| News from the Mathiesons, 2009 | Summer activity | Easter '09 |

News from the Mathiesons, 2009

Autumn Update

Greetings from Mallorca!

Looking back

Mission-net, the European youth missions congress, was a great event, with a number of contacts made for OAC in Europe. We enjoyed participating, not to mention the trip across Europe in spring. Northern Germany was much warmer and sunnier than Mallorca over Easter!

Summer is over

One of the hottest Spanish summers on record comes officially to an end today. It's pouring with rain, following on from a stormy week! But we were very grateful for opportunities to escape the earlier heat. In early July were in the Black Country (England) for this year's reach the City outreach, 'Shine your light in the Black Country'. See the Youtube video! Also, we were able to get some holiday visiting friends and touring southern France, the Pyrenees and down to Madrid. Otherwise, we have kept to our home base, taking full advantage of the beautiful sea!

Time for Europe

Our main project over the past months and into the autumn is preparing our upcoming OAC GB tour, under the title 'Time for Europe'. We are bringing together a number of our staff and friends from around Europe and beyond to report and bring the challenge we face for the future. With this letter I would have loved to enclose a flyer. But it took longer to print - not to mention prepare...- than I hoped, so here is the link to download it!

JOIN US AT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING VENUES:

Nottingham: Sunday November 8th
Bristol: Friday November 13th
London (Enfield): Saturday, November 14th

More information is available online here

In addition, please get back to us as soon as possible if you would like us to visit personally. We'd love to see you! We are available between 28th October and 7th November, excepting 1st November in Bristol and one or two other dates not yet confirmed. These include visits related to Hilde's new area of concern.

Mallorcan matters

Meanwhile, life continues with our various home-based and local activities. The webs are always in need of updating and PrayforSpain is currently being fully re-launched. I hope this will take place when we return from our trip.

Local church activity includes leading an English speaking home group and co-leading a local Spanish speaking group. each of these takes place every other week and we try to have one each week. That doesn't always work out as we would like... We are ably supported in the English group by doctors Ken and Rosie Prudhoe, who have long been supporters of GB national director Dave Glover in Newcastle. They moved to Mallorca 3 years ago. As you can imagine, this group includes several long-termers, but we also host short-termers and also visitors most weeks. So we attempt to ensure that each meeting is both self-contained and part of long-term support for the group members.
The Spanish-speaking group only has one true Spaniard from the locality - although a couple also come regularly from Palma. The remainder are 5 Europeans and 5 Latins. Pray that in addition to reaching out to our own nationalities and other immigrants, we might also begin to touch the established local community!
Other local church activities include monthly open air evangelism in Palma and a market stand (book stall) in Santa María, one of the medium sized towns where several church members live.

Care for the unborn and their mothers

Hilde has a growing concern for those women who reject their babies and voluntarily abort. Millions do across Europe every year. The Spanish government now has a bill before the Congress to make abortion even easier, while from August it has been possible to get the 'morning after pill' over the counter. She is gathering information and materials with a view to starting some ministry in this area. A new NGO has recently been set up here which includes this issue in its statutes, but up to now had no one able to lead the ministry. Pray for Hilde as she gathers material and contacts with a view to starting something perhaps next year, possibly under the auspices of +QS.

Thanks for praying!

We look forward to meeting you soon!

Chris & Hilde

P.S. if you want to download this as a PDF, here are the link:
The news with colour photos and live links
The news with b/w photos and readable links

Summer activity

Here are a few bullets from 25th June:

Yesterday we had our 20th anniversary. We have a party to celebrate tomorrow!
OAC is busy across Europe with outreach. The Germans have the Kiel sailing week late June, then go on to Hungary and Poland and back home for 2 Bible Weeks on a camp site; Austria again has a ReachTheCity in Vienna; etc...
We will be joining the British RTC week 4th to 12th July in Halesowen, in cooperation with OM and local churches. As usual, it combines outreach with the OAC-GB national training seminar.
We will also be discussing with OAC-GB leadership some involvement in leadership support for the future.
We continue to pray for the various outreaches being run across Spain during the summer.
PrayforSpain moves closer to renewal as the new XCathedra CMS should be ready before the end of the summer. Meanwhile, as you can see, there is plenty to keep you reading!
The local church in Palma keeps us busy, with various activities. This year we are concentrating on the home groups, especially the new English-speaking one. Some 20 people are occasional visitors, with about 10 regulars. We also support outreach in Palma city centre and the Santa María village Sunday market.
Hilde is praying about getting involved in some kind of Pro-Life activity. The Spanish government (Socialist) is wanting to 'update the law', making abortion available on demand, with teens not needing parental permission... The day after pill will be available over the counter from August. There are major campaigns at present, but the local medical NGO, +QS wants to start offering practical advice and help to girls who are willing to consider an alternative. They would like Hilde to head up the project, which she currently finds a bit daunting. We are collecting information and materials as we can.
Personally, we are hoping that we can negotiate a good price for a plot across the street to build a house. This seems the best way to get a permanent home here. We leave the future negotiations in the Lord's hands, should He confirm this move.

Thank you for praying!

Easter '09

Here is our first offering for 2009 in PDF format:

Easter 09