3 years in and 3rd one’s a charm!

Lots of mutual gazing of eyes filled with wonder, fights for epic cuddles on the sofa and a sudden surge in contact and video-calls from grandparents can all only mean one thing… the stork has found us in our Spanish hide-away and delivered a very cute little bundle!

As you may know, on Halloween morning little Daniel made his entrance into the world 10 days overdue, in a culturally-appropriate, laid-back fashion, and only after a lot of convincing that it really was time to emerge. He is in great health and feeding well (a Whitehead trait) and has received an enthusiastic welcome from our other 2 kids, neighbours and friends. I guess he’s a bit of a novelty at the school gate and also the first baby of the church plant! I (Al) have been on paternity leave and so with Sal we've been loving getting to know our little man and re-learning how to do nappies, night routines and public transport with a pram, to name a few things.

Sal, having trained in the UK as a midwife, got to see first-hand the entire process worked out differently in another country and has lived to tell several tales! But actually we’re both really grateful for the competent and thorough care received in our local hospital and are glad to have another link and experience in common with members of our community. Bizarrely, we have come across 3 other newborn baby Daniels in the last week. And also of note, we breathed a sigh of relief when an Ebola scare at our hospital turned out to be just a false alarm…

Hopefully you’ll excuse the fact that this blog post is limited to the one topic, as it’s a bit all-consuming for us at the moment. But on a related theme, it’s also exciting for us as a church to see that spiritual new births appear to be beginning to take place among us too! We have a new ‘brother’ in our church family who is enthusiastically part of us and another who recently had to return to his home city but who we've linked up with a church family there. New hope, new freedom, new relationships with God and his people… it’s what we’re here for and we are thankful for these small beginnings. Thank you too if you’re praying for the church here! It’s so appreciated – don’t stop! ;-)

Anyway, much love from us all and until our next post - assuming that Daniel continues to let us sleep enough to have functioning brains and that having 3 kids abroad doesn't lead to us losing our sanity,

Al, Sal, Ellie, Joe & Danny

Sally's Scribbles

I have decided to take up the gauntlet that Al has thrown down and write our latest blog entry, as apparently most of the news is mine!

It feels like we are entering a new season, as a family and as a church plant… a fruitful season in which we’re feeling expectant and excited at what is ahead.

Talking of expectant… I’m very happy to announce that I am expecting baby number 3! I’m 19 weeks and due towards the end of October. I’m very well and enjoying having an ever-expanding waistline (which I may not enjoy so much in the heat of August in Madrid!). We are obviously thrilled and very grateful to God and trusting him with all that is ahead.

Since starting to meet as a church plant in our new central venue (which is going really well) we have begun different interest groups that aim to love and serve the communities we live in. In our area we saw there was a strong desire among some of the mums at the school gate to practice their English in a relaxed and fun way. As a result, with 2 other members of our team (Geofree and Caroline), we have started to meet every couple of weeks in our flat to drink tea, bake cakes and chat in English with our Spanish friends, all things that come quite naturally to me! So far they are really enthusiastic about it. We hope it will be another way to build really good relationships, meet a need and form links between us as a team and the community. Currently there are also 2 other groups - Al is part of a language exchange evening that takes place in a bar, with a very similar aim. We are really enjoying this emphasis on serving the community in any small way we can, working as a team and making new friends.

Earlier this month I had the wonderful opportunity to have 4 days at our Iberian Peninsula conference in Portugal, while Alastair stayed in Madrid with the kids. What a heroe! I particularly enjoyed singing with the band from the Portuguese church, leading some of the Spanish songs in our trilingual worship sessions, something I never dreamed would ever be possible for me! I sensed and appreciated the growing closeness we have with other churches across the peninsula as well as the amazing love and support we get from UK churches. (Here is a link to Guy Miller's blog that gives a further taste of all this: http://guymillernews.blogspot.com.es/) We feel genuinely privileged to be part of all that God's doing here.

 

As a family we are feeling more and more part of the local community, despite still sticking out like absolute foreigners (blonde hair, pale skin, etc!) - some things we just can't change :-)  We're proud of our little girl who is about to finish her 3 years of infant school and is due to 'graduate' next month. (Can't believe it's been 3 years!)   Joe is due to go into his final year of infants in September. He is still a bundle of fun and our key to endearing people to us!  They are both very excited about number 3, and to them October seems a long way off...

 

In other news:
- We had our first experience of Easter in Madrid this year and saw firsthand the processions, virgins and drums.
- We have been swept up in football fever and enjoyed the celebrations of Real Madrid's 10th European Championship! '¡Hala Madrid!'
- We really enjoyed having my godmother Sally and her husband Roger to stay in March and to share a bit of our lives with them.
- We're looking forward to spending time in the UK in July and will hopefully catch up with many of you!

Main prayer point:

Some of you ask for specifics you can pray for. Apart from any of the above, our main desire is to see many Spanish-speakers and Madrileños amongst us as a community. We love the lovely ‘Santi’ who is now heart and soul with us, as well as some others who are looking in. Pray for them, for others and for us in this!

Hope my scribbles have been painless! We send lots of love and hope you're doing well and pressing on with your adventures. God bless and until next blog,

Sally, Al (editor-in-chief) and the scrummies xxx

Learning about Leaning

Firstly, a really happy new year to all our friends and family!

Something the Bible encourages you to do is:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)


This last term and these last few weeks have been full of events that have brought home the truth of this, both personally as a family and collectively as a church plant. We move forward as best we can, using the brains God’s given us, and He nudges and re-directs us as we go! It’s a privilege and confidence that we have as God’s kids and, as we’re learning, it apparently plays a big part in church-planting:

On Sunday evening we had our first meeting together in a new venue, slap bang in the middle of Madrid in a spot that overlooks ‘Puerta del Sol’, the main central square! It’s an exciting development and something we haven’t seen coming but feel could be one of God’s key ‘nudges’. Having used our wisdom to strategise (though to be fair the wisdom resides pretty entirely in our leader Kev!) we’d been searching for a venue that would suit our growing needs in the north of the city, where most team members are based. We had our sights on a particular venue and after frustrating delays on the part of the owners we met as a church to pray outside it, to ask God for breakthrough. I felt God put in my heart that He had an ‘excellent change’ in store for us and an ‘immediate handover’ of the venue… but that same day, for some reason, we were turned down L Yet leaning on God’s wisdom and not our own is part of the adventure and incredibly, the same day Kevin received an email from another church leader in the city, saying that they were looking for a church that would join them in sharing their building in the centre! J We haven’t worked out the details and implications of it all yet, but we feel that God’s in this and we’re following his lead and looking forward to him using this in his plans to impact and draw people to himself amongst us. On Sunday at least 2 guests were with us as Kevin shared the gospel – if you pray, please pray with us for this, our goal and longing, that there may be joyful fiestas soon!!

As a family we are generally really well and enjoying our lives and work here. There have been some tough challenges though, particularly in the last few months. Many of you will know that sadly, Sally had a miscarriage in December, after a pregnancy that had been much longed for. We’ve been well loved and looked after though, and I’m especially amazed at Sal’s resilience. In this too, we are choosing not to lean on our own understanding, even though it hurts and we might not understand.

On the morning of the day of our appointment for our 12 week scan, when we were expecting to see our baby for the first time (unaware that the baby no longer had a heart beat), I was praying and reading the Bible. The passage I read was Ephesians 6 about standing firm on the day of evil and the particular verse that I felt God impress on my heart was verse 16: “Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

Previously Sal and I had both felt God warn and prepare our hearts before the arrival of our son Joseph, who needed major surgery at birth, but who is now such a bundle of energy and a delight to our family. And this particular morning I wanted to ignore that verse and impression, dismissing the whole thing as paranoia after our previous experience… yet now again God’s faithfulness is evident to me in the midst of difficulties – the loving whispers of a God who doesn't leave us alone but lives in us by his Spirit; who doesn't surround us in bubble-wrap so we escape trials in this life but who walks through them with us. And we want to choose to trust him and his paths for us. Please pray for us in this too; for grace to keep leaning on him and to walk forward into the good things he's got for us.

Finally, a few highlights of things we are enjoying these days:

- We loved our Christmas here, probably because we are feeling so much more at home in terms of friendships and where we’re living. We enjoyed ‘doing Christmas’ in a more Spanish way (24th evening meal, presents from the 3 kings, ice-skating in the park with friends, parades & nativity scenes…) and it was a privilege to be invited into our neighbours’ home for their family New Year's Eve meal (and the eating of 12 grapes at midnight!). Really special times.

- We’re loving getting to know new team members (Tom you’re a legend!) including the latest family that has joined the team - Gethin & Geofree and their two kids (our Welsh-Venezuelan element!). They live in our neighbourhood, their kids go to our kids’ school, and we’re sharing host responsibilities for our home group. It’s great to be on the adventure with them but generally we’re just big fans of them – quality people!

- Sal’s enjoying the fact that in some topics her Spanish vocabulary is now better than Al’s. Al is not. L

- And we’re loving normal family stuff like Ellie learning to read and write, Joseph mastering a fake Brit-speaking-bad-Spanish accent to make us crack up, taking the kids to countless birthday parties or having their friends over, Spanish swear words slipping out of our kids’ mouths from time to time… many laughs and very blessed with our family!


Anyway, better stop there. Thanks for your interest and support. God bless you all, trust this finds you well and until our next post!

Al, Sal, Ellie & Joe x