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