News, April 2004

Greetings again from Switzerland! As I write, we are enjoying some super spring days. Looking back, the winter wasn't too bad. We actually got up to the mountains to enjoy the snow with my brother and family for a few days and we have enjoyed many snowy walks locally. Now we can look forward to the hay fever season, what joy!

11M, as it is known in Spain or 3/11 as the Americans will no doubt call it, caught us unawares in Germany and only in the evening did we get the full news. We have had a couple of reports of missionaries and their kids who just avoided being hit, but no clear reports of deaths among the evangelical community. As you can imagine, the nature of the web ministry means I just had to get online to report -and interpret- what had happened.

Pray4Spain goes from strength to strength, with around 2000 visits monthly since November. In March the total was above 2600. It is interesting to see which pages are most visited and what people are looking for as they surf. Our map of Spain is tip of the clicks, followed by the comment pages on matters such as the Basque problem, Easter and the Inquisition. But inevitably the news has been much visited this past month. Of more interest still is the growing number of people writing in asking how they can find their place in the Lord's work in Spain. I am now consulting with church and mission leaders to see how best to 'dovetail' the demand with the offers.

As well as P4S, I am now also redoing the web site for OACI and this will be fully online before our international conference in May. Again, the initial objectives for the site are information leading to prayer and recruitment. The nature of the site is very different, with most pages being a set of fixed information, as opposed to the news-driven P4S. I have also helped with a number of other web projects -including one specifically evangelistic one, mainly in the set-up stages... and I still don't know html!! Thanks to the Europe Now team for all the technical side of things. Within EN we see the use of our Internet skills as a way of supporting mission in southern Europe, making use of our gifts and specific circumstances and complementing evangelism.

Hilde continues nursing. She is currently working night shifts, which can be as busy -or more- and with longer hours than day shifts. But she has longer gaps between to enjoy doing other things. Her present commitment lasts until end July. For the future we are praying about whether she should stay in nursing, which in many ways she enjoys, or move on to something completely different. (She could of course help to clear the spam from my computer desktop every morning!) She is very keen to find something which makes the best use of her gifts and the very varied experience of the past years, something which has not quite worked as well as we hoped in the current job. There are a number of ideas which we are pursuing. We would appreciate your prayer support as we pray and research the possibilities.

Cordoba, April 4th to 11th

We had a great time! It's a long time since the last OAC Spain Easter campaign. Some of us haven't seen each other since then! Among returners were Korky, Ken, Pat Paddock and Max Ilabaca. And we had two young recruits along too, Tim and Julia.

Take a moment to read the full report.

Coming soon!

At the end of May we have the OACI four yearly conference this time in the States. Then Chris takes over for his second term as European chairman. In July we are both in Vienna for Reach the City and immediately after Chris will go for 3 weeks to Coria, Extremadura for campaigns with OM.

Thank you again for your fellowship and support!

Chris & Hilde