Just 4 more days and counting!

Last night we finished our FINAL Spain meeting as a team before heading over there. We leave this Sunday night from Atlanta. We realized in our meeting last night that God put our team together for a reason. All of us agree that we have never "bonded" with a group like we have with each other, so we believe God will use that to build relationships with the Spain leaders we come in contact with over there, and hopefully it will also help them build a strong team with each other.

We talked about NPCC's three "core beliefs" in building relationships: "Intimacy with God" (how can we be used by God as a blessing to others?), "Community with Insiders" (encouraging and strengthening our own team and finding ways to best use our spiritual gifts) and "Influence with Outsiders" (building on a foundation that others will continue, and doing it with a servant's heart). In other words, we aren't going there to try to take "buckhead church" to Spain and show them how it's done. We hope that by simply supporting them and being "relational" with them, they will develop their new church in their own way that is relevant to their culture, and in turn, it will grow and prosper because of the solid foundation that God has built there and because of the way they express Christ's love. My favorite part in our mission journals (that we are using to prepare for this trip), is where it says "Yielding to His agenda, we become less so that Christ becomes known." HOW TRUE! As Michael Frank on our team says, "We need to just pray that God will show himself in a BIG way over there!" ... and we all know he will. (:

So as we prepare to leave for our trip, we want to thank all of our supporters (family and friends) for your prayers and financial contributions to our team. We ask for continued prayers for the health and safety of our team; that God will use us to bless the people of Vilanova, Spain; for resources and abled bodies to renovate the new church in Vilanova; and for the leaders of this new church (La Iglesia de Vilanova)... that they will continue to grow and connect as a team, find time for "intimacy with God" and be a light to those who don't know what it means to have a relationship with God. We also ask for prayers for Mary Ann Cox, our team member who has been very sick. She and her husband, Bob, were going with us up until a few days ago, when the doctors decided she needs to stay home and get better. We're still waiting to see what Bob will do, but we pray he'll be with us because we can't imagine this trip without either of them! ):

Thanks again! Hasta Luego!
(Spain Team 2)