Goodbye, Maybe

Well this may be the last update, because we are about to take off for Barcalona. If our Hostel has internet, then We'll be posting again tonight :)

We spent a wonderful 2 days in Majorca, the Bible college here is really wonderful, and all the people are super friendly. It reminds me a lot of Catalina, only a lot bigger. There was lots of prayer, worship and fellowship. We got to sit in on the last class of the book of Luke, which was great. We stayed with a couple of really cool guys, who we stayed up late talking to both nights.

So perhaps goodbye for now, and we'll see most of you when we get back!!

-=Jonathan and Kai=-

Day 16

We got into Majorca via a really big boat, Pastor Raphael picked us up and we had a great day which started with meeting students at the Bible College. Next we went into the local town called Palma to do some Evangelism. Jonathan had a 45 minute conversation with a local Catholic, it's hard ground, but we know God with be faithful to till it. At night we had Koinonia, which means fellowship in the Greek. It was a great time of prayer and worship. One of the guys we are staying with cooked us a great meal, which was followed by even better conversation about God.

Day 15

Today Luis was back at work so we went out with Peti again. We started the day with some Soccer, in hopes that we could find some people to play with and Evangelize to, but it turned out to be more about our fellowship and exercise. We did make it out to the town later, and went to the skate park where Jonathan shared with three skaters. We cleaned up the house before we left, Mr. Clean would be proud.

We left Valencia today, we had a great long goodbye conversation on the way to the port, with some every encouraging words said to us. Jonathan and I are thankful to God because we see all the great work he has done, and it's not of us.

Day 14

Sunday! Lets go to Church!
Oh wait, we are the church...All right, study at home!
Jonathan and went over Psalm 23 with them, he talked about the first half and I got to talk about the second half (since I won 3-0 in rock, paper, scissors against him). God really used it to speak to us all about how much he's tracking us down, and persecuting us with his goodness and mercy. We ran all the way to England, and then Spain, and the Psalm holds true, we can't get away from it. After the study and a great time of prayer and worship, we went out to the mall to go Evangelize, and OK I'll be honest, to treat them to all you can eat Chinese food as well. It turned out to be very hard soil for the gospel, even with the help of the cute kid we had with us, the people that were drawn to us were repelled by the gospel. God still used it to plant seeds in people's hearts though, now it's up to him to let them die or to grow them. We ended the night with some lessons from Nehemiah, and then on to our nightly prayer, which was as sweet as ever.

Day 13

Today was great, we woke up and headed into town!

We walked around looking for parks and prayed while Jonathan talked to people. It worked out really well since we were not afraid to encourage him to go talk to people since he couldn't say "why don't you go talk to him". He had good long conversations with at least 7 people today, and not one of them turned him down when he gave them the tract we have. It was a day of rest and relaxation for Luis and Kirsi, so we stayed out all day to let them have some familiy time. All the local markets closed down early so we went to the Wal-Mart sized super market and bought some food, while there we ran into a couple of the people that had been saying they would come to the Bible study. Still there is no one coming, we think there is some heavy spiritual warfare going on since there has been nothing but dead Catholic churches here for so long. To end the day we had yet another great night of prayer, I could really make a habit out of this!

Day 12

Woke up, had breakfast -- Fresh bread with ham and cheese. We went to the local University to try and see if there were any ministry opportunities. It was Friday on a Holiday, so school was pretty much shut down, there was hardly anyone there.We spent a long time walking around the town, talking to people and giving them tracts with contact info on them. We were kicking the ball around near the beach, which gave us the opportunity to witness to a couple that was sitting there watching us. They were very thankful and receptive of the Gospel, we are praying they will keep in contact. When back at home, exhausted, we had a wonderful time of fellowship and prayer.

Day 11

Long day of the Lord

We spent the night in the airport to save money, while there a girl from Washington came up to me and started talking to me because she could tell I was American. I got to tell her about HSE and what Jonathan and I were doing. She was a Lutheran, I told her that I grew up in the Lutheran church and encouraged her with all the awesome things God was doing in my life as I lived it by faith. Once we got to Spain we were greeted promptly by Luiz and Peti, again I guess we looked like we were from the states. We had an awesome day of checking out the city, talking about God, and the challenges and aspects of ministry in Spain. We embraced the culture by taking a nap in the afternoon, and then checked out the town and did some evangelism while there. We ended the night with some very desperate prayer. God is good.

Every once and a while it's good to stop and admire God's good work

Day 10

Live the L.I.F.E.

We had an amazing opportunity to teach the L.I.F.E. message at a local church called St. James, with an age 14-18 youth group. Jonathan spoke on love, Marty on integrity, Amaris on faith, and I did a summary wrap up of the three, including the Charles Bluden "We Believe" story (I had to note that, as I have been wanting to use it as an illustration in teaching ever since the road trip), as well as talking on Evangelism. The youth were awesome and attentive.

Jonathan teaching was so
Passionate that he is blurry!

After the teaching, I (Marty) was able to talk to a teenager named Joe. He was still sitting in his seat, and looked deep in thought. He shared his desire for more in His relationship with God, and how He has been asking God what the next step is. He wasn't concerned about a stable income or comfort, but only wanted to follow after God with his whole heart. I know God delights to find someone with a heart like Joe's, so eager and willing to step out and go for it with God. So I was able to pray with him, encourage him to take steps of faith and to keep knocking on doors. He doesn't want to stay in Southampton and is really looking for a place to dig deep with God and thrive in his relationship with God. He sounds like a perfect HSE candidate to me, but wherever he goes, pray he would thrive with God.

Day 9

Due to popular demand, I'm trying a mustache out for a couple days. Perhaps it will get the youth at tomorrow's teaching to pay more attention to me?

Ministry! Today we headed out to the skate park in town to meet up with someone that we meet on Saturday's outreach. He never showed up, but we meet a new group of people and Jonathan was able to play "SKATE" with them. Before departing we told them what we were all about and gave them a couple of our Romans cards to read. Later we continued preparations for our teaching on Wednesday, and then went over to Pastor Simon's house for dinner and to embrace the culture by watching a Soccer game with him and a couple of the church guys.

Day 8

(Marty Guest wrote this update)

We started the morning with a time of worship. We have been studying through the book of Acts together as a church. Last week, we learned that Paul shared his testimony with the Jews and were encouraged to share our relationship with God with people. So, this morning, Jonathon shared his testimony with the church about our pursuit for satisfaction. He encouraged us that only the fear of God brings true satisfaction and exhorted us to lay our lives down for our friends. Tonight, we met with Simon. He gave us insight into being a shepherd and what it looks like to watch after the flock. We discussed how to keep sound doctrine, respond to false doctrine, and asked ourselves how we would handle practical situations concerning the two.
Cream tea… mmmmm… massive heart attack and a half

After we met with Simon, we went to a University age group called “The Living Room.” Because the end of the semester is coming up, they had a Christmas Party for the students. We ate a delicious meal and hung out with the students. Afterwards we had a time of worship and prayer. The students are really on fire for God and have been actively reaching out to other students on campus.

Day 7

City Outreach
This morning Amaris, Kai, Jonathan and I (Marty guest wrote this update) met with Michael and Daniel, friends from Calvary Chapel Southampton, to share the gospel in the City Center. Jonathan and Marty went into the local skate park to talk to the youth about Jesus. Jonathan had a “skate off” challenge with them, and immediately bonded. He skated with a respected local named Mark and gained his friendship. After a few minutes of skating Jonathan got them all together, shared his testimony, explained who God is and told them about the ministry in Southampton. He handed Mark a tract, who then encouraged the people around him to take one also! Afterwards, a kid named Mike opened up and shared his heart with us. He believed in hell but didn't care too much about God or Jesus. We had an awesome talk with him and were both able to share the gospel. We are meeting back up with him on Monday, so your prayer is appreciated. It's awesome how God can use a hobby like skating to further his kingdom.

Proverbs 22:6
Amaris had a splendid bible study with the neighborhood youth, ages 11 to 16, studying through the Gospel of John.

Day 6

Inductive morning
Rise and Shine to inductive bible study through Philippians... It feels really good to help each other chew this on our own, we are really into this, if only we had more time!Simon
We met with Simon, the pastor at Calvary Chapel, to eat dinner and hang out. We had another amazing night with him hearing his heart for the ministry and gleaning from his experience as a pastor. We were so blessed to spend the time with him and it meant a lot to him to share his heart.

Day 5

We have been blessed with an oppurtinity to teach on the HSE core values as they pertain to Evangelsim. So today we were able to spend the day with Amaris preparing for the teaching. We each are telling a story from our lives that highlights how the core value was used in Evangelism. We know that with your continued prayer we will be able to equip many youth to bodly share their faith.

After our day of preperation we headed over to a local pub called the Mitre, where Marty's Bible study takes place. Jonathan and I had prepared a teaching on how to give testimonies. I explained how to pick your story, craft it, make it stick, resolve cognitive dissonance, and taught on the power of testimonies and how they can be used. Jonathan then proceded to give his testimony as an example and then broke it apart and noted how each part was used and related it to what I had taught them. After the teaching we all had giant burgers that really made us feel at home.