Chave the Chair Salesman...Day 3

Happy 4th of July to our friends and family back home! Today we started (as we do everyday) with our morning meeting, where the ¨leader of the day¨ goes over plans for the day and gives a small devotion of some sort. Today was my day for that (carolyn) so I focused on the word ¨freedom¨ and had everyone start to think what that means to us as Americans and being ¨free in Christ¨. Then we headed to the church in 2 separate cars...and the van with most of us in it had a ¨European Vacation¨ moment where we went around the ¨roundabouts¨ too many times (ending up in FRONT of the car we were supposed to be following) and ended up getting lost on the way to Sitges. However, with Dave´s good driving skills and landmarks from the day before, we miraculously found our way. Some were saying on our team that (getting lost)was the first of several spiritual attacks today. Later in the morning, we realized we had oil based paint that we couldn´t use on the walls for primer, so as we were going to return it, we spilled it all over the sidewalks on the outside of the church. Scott, Julie, and David took a bath in turpentine trying to clean it up. Some of us have also had trouble using our credit cards over here, and it took a long time to get all paint and supplies that we needed. BUT, God is good, and by the end of the day, we had the entire church painted from top to bottom! Another great part of the day was when Alvaro came to help us, and he and I sat down and planned songs for the service on Sunday. I typed English words and he translated in Spanish. It is so amazing to see how music transcends culture. They love the same songs we do and listen to the same ones we listen to back home. It was a moment we won´t soon forget.

Another amazing thing that has happened on this trip is that we have met a chair salesman named Chave(pronounced Cha-Vee, who we affectionately call the ¨chair guy¨ and looks like Ray Romano). He has been coming to the church several times and showing us chair samples(bc- we decided that buying new chairs for their church was going to be one of our main projects) and each time he has been asking about this ¨church¨ that we are renovating. Julie has done an amazing job translating with him (and everyone else here who speaks little English). Basically he told us how people in Spain don´t go to church bc- only older people go and it means nothing to their life (no relevance). He was fascinated by the concept of ¨having a relationship with God¨and that younger people his age go to this church. By the end of the first day, he told us we were ¨fun¨ and today when he walked in, we all yelled his name and he had the biggest smile on his face! If nothing else happened this week, bringing Chave in contact with this church might be reason enough for us to be here.

We got back to the hotel late and showered and went to Ava and Isma´s house for dinner. THAT was the best part of the day to many of us. We sat on the floor with Isma and David (his brother) for hours talking about the future of their church and encouraging them to not give up. There are only 30 people that go to this church, and a majority of them have personally invested a lot of their own money to help build this church, even taking mortgages on their own homes in some cases. Scott made a good point of saying that ïf there is no struggle, it might not be worth doing¨ and that the enemy would want nothing more than to see this church fail. SO TRUE! So by the end of our talk with them, we felt that they were more encouraged and we all left feeling like God really IS showing up BIG this week just like we prayed.

Sorry this is so long but there is so much to say! On behalf of our entire team, we LOVE our support letters from all of you back home, and we love the comments you have put on our blog. We are praying for all of you too! Lots of love from our team.