Annual report, Christmas 2008

Dear Friends,

Greetings again from Mallorca!

2008 is coming to a close and we can look back not only over a world heading downhill fast, but also to moments of great encouragement. These include open air outreach, the web ministry and local activities, plus a trip to Canada.>

Outreach

As you can read in greater detail on our web reports, we joined the Barretts at Easter for another outreach supported by a British GLO team, this time to Azuqueca de Henares, to the east of Madrid. Later in the year, the focus for outreach in Spain was the World Expo at Zaragoza. Ken did initial training and arranged the building of numerous folding sketch boards. the we spend two weeks joining in the 3 month long outreach. Over 330,000 visited the 'Living Water' pavilion and we spoke with many of them during our time. In the evenings we were also in parks helping local church programmes.

Local evangelism opportunities this year have included a book table in a busy Sunday market and open air meetings in central Palma. We have seen people visiting our church as a result of both these regular activities. One Saturday I was in the crowd listening to the songs and speaker, when Nicolai from Romania passed through and then returned to listen. We were soon in conversation and finally he decided to visit us the next day, coming to both morning and evening services. However, he has not since returned. Pray for him and others also contacted on the street.

The web ministry goes from strength to strength and at this moment we are looking forward to the arrival of a new 'CMS', the software used to write the pages. X-Cathedra will provide a better skeleton to feed and dress with the information which will help you to pray for us... and Spain. And if you have any misconceptions about our ministry it should cast them out! In addition to PrayforSpain, I am webmaster for the OACI site and www.confevan.org the site of the 'Conference for the Evangelisation of Spain.'

Conferences. Our main conference this year was, however, the OACI conference in Canada. Hilde had the opportunity to accompany me on her first long distance trip. In addition to all the business, it was good to meet with evangelists from all over the world. We were also blessed to be able to visit a friend of Hilde's before the conference and – taking a day out- attend the (2nd) wedding of a distant relative who used to visit Britain for walking holidays in the 80s with her late husband – who was also an OAC worker. We spent 2 days with them after the conference, visiting Niagara and a Mennonite market.

Just recently (5th to 8th December) it was the turn of the Spanish Evangelists' Conference. I took the photos, which are now available here It was a very encouraging event, despite low numbers of participants and we are considering a national outreach called Mi Esperanza (My Hope) using 3 TV programmes and evangelistic house meetings.

Future activity

Plans for 2009 are currently under review. however, the main events in the first half of the year will be the European conference of OAC in Brussels, in March and helping with an information stand at Mission-net, the European youth missions conference, at Easter.

Future for support

Looking to the future, there are changes in line for our support structure. As you will be aware, without a bit of an effort it has been as hard to keep up with our support structure as with our whereabouts! Beginning through OAC West Country, we then had our own OAC account, joined the Europe Now account and now come full circle. Plus ça change..! Due to developments elsewhere, notably the costs of maintaining a charity, it has now been decided to close down Europe Now, so we have been invited by West Country to rejoin them!

We want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have supported our ministry in prayer and/ or giving over the years. It has been a privilege to be able to develop our ministry in Spain and Europe due to your partnership. Should you wish to move your giving elsewhere now we will fully understand. On the other hand, should you wish to make a new commitment to support us or increase your regular, or irregular giving, we would invite you to get in touch with us or Korky Davey, the West Country director, so that we can let you have the new banking details and Gift Aid forms.

Future news

As you will also be aware, our main news letter has been sent out on our behalf by the Europe Now office over the past years. Many thanks to Steve Poulard who has done his best to keep this and other administrative tasks going. Steve has now passed me the address list and I am taking the opportunity to send this by email to all whose addresses we have. In addition you can ask for our more frequent 'bullet-ins' with highlights of what you can read in more detail on the web. The great advantage for us. apart from saving a few stamps, is that we are able to post photos and even videos on the web, so that those with broadband can see in much more detail what we are doing. However, if you would like to hear from us by post, we are very happy to add your name to a new list which is now being prepared. We enclose a sheet for you to return.

Once again, we thank you for being part of our ministry.

May the Lord bless you this Christmas and keep you close in the New Year.