Ministry Part 2

I wrote previously about how this ministry I'm helping with has three parts. 1. The immigrant residences. 2. The church! and 3. The missions aid to Mauritania, Africa. Here's about part two.

As the history goes, when they first started ministering to immigrants, they made gospel tracts in several different languages and had people that showed interest who spoke Chinese and Romanian and Portuguese. And then once you start introducing people to the gospel of Christ and they all are involved in this immigrant ministry together…the natural outcome is a church!! So they started meeting and it started off with 5 people at the first meeting in the back room of a store Alex and Maribel used to operate. Now it’s over a year later and they’re up to about 25-30 and the basement is almost too small to have a church service in. Every Sunday morning I look forward to the people coming! Who’s going to come this Sunday? What songs are we going to sing? Singing praise to Jesus Christ in another language is the neatest experience. Hearing them pray in other languages. Seeing all the hands raised up in praise. My favorite thing in the world. The WORLD! Not everyone living in the residences comes to the church, but that’s okay. They are invited consistently and they know the door is open if they feel so moved. They also get the constant living example of people like Alex and Maribel who show them Jesus every day.

Alex preaching and Maribel translating.

They have a rotation of about 5 preachers. Alex, Steve Preston (WEC field leader), Hector (Argentinean man who is in seminary and wants to be a pastor), Diego (Hector’s brother in law who actually might be moving away soon), and Maria (Spaniard woman who’s heart to follow God has taught me so much). They preach in Spanish and someone will translate into English because of the high population of English speaking Nigerian folks who attend. Those people are also on the rotation to lead the worship along with Maria’s husband Steve. He is from England and usually incorporates a lot of the popular worship songs that we use at FCC! The service goes something like this: Worship, welcome to visitors where we greet them in their own language (Welcome! Bienvenidos! Bem Vindo!), then more Worship, then the sermon, then we’re done! But mixed in there is spontaneous prayer time. Just like at home, the room stays full for a good 30 minutes after the service while people talk and catch up and pray for each other if someone needs personal prayer and laughing and passing around the babies, etc.



I get to help out during the week with administrative things to help out. They have flags up in the basement representing the different nationalities that have been present in this church. Just last month I had to go to the copy place to print out a new flag for Bolivia and South Korea! We made a telephone and address directory so they can contact each other when they need. One of my favorite jobs so far has been taking all the worship songs from word documents and putting them in PowerPoint so they can be projected during the service. It’s been awesome to read through the text of worship and hear the way the Spanish language expresses its love for God.

When I arrived, Alex also wanted to begin Bible studies in different languages because they feel strongly that people should be able to hear the Word of God in their own language, their heart language. So for about 7 weeks I’ve been leading a small informal Bible study right before the service in English. We have between 5 and 8 people each Sunday. We’re working through a Foundations of Christianity study. Teaching is not my gift and each week I feel that anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach that says I am inadequate and don’t want to do this, but in true God style, once we start talking and looking at scripture I remember my joy. The same thing happens every other week when I have to share a 3 minute little something in front of the church in Spanish. I’ve talked about my favorite Bible verses, things I’m learning, why I’m here. It’s a challenge to do this in Spanish and usually I get Niurka or Noelia to proofread it for me so I don’t embarrass myself by using a wrong word or something. =) In the last couple of weeks, more people have started sharing the same way. So we’ll get to hear testimonies and favorite verses of a lot of people in the church! I love it when people can use what they’ve experienced and learned from God and use it to help others. That’s part of what the church is teaching the people; that they have a purpose from God here in Spain whether they know it or not.



In general the church is doing quite fine. It’s new and young and full of a mixture of people who have been in the faith for a long time to people who are brand new believers to people seeking to people who have grown up with only a belief in God and the scriptures without truly understanding the daily living application of said faith. I think they have a long way to go but they have a great start in making disciples. The problem with a missionary run church reaching out to immigrants is a certain level of instability. The missionary leadership is strong and they are taking active steps in training up local leadership (but if that local leadership consists of immigrants, how stable is that?) They bathe everything in prayer and have a genuine desire to reach this town for Jesus, and in that respect I believe it will be blessed.

I personally struggle with the idea of reaching out to immigrants in a society that has proven that the Spanish people need Jesus too! There are other churches doing this, however, and that’s how God arranges his chess pieces. Maribel said they were led to help the immigrants in baby steps by baby steps; seeing needs and grasping hold of opportunities God placed in front of them. There’s another ministry in Barcelona that does something similar but focuses more on refugees, psychological help, counseling, and offering a 3 month residence for people having just arrived in Spain. They are looking into collaboration between the two ministries which is providing an exciting assortment of possibilities!