Tuesday, November 4, 2008

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

2 comments:

Carolyn Norton said...

I love this story! It just goes to show how easy it can be to simply strike up a conversation with someone, and spread Christ's love to others, no excuse or experience necessary! Praise God for this!
Carolyn

Anonymous said...

An amazing coinciGod happened during our prayer walk in Barcelona on Tuesday (?) of that week -- walking in a city of several million people, we ran into these ladies on the street!! Cibele was overjoyed and I truly believe God solidified the connection right there!!
Isn't He amazing?? And continues to be amazing everyday we trust Him!!
bobby