We're growing...

Click to enlarge the photo

Our staff team at the leadership retreat centre has suddenly doubled in size this spring. Our usual year-round team of six staff (Stephe and Rite, Wilrens and Franziska, Anja and myself) have been joined by several other people. Dagmar, who comes to spend the summer with us every year, is back in Spain again, and we've also been joined this year by Tony, a Mexican who is a wonderful cook and baker, and will be serving in the kitchen.

We've also welcomed two couples who are in the process of relocating to be part of our staff team here in Alhaurín, and it's been a bit like welcoming old friends, as we've known these four people since the 1980s and 1990s. Steve and Issie, pictured next to me on the far right of the photo, have been based in England and travelling to work with LDCs around the world. Like Dagmar, they foresee making Spain their home base, at least for part of the year. Andrew and Chris, pictured on the far left, are long time friends that we knew in YWAM Scotland, in Preschool and in Firestarters. Having recently finished serving for several years in Mozambique, they too have made a decision to move to Spain and work with our team's different projects here in Malaga. During the upcoming LDC, they'll be part of the catering and kitchen team with Tony.

We've doubled our numbers, but not our nationalities. We used to be six people and six different nationalities. Most of our new team members share the existing nationalities (British, Canadian, Swiss...), so Mexican and Finnish are the only two new nationalities in our multi-cultural team. Not pictured in the photo are a Finnish couple who also come to Spain for part of each year, and who work with different initiatives related to the current refugee situation in Europe. It's been encouraging to see these different ministry projects and different people added to what we're involved in here, and we thank God for the increased blessing and fruitfulness that such growth brings.

The dozen people in the photo will be joined this week by six others, who will be part of the LDC (leadership development course) staff team with us over the coming six weeks.  Once the LDC delegates and families arrive the following weekend, we'll be a big group of more than 60 people for the six week time frame of the LDC. You can see why we need three people serving in the kitchen!