Annual report, Christmas 2007

22nd November, 2007

Dear friends,

Greetings once again from Mallorca! Over 20 months on and we are feeling more settled than ever. Hilde remarked today at lunch that she feels at least as settled as she ever was in Arganda, where we had our church and lived for over ten years. And yet, there are aspects of life which are still not the way we would like them. I suppose that has to be an integral part of life on planet earth!

Looking back another year seems to have rushed by in a blur. Highlights of 2007 were the Easter outreach in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) (alcala/alcala) with the Barretts and a GLO team, as well as the Bristol Reach The City week in July. We are confident that both saw people coming to the Lord, along with a good number of participants challenged and equipped for outreach in their localities. The team in Bristol has restarted regular open air outreach. In Alcalá the same can be said for children's work in a park where, some 20 years ago two children came to the lord. They were recognised by the church as elders in September. How wonderful to participate in something like these weeks and then leave all the hard grind to local teams! More can be read about these campaigns on our web sites.

Meanwhile, back on the island, we have supported open air outreach of two churches, being part of one until March, then moving to the second, but continuing to help both. The earlier relationship came to an end when their web site was launched and after reflection we felt the urge to move on. At the new church, we are happy to have been able to help to start a Spanish speaking home group in our corner of the island. The English speaking Bible study group continues, as well, often meeting at our flat.

The web ministry has kept Chris busy much of the remainder of the time. It has been a consolidation year in some ways, with the number of visitors at all sites going up sharply in mid-summer, although the number of pages viewed has only slightly grown- and continuing to grow. It would appear that many visitors are returning and looking up other parts of the webs, reviewing reports and news or simply browsing for prayer pointers or other information. However, one aspect of the web statistics is the number of people who write to us. As I write these lines, our OAC International President is holding a seminar in Fiji as a result of an inquiry from the OACI web. Looking at what I still have on my computer, I calculate that we must have had about a thousand inquiries since we relaunched the web site at the last international conference in 2004.

We are now looking at a 'major step forward' at Pray4Spain, with the introduction of a bloggers' section in early 2008. This will widen authorship, bringing with it much broader spread and hopefully deeper perspectives on life and the church in several parts of Spain. We are able to advantage of Mark Howe's work at St. Pixels to bring this about. (Contributions to cover this additional cost welcome!) A second project, not yet so developed, is to start an email PDF Pray4Spain newsletter. It will probably be quarterly at first and obviously be less personal than our own newsletters. If you are interested, why not send us an email?

The other aspect of ministry is chairmanship of the OAC European Zone. This is not too onerous and is mainly -usually- just emails and the annual conference. In 2008 we will again have our 4-yearly International Conference and this time it will be held, at the end of May in Toronto. We both hope to attend.

Meanwhile, Hilde is now on her second Catalan-Mallorquin language course and enjoys trying to chat in the local dialect. Many people are very pleased to hear her efforts and are very encouraging. She also uses her time to visit the church ladies living in this area. Both of us have struggled a bit with various health issues this year. For Chris the main problem is allergy.

Life has not only been work, you will be glad to know. Well, on the other hand since we live in Mallorca, you might have imagined this is the least of our worries! Family visits also kept us, particularly Hilde, busy in the spring and autumn and we took advantage of the trip to England in the summer to visit family there and in Germany. While visiting Chris's sister, our most famous relative Ken Wallis opened her village fair on the 2-007 theme, bringing his autogyro 'Little Nellie' in tow. In Germany we had the opportunity to visit the East for the first time and saw Dresden and several places linked with Martin Luther. It was most enjoyable.

Looking to the future, we continue to pray whether to remain in our rented flat or buy. Mallorcan properties, as you can imagine, are expensive, even without the ubiquitous swimming pool! A house in our street, with about the same accommodation, but also a small patio and double garage, is on the market for over 1000 (of our) months' rent. But living in rented accommodation, with little insulation and mould growing on the ceilings every time it rains -and believe us, it has rained a lot these 20 months- is also distasteful at times. We continue to pray!

Do you remember Mefi-boset, the disability ministry we helped to start way back? We just heard (nudge nudge) that they have a bank account, which means they have been established as a charity. It is good to look back and see that some of the things we have done after the past 25 years are keeping on going. Yes, it's 25 years! When in Bristol we were able to celebrate with Chris's sending church the Fellowship of the King and we took advantage to use the material prepared in Hilde's church in Germany, too. Another project in the early years was providing accommodation for Farid Lozada, a young Colombian studying with OAC and at Trinity College, who had been converted in the open air in Madrid through Jim Reed's preaching. Now his eldest daughter, Susana, is almost off to study missions in the States. Thank God for His faithfulness! Europe Now or Korky would be delighted to forward your gifts for either of these projects. Cheques payable to Farid Lozada can be paid in. Send us an email to be sure we understand what the gift is for!

Don't forget to keep an eye on our regular web updates. Here you can read about us, then go back to the main site to browse happenings in Spain for prayer pointers. From About February we hope to bring new bloggers onto the site. At OACI.org you can see what's going on world-wide, while at Confevan you can get Spanish language prayer updates.

Once again, we thank you for standing with us through the years. We wish you all God's blessing for a very Happy Christmas and fruitful New Year.

Much love from us both

Chris & Hilde