News, March 2005

In Langenthal, March 05

The snow just doesn't want to melt this winter... but we wish we were able to get a few free days to enjoy it! Well, actually, we have been able to go for some super walks locally, which is really much better than going right up into the Alps where you either walk along the side of a road or spend the whole time going up and down steep slopes. The Emmental, just a few minutes' ride in the train, is much more gentle and you can enjoy wandering past ancient farm houses draped with icicles, even though the dogs often get us into 5th gear!

Spanish Evangelists' Conference

The New Year got off to a busy start with our trip to the Spanish Evangelists’ Conference. Attended by some 200, it went well, although they are now struggling to pay off the deficit after the calculations went wrong. The keynote speaker, Samuel Escobar of IFES, now semi-retired in Valencia, brought some great teaching backed up by other more in-house speakers from the Conference team, who encouraged us to ‘keep up the good work’! Although technically disallowed from membership, due to my Swiss residence, they have reappointed me to the board as webmaster. I had to miss the first meeting of the new board, held already, but they only happen every 6 months, so I can now start to plan them into the diary.

Nursing

Hilde accompanied me on the Spain trip and was very encouraged through meeting up with old friends. To realise you have such good friends is always a great help when going though a difficult time. She has decided to take a break from nursing after the attempt to get into the fast track showed how much both she and the profession have changed in 20 years. So she is taking it a bit easier and doing an extension course on Health Promotion during this year. It may still happen that she finds a part time job somewhere, but we are not planning on it. As I write, however, she is back in Germany, as her mother had her annual operation on the 16th and was back home by the 23rd. This year it was the gall bladder. She is always remarkably good at recovering, so we don’t know who is really getting the break when Hilde goes to look after her once she is released from holiday, oops hospital. Actually, this time around it was a shock with some knock on effects of flu and other symptoms mixed up which led her to a first stay in hospital earlier in the month. On that occasion we had to rush to her bedside, but were happy to see her recover rapidly once they worked out what needed to be done. Funny to talk about health, but on this side of the channel you need to be as much of an expert on it as the English are about the shades of grey in clouds!

Local activities

Local church life has taken a new turn. An Australian family has moved into Huttwil, in the Emmental, just a few miles away. They want to open an English.speaking ‘International Baptist Church’ Well, it is possible to find some who speak more than the local dialect, but fill a church with English-speakers! Anyway, they have recruited us and another ex-OM family, who also attend the same Sunday morning church as us and are involved in the English translation team... to attend their meetings. We always enjoy a nice cuppa after he has preached. It’s helping to get to know people better and feel settled, even if we don’t feel this where life is going to be much longer!

Ministry

The past few weeks I have been more involved with my role as Chairman of OAC in Europe for another 2 year stint. Earlier this month I was in Vienna and Bratislava and as I write I’m also getting ready to go to our annual meeting in Brussels. Being chairman sometimes requires attention to the sort of details that we usually prefer others to deal with, but in OAC we at least share the job around. The plus side is being able to meet up with people a bit more often.

Easter Outreach

What I should really have been up to these weeks was preparing for the campaign in Córdoba, but it was cancelled just before Christmas so one thing on the January conference agenda was to find a new location. The result is Baeza, a small town among the olive groves of inner Andalusia. Thence, we will also visit Jodar. Apparently Baeza is right wing, while Jodar is right red! The team I hoped to have has also been decimated by the change, so we may only be five or six. However, that’s not a bad number to assess the viability of small town outreaches during Easter. Perhaps next year, or in 2007 we will be back somewhere bigger. Who knows? Pray for the results, short and long-term. Dates: March 20th to 25th.

Web sites

Meanwhile, back at the desk, Pray4Spain continues strongly. Over the past year, particularly since December, visits have doubled to 100 per day. I suspect it’s more a result of the Search Engine Wars, but it’s still amazing to see so many people and machines have been looking in on the site. OACi.org is also growing, having been stable at 100 visits a day for several years. The new site, a change of server and those wars have combined to push daily visits up to the 150 mark. My new site, www.confevan.org is beginning to get visits and search hits, which is encouraging. It was officially launched at the Evangelists’ Conference and February visits are up a lot, but still much lower than the English language sites.Working on the OAC site is still in the set-up phase (especially in the other languages), although there are updates from time to time. Any moment now, we will have the new International Update online. At P4S, day to day updates of the Spanish news keep me busy as I attempt to interpret things like the March 11th bombings, ETA and the vagaries of the Spanish climate for the AngloSaxon world. The Comment section is of particular interest as it covers many issues not necessarily in the news, but also of interest, such as the Spanish Inquisition, Gypsies and Tourist Security! And the Projects section includes a diary and a monthly prayer letter, as well as specific projects to pray for or get involved in. Have you had a look yet? Be careful, you may find it hard to get out of the labyrinth!

As we look beyond the snow towards summer, there are more dates in the diary. Why not check back here from time to time and keep an eye open for new updates which are going up from time to time? And if you have an email address, let me know and I will include you on the list of people who get an alert with the key points in bullet point form.

Many thanks for your prayer. Have a Happy Easter!

Much love from us both,

Chris & Hilde