Whenever I have the opportunity to preach God uses the preparation to speak to me at least as much as to others, probably more.  By the way, the worship service in our little church was a blessing Sunday, including worship led by a German and a Brit, a testimony by a Spaniard, a Venezuelan directing the service, and a north American preaching.  We had about 50 people there.

At any rate God reminded me of his intervention on our behalf, even as he intervened on the part of the Israelites on a much larger scale.  There is a great phrase in Ex 2:25 that says God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.  In Spanish it says "he knew their condition".  But in order to get to the big plan there were many smaller interventions to even get Moses to the point of playing his part in God's plan.  You can read the first few chapters of Exodus yourself to remember them.

We've made reference to our residency and housing situations multiple times, but I'd like to put the flow together to illustrate how God is working in our lives, and answering your prayers for us.  We lost our residency status last year.  There were many reasons, but ultimately it was my responsibility and I felt terribly about it.  It altered our plans for home assignment and affected our ability to prepare the church for our absence.  It was for me a sort of desert experience, among others at the time.  

God first sent us a friend to help.  Rafa doesn't know Christ, but has a position in the government.  We didn't want to take advantage of our friendship. but he found out about our situation through another friend and approached us to help.  It turns out Rafa has friends in high places.  Fast forward to our time in the states.  I received my visa, Kay and Ian had not yet received theirs.  It looked like they were not coming on time so we delayed their flight for a week.  The visas arrived the day before we left (Oh you of little faith!).  I went to the Chicago consulate to get mine, and simply asked if Kay's and Ian's had arrived, knowing they would have to make a separate two hour trip to pick them up personally according to policy.  But they stamped all three passports.  And mine was stamped with a category that makes the residency process much easier, and in fact provides the good possibility we will be given permanent residency in spite of losing our status last year.

Last week we went in to start the Spanish residency process.  God has provided a very sweet lady in this particular office named Ana to help us and others, Ana is a bit slow (hence the process took 5 hours as we waited to be attended) but thorough and caring.  My visa had been stamped with a different category than Kay's and Ian's, and we should have been required to provide additional documents.  She could have simply sent us home and asked us to make another appointment.  But she took our fingerprints, gave us a temporary permit, and told us to bring in the documents when we pick up the residency card.  Anyone who has spent any time going through government bureaucracy anywhere knows how unusual this is. 

And we have a place to live, which we found in just a couple of weeks after arriving.  There are boxes all over the place but we're we're sleeping in our own home and we are getting settled and starting to meet neighbors.

So we want you to know that God has intervened in our mini-exodus,  as he did so many years ago.  And he has shown us again that even as he is accomplishing great things on a large scale he knows his people and their circumstances, and he is concerned about us.

Thanks for praying with us,

Mark, Kay and Ian

The last update was titled "arriving", and I am much happier now than when I wrote it, primarily because Kay and Ian are now with me.  Today we went into a government office to continue the process of obtaining residency here and spent about five hours mostly waiting.  But we were able to get a temporary permit and will be able to pick up our residency card in a month.

Thanks for praying for a place to live.  We didn't find a place in the same neighborhood, but we will be signing tomorrow on a duplex in the same town of Meco, near old friends and with the opportunity to develop some new friendships in the new neighborhood.  

The church services have been encouraging as we do most of our activities in Spanish.  A couple of the Spanish ladies have taken the initiative in starting prayer groups.  I'm looking forward to preaching this weekend.

We're excited to be back and looking forward to getting through the paperwork and moving stage to be less distracted for our ministry.

Thanks fro praying with us,

Mark, Kay and Ian

Our visas have been approved!  Last Wednesday I went to Chicago pick up mine, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Kay's and Ian's had been approved as well.  Not only that, the consulate stamped all of our passports so that Kay and Ian did not have to make a special trip.

After arriving alone and sick last Friday, I'm feeling much better physically and emotionally as I look forward to Kay and Ian arriving in two days (Ian still had final exams so could not travel yet).  In the mean time I've been blessed by the generosity of friends, including Alberto and his father with whom I've been staying.

The global recession is certainly evident here.  Alberto was released from the auto company he worked for; he's repairing cars in his garage.  Luis was the victim of his company going bankrupt a couple of months ago.  He worked long hours for 29 years for a man he thought was a friend.  That man ran the company into the ground, declared bankruptcy and went into retirement, leaving Luis and the other workers with no severance pay.   I spent a couple of hours with Luis yesterday, he's devastated.  He tends to believe all people are basically good and his faith is shaken.  That's not a bad thing, Luis isn't even sure he believes in God!

I've started looking at apartments, but will wait for Kay to make a decision on a permanent place to live.  Unfortunately there is no place in our old neighborhood to rent at this time.  There are a lot of places for sale, but they all need to pay off a mortgage.  There are some possible rentals relatively close.

It was a blessing to attend the church we helped start Sunday and see new faces.  Our intern, Alejandro, did a good job leading the worship.  There is a leaders' meeting Saturday morning.

It's good to serve the Lord.  Thanks for praying for us!

Mark 

As our departure date approaches, Kay and Ian still do not have their visas.  We've been assured that we will receive them in the next week.  So we are planning that Mark will leave on the original travel date of January 22, and Kay and Ian will follow a week later.  This will allow Mark to begin looking for a permanent rental property, and we will only have to pay to change two of the tickets.

Ian has final exams this week, delayed one day because schools were closed last week on account of the severe cold.  He is also taking his driving examination Friday.  Greg has an interview at Starbucks today, and has had a good class during the January inter-term.

We've been blessed by friends that have gone before us to seek housing possibilities in Spain, so we'll have a list of places to contact when we arrive.  We'll need God's direction as we face new ministry challenges, including a new job description, this year.

Thanks so much for praying with us,

Mark and Kay

We rang in the new year in cold, snowy Wisconsin, and in a subdued way, at least for Kay and me.  It was good to reflect a bit on the blessings of 2008 and dream regarding the challenges of 2009.  

Our biggest blessing has been to see a church begin to come together and function as a church in Spain.  One of our challenges will be to facilitate the church becoming truly established and ready to stand on its own two feet.  At the same time TEAM has asked me to help develop a plan for TEAM's next church plant in Spain.  We are still in the process of coming up with a job description.

A more immediate challenge will be to get our residencies approved (mine has been approved, Kay's and Ian's have not) in time for our flight January 22.  That implies packing and moving out of our house in Wisconsin, and finding a permanent place to live when we get to Spain.  Then we'll have to buy some furniture and get settled, all this before we can really be effective in ministry.

We've been blessed by the visit of our son Greg over the holidays and will sadly see him off on Sunday.   He again faces financial and academic challenges of finishing school (he's a junior) and of working out his faith in a non-Christian world.

These challenges give you plenty of food for prayer for us for the next few weeks.

And we are very thankful for your prayers!

Mark, Kay, Greg and Ian

Today I talked with an old friend in Venezuela, Hageo Herrera.  We discussed the possibility of a team coming to Spain to minister next year.  And there are some exciting possibilities.

But the really exciting thing was a trip Hageo just returned from.  He had visited some churches down in the jungle.  You may know that President (for life) Chavez kicked North American missionaries, particularly New Tribes Mission, out of their works in the jungle a few years ago.  So I asked Hageo what the climate was, if there are any restrictions to ministry.  He answered "only for gringos".  Venezuelans can work freely.  In fact he told me that his church had adopted a work that New Tribes had to abandon, among the Panare.  I asked him if he knew Joe and Jana Price.  The Prices are friends supported by our church, Elmbrook.  They had translated the Panare New Testament and continue to work on the Old Testament.  They gave their lives to working with this tribe and expressed concern about the continuing work when we saw them a month ago.

Hageo is very encouraged by the state of the Panare churches.   He said there are about 1500 believers among the tribe, and there is a solid core that has a passion for evangelism and for planting churches.  Hageo is president of a Venezuelan church association and is committed to leadership development among the Panare.  When I hung up with Hageo I called the Prices in Florida.  They were encouraged by the report of God's continuing work in the tribe which they had given their lives.

This was a great reminder to me that God works through us, He sometimes works in spite of us, but He doesn't need us.  He gives us the privilege of serving Him and blesses us in many way as we do so.  But even when we think all is lost He continues to work.  What an encouragement!

We continue to work out exactly what our assignment will look like when we return.  And we will need a place to live when we arrive, both short term as we arrive and longer term.

Greg arrives tomorrow night and we are looking forward to seeing him for about 3 weeks.  The weather is not supposed to be great, so please pray for safe travel.

Thanks for your prayers,

Mark and Kay

Thanksgiving made me thankful.  I guess that should go without saying, but it does not seem to be a given that those who celebrate Thanksgiving are thankful.  In fact I have to admit that I have not felt thankful every Thanksgiving.  But the chance to celebrate it with family in Wisconsin for the first time in five years certainly helped our spirits.

Our church in Spain celebrated Thanksgiving as well, and many friends came who do not yet know the Lord.  The attendance was about 50% more than previous years, and the members of the church stepped up and did a terrific job with the planning and all the logistics.  We had asked for prayer for the event, and wanted you to know the way God answered.  Thanks for praying!

There are important meetings this week as the leadership determines a job description for Alejandro Hidalgo of Venezuela who will be helping in the church for the immediate future.  He is sort of an intern in church planting.  They will also have an important meeting to talk about the future direction of the church on Monday.

Thankful for your prayers,

Mark and Kay