I'd just slow down and stop and stare

opened my eyes and man I swear

I saw God today

by George Strait

October 08 Vilanova Team: Monday and Tuesday

Tuesday:

Our team spent most of the morning and afternoon with David Martinez, Isma's little brother. David was so excited on Monday afternoon to help construct a "cornhole" set with Michael and myself. Cornhole is a game that is gaining much 

popularity back in the states, and our team really enjoyed playing together when we used it as a team building experience on our pre-trip retreat about 6 weeks ago. We couldn't help but share it with our friends here in Vilanova and Sitges. We decided to give it another name in Spanish... so we call it "Agujero de Maiz". Isma, David Martinez, Michael and I went to an AKI (the local Home Depot) to purchase some lumber and screws for the job. Then David, Michael and I took it all up to the church in Sitges to assemble. Nothing like some power tools and sawdust to promote some male bonding time with our Spanish friends-- David Martinez proved to be quite the expert carpenter! The plan is to finish the project for the church to enjoy while we complete the service project of cleaning up the two church sites this week.

In the late afternoon, Eva and Issac met up with us in to pray for the people of Vilanova. We split the team into two groups, and we went through the town of Vilanova to pray for the many people who do not know God here. We are praying continuously for a revival here in Spain, and we believe God is blessing La Iglesia Cristiana del Garraf so that His Name will be known all over the country here. For generation upon generation in Spain and throughout Europe, the traditional Catholic church has slowly become an afterthought in the daily lives of people here. The desire of La Iglesia Cristiana del Garraf is to have a church that emphasizes making church relevant again. In the past year and a half, we have been so excited to see small groups expanding and new people coming to see what makes these Christians different.

Monday night we went to dinner with the executive Leadership team from the church. They chose an American type restaurant with a nice open area so we could discuss the church, small groups and service. Mom, you will be pleased to know that I am eating very well... Over dinner we discussed small groups and the things that they want to work on moving forward. It is so great to see the progress that has happened over the past year. God is really making things happen here, and it is wonderful to witness.

Tuesday:

Today Samuel and Loles took us on a prayer walk in Barcelona to pray for all of Spain. We went to see the many churches in Barcelona to learn about the history of the Catholic Church here. For years it was associated with government control and oppression, even corruption... so it made it easier to understand the people falling away from the church over the generations. Sarah Andrews also met up with us this afternoon. It was pretty neat to see the spot, near one of the churches, where Christopher Columbus was sent on a mission to find a route to the East Indies.

After a long day, our team split up to meet with two different families from the church: the girls went to eat with Eugenio and Marc, and the guys went to eat with David at Dani and Tamar's house. It has been a great day. I am ever thankful for this mission team and our Spanish friends here in Vilanova. Tomorrow, our team will travel with Eugenio and Loles to Monserrat in the mountains to pray for the region of Catalunya. I will attach a few pictures...

Thanks for following along. I appreciate the letters of encouragement that I am getting this week.

David

¡Gracias por una semana fantástica!

Mary, Nova, Kimber, Kevin, Chisty, Wendy, Leigh, Katie, Sherri y John.

!Qué semana tan extraordinaria hemos vivido juntos!   Una semana  en la que hemos

experimentado, una vez mas, grandes bendiciones y apreciado, una vez mas, vuestra generosidad y ganas de servir y de compartir vuestras experiencias e historias con nosotros.

Cada uno de vosotros ha sido especial y ya formáis parte de nuestras vidas y de la 

historia de lo que Dios va a hacer en Sevilla.

En nombre de la iglesia Parque Este, del equipo de responsables y de mi familia, Gracias. Gracias a cada uno y a todos los que lo han hecho posible.

Pepe y Mari