DTS life
Journal week 16
'Seeing the Spanish as an Unreached People Group'
Throughout the last week or so, we have had many opportunities to interact with the missionaries and local churches around Caceres. We have gone to neighbouring cities and prayed specifically for the missionaries and the believers there. A very saddening fact about Spain is that, out of the 7000 cities in Spain, only 1000 cities have evangelical churches. Out of all the Spanish speaking countries in the world, Spain is the least-reached country. Thus, there is much work and workers needed in this city. We have gone to cities where there are no-known believers; it was a memorable experience going to different places in the city and praying as we walked and meeting new people. One of the cities that we have gone is to Alberquerque. While we were there, we visited the only Christian family in the city; we prayed and encouraged them with words from God. I was very encouraged by the faith that the family had; they were very isolated from the city with no car and thus, unable to go to church. Yet, they exercised such faith, love and confidence in God. Although we only visited for a short hour or so, they were impacted by our visit and we left with having received blessings from them. On the day as Alberquerque, we also prayed for other neighbouring cities and even went to Portugal (which was only about half an hour away from where we were) and we were just in time for a beautiful sunset overlooking the cities in Portugal.
So, what else have we been up to? :
We have also begun to interact with more of the local people this week as we went out to the town center to hand out some calendars with Bible verses in them. It was a step out of the comfort zone as we pushed ourselves up to strangers and trying to spit out the phrase “Buenos dias! Yo quiero regarlarte un calendario” (Good morning! I would like to give you a calendar) at the same time. It was a wonderful experience; some people had more success than others. But the thing that I loved was seeing how the face of the people changed from expressionless to happy and surprised when they heard that the calendar was a gift for them. Although we have very broken Spanish, some of our team was able to have a few conversations with the people that we handed out the calendars to. And we pray that the people that we have encountered on that day will be able to be impacted by us or the calendars through God’s guidance.
In addition, we spent our weekend in a city called Budajoz which is the largest city in our province. During the weekend, we hosted a youth camp with a local church and we taught on various subjects like Fatherheart of God, Uncompromising Faith and Relationship with Jesus. It was wonderful spending time with Christian youth and building relationships with them through a lot of actions as we tried to understand each other. Through our teachings and sharing, I can see that a lot of youth have been impacted by what they have heard. We pray that the change in them will not just be a one weekend thing but that they will really remember God’s word in their heart because they are such an important generation; we believe that they will be greatly used by God. I was particularly encouraged by one young girl who shared her heart for Asia; her love for the people and God were so great that she said it didn’t matter if it cost her life. I was so surprised by her faith at such a young age. After spending a couple days with them, I pray that their faith will only grow stronger and not weaken and become a light for God in their nation.
|
