A visit from Aunt Marcia

Marcia Millikan, Charles' aunt from Boulder, Colorado, stayed with us for four days before beginning her "Roads Scholar" tour of southern Spain. We enjoyed a day trip to Toledo, several nice meals together, and some walks in the park. What a treat to get to know one of our distant relatives better and show them our country!

Centralia Presbyterian Church from Richmond, VA

Today we enjoyed a visit from six members of Centralia Presbyterian Church of Richmond, VA. Pastor Dan Lipford and his wife Glendine, along with four other women, came for a week to encourage us and help with outreach. Dan preached, and the ladies befriended Spanish women through patchwork quilting. We had a pleasant day trip to Toledo to show them a little of medieval Spain--castles, swords, paintings and churches--and of course, tourists!.

Carol turns 60!

Lots of laughs!

Today my sweet wife reached a milestone-she turned 60! After church, we drove to the mountains for lunch and a hike. Meanwhile, 30 of our friends secretly arrived to our apartment with food and decorations. You should have seen the look on her face when she walked in the door. What a fun day!

Discipleship

"Merely because we are busy, or even skilled, doing something does not necessarily mean that we are getting anything accomplished."* How true this is of the ministry! It's not hard to stay busy; it is hard to stay busy doing the right things--that really help people move forward in their walk with God. I'm convinced one of the most effective things I can do is invest in men, so I look for opportunities to disciple them, trusting that through prayer and study of God's Word they will grow towards maturity in Christ.

* Robert Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, p. 19.

Biblical Theology for Pastors

Today we celebrated with Ulises and Raquel Vallín as Ulises was installed as pastor of a church in the small town of Aldeahermosa, in the province of Jaén, in southern Spain. I have mentored Ulises for the last 4 years, helping him with his online seminary studies. Carol and I gave him a copy of R.C. Sproul's book Essential Truths of the Christian Faith to help him in his preaching and teaching. Thanks to servants like Ulises the gospel is going forth even to the small towns of Spain.

New Pastor Ordained

Eight years ago Aloysi Busquets arrived in Madrid from Cuba, where life was hard due to his opposition to Castro's government. Once in Spain he began work for the Anglican Church, overseeing a large food distribution program serving the poor. He also joined a class I taught on 1&2 Timothy as part of his training to be a pastor. It has been a long road for Aloysi, and I am happy today to see him ordained as a pastor in the Anglican church.

Jet-lagging

Jet-lagging is no fun. Though we’ve been back in Madrid for 4 days, we still can't sleep at night. We fight it by tiring ourselves with lots of exercise–mainly brisk-walking in the park in front of our apartment. We also try to go to bed at “regular” hours, which means about 1:00AM (that’s normal in summer). Because of the heat at mid-day, children playing in the park till well past midnight, keeping the tired jet-laggers awake. Life in Madrid!