October 08 Vilanova Team Arrives in Spain!

It's after midnight here, and we are wrapping up our first day in Spain! We have all been up for nearly 36 hours straight, so excuse the typing errors. We touched down in Barcelona at about 7AM local time this morning... after we got our bags, Alvaro and Isma arrived to pick us up and take us to Sitges where we are staying. Most of today was supposed to be time to recover from the long flight, but we were too excited to take any rest. Michael, Cibele, Jill and myself took a run along the coastline to explore the Mediterranean town. It has been about a year and a half, but Michael and I remembered our way to the church. When we finally got there (we were soaked because it was raining), we found Alvaro, David Martinez, and Julian there rehearsing the music for tomorrow's service. We listened to them practice for a little while and then we headed back. We discussed our goals for the week while we are here... we wanted to share with each other how our small groups are working. We have a few workshops that we have put together to partner with our Spain friends on small groups, service in the community and strategies for moving forward. We are probably most excited about attending the Sunday service tomorrow and spending the whole day with the entire congregation.

Sarah, Miguel and their two month old baby Carolina met us for lunch, and we talked about what had been happening at the church recently. They are so excited about having us with them for the next week!

We all broke off on our own afterwards to explore more of the town. At 5PM, we met up with Alvaro, Raquel and their two kids Oriol and Noa to see the progress on the construction of the new church in Vilanova (the church in Sitges is a temporary site until the new building in nearby Vilanova is completed). Much construction has been completed, about 60%... and they are still raising funds to complete the project. One of our big service activities this week is to work together with them to clean up the property in and around the construction site. After we toured the church, we prayed together with the Lignan family over the church and the communities surrounding it. It was really awesome to pray with our team and also to listen to Alvaro, Raquel and Cibele pray with us in Catalan and Spanish.

We then went in to Vilanova for dinner with all of our Spain friends that we haven't seen for the past year. For Michael and myself (since we have come to know our friends here so well), this trip is very special. This mission trip is more than just a week long visit. Our friends here have come back to the US multiple times to stay with us and work with Buckhead Church on developing their own ministry. Alvaro, Raquel, Isma, Eva, David, Sarah, Dani and Tamar have come to see us so much that they have become family to us. Dani and Tamar even stayed with my parents last summer when they spent a week in Atlanta.

Even the new members of our mission team have already seen how easy it is to come to love these people. We love our Spaniard friends that we have come to know so well and we continue to pray for them, ever looking forward to what God is doing next here in Spain. I am about to fall asleep, so here are a few pictures from the day's events...

David