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