The anniversary weekend

As I read the Old Testament, I see that there were lots of different occasions where the people were encouraged to establish ways of REMEMBERING the good things that God had done for them. They had all kinds of memorials and special celebrations to remind themselves and their children of God's faithfulness. Here in Alhaurin, we've set time aside this weekend to celebrate the third anniversary of the church we planted in the town - to be able to enjoy friendship and celebrate God's goodness together. 

Last night, at a special worship service, our invited speaker led us in opening our Bibles and looking at five characteristics of a church that's living in revival. We had to smile when we saw that these five characteristics all began with P - amazingly both in English and Spanish. Considering the early church in the book of Acts, we saw that they had: 

1. a great (presencia) presence of God
2. a great (propósito) purpose from God
3. great (predicación) preaching the word of God
4. great (poder) power of God at work in their midst
5. and great (personas) people of God, who served Him and each other sacrificially.

Those were the characteristics of the gathered church. At our Sunday service, we'll be considering the characteristics of personal revival in the life of an individual.

This afternoon, however, we celebrated in a different way - by having a barbecue together at Villa Rehoboth. It was a beautiful sunny day - almost like summer, with a top temperature of around 26 degrees. Quite a crowd turned up for the barbecue (when I was loading the dishwashers later, I think I counted more than ninety plates! In fact, once everyone had had their main course, salads and deserts, I think we filled both dishwashers three or four times.) Both young and old had a wonderful time: the older folks enjoyed sitting around the pool chatting, and the children enjoyed riding Florentino, the charming six-year old donkey that one of the church families brought with them for the day.

The boisterous breakfast bash... and the big birthday boy!

There's a popular misconception that boys are noisier than girls. That theory would be quickly disproved if you happened to come to our house on a Saturday morning. Every week, around 11 am, six to eight pre-teen girls come to our house for a late breakfast and a time of considering how Biblical principles apply to their own lives as they approach their teenage years and grow into young women. Things have been slightly more boisterous than usual over the past few weeks, as the girls have been learning and rehearsing a lively dance which they'll be performing next weekend at our church's third anniversary, when we'll be celebrating with a barbecue and a couple of special services. When the loud music began this morning, Tobi took off like a bullet and flew upstairs in a flash. I found her later, not simply lying on my bed, but actually hidden underneath the duvet!
Yes, this week marks the third "birthday" of our little church here in Alhaurín. That means that this Tuesday, 22nd, will also be the second birthday of Teddi and Tobi. I can hardly believe that it's already two years since I came home from the church anniversary service and ended up playing midwife at midnight to Tamba, the stray cat that we'd recently taken into our home. When those little kittens were born, weighing less than a 100g slab of chocolate, I could never have imagined that I'd end up keeping two of them and that Teddi would grow into a big boy weighing nearly seven kilos. (See photo below, with his best friend, Gabriela.) Life is full of little surprises ... and some of them turn out to be big ones!

Powerless...

It's a little scary how dependent we can be nowadays on our computers. My power adaptor "died" this week, which meant that I suddenly found myself without a computer for a day - which meant in turn that I had no way of answering emails about upcoming conferences, no way of continuing to work on LDC manuals, no way of conducting skype meetings with coachees in other nations...  I found myself "powerless" in more ways than one. As my computer is more than three years old, the power adaptor doesn't fall under warranty in Spain, and that meant I had to cough up a whopping 80 euros for a new one! Discovering that the shop was near Malaga bus station, however, gave me an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. I caught the bus into Malaga to buy my power adaptor, and took advantage of the opportunity to make enquiries at the bus station about new bus routes that our LDC delegates might use when they make weekend trips in April and May. So I now have the new-style power adaptor for my laptop, and the new bus timetables that I'll include in the information pages of our staff and delegate handbooks. I'm feeling "empowered" again!

Surprised by sun, sand, sea and spaniel...

They had forecast a cold, rainy weekend, so I put a lot of effort into cutting and stockpiling firewood last Thursday and Friday. Well, it was rather chilly and we did need to make a fire in the evenings, but it stayed dry and we were surprised to wake up on Sunday morning to lovely sunshine. "Let's go to the beach for a walk," said Ada. "This might be our last dry day for a while." When we arrived at the coast, we discovered that a lot of people had had the same idea: many were rollerblading, some were playing volleyball on the beach, some were walking their dogs, some were even lying in swimsuits! (To be honest, it wasn't that warm!) So we enjoyed an hour of sun, sand and sea views - and were jumped on by a cute spaniel puppy - before the weather began to get cooler and we headed home again. It was fun while it lasted and, sure enough, the rain had begun by the time we were heading out to church in the evening.

Getting some exercise...

I have quite a lot of "computer work" to do this month: a number of projects to be translated from French to English for KKI, staff and delegate handbooks to be prepared for LDC, some powerpoint presentations to be created for teachings in English and in Spanish.... It's easy to get stiff when you're sitting for a few hours at the computer and, when you're dealing with multiple languages, sometimes your brain gets a little "stiff" too. A friend told me that he takes a break every couple of hours and plays a computer game to give his brain a different kind of workout. However, I've never been a fan of those computer games where you're shooting down aliens, and I find those "solitaire" card games a bit boring and mindless. But I liked the idea of giving my brain some "exercise" and a different kind of problem-solving now and then, so I decided to try out a couple of Flash puzzle games that I hadn't done before and that could be completed in a quick coffee break. Here are my recommendations for "puzzle of the week." From left to right they are: Threesome, Pushori and Traction.

A fowl situation!

The early morning chill when I was walking the dog today varied by only a few degrees from the morning temperature where my family lives in Scotland. However, the top temperatures forecast for these two locations were much more different: six degrees and snow in central Scotland, nineteen degrees and sunny here in southern Spain. Although the mornings and evenings have been decidedly chilly here,  and it's been a blessing to have a roaring fire in the lounge, we've been having beautiful sunny afternoons over the past week - a definite improvement on the cold rainy days that we were having this time last year.
I'm enjoying my early morning and late evening walks with the dog (to see me with my coat on and my hood up, you'd never imagine that it was the same day that had been so sunny), and the cat seems to enjoy sitting with us by the fireside in the evenings.... but I need to confess that I've been a hopeless failure as a chicken farmer. Every morning when I get up, the hens are relaxing around the swimming pool, eating the grass and pooping everywhere. How they get up there is a mystery, as the gate to the "farmyard" part of the property is always closed. (I even tied it closed with a rope!) In a spectacle worthy of "Funniest Home Videos," I round them up to the best of my ability and try to enlist the dog's help in herding them back down to the area where I give them their food and water. But there they are, every morning, having a hen party, hanging out at the pool and making a mess - like a bunch of delinquent tourists! They must be either jumping or flying over the fence, but I haven't caught them in the act yet, so it remains somewhat of a mystery. I need to have a serious "poop scoop" session every day, and in my darker moments I'm tempted to make a slight change of spelling in the title of an Agatha Christie novel: Murder most Fowl.

Babysitting...

We're all back in Europe now, having taken an overnight flight to Madrid and then going our separate ways back to Marseille, Barcelona and Malaga. During the flight, I picked up the Iberia in-flight magazine for February and was amazed to discover an article about trees: I'd had no idea that the United Nations has declared 2011 the international year of the forests, and is encouraging governments worldwide to support organisations that get involved in reforestation initiatives. Seems that the launching of our "Planting Together" vision is perfectly timed to coincide with this international emphasis. This morning, Curtis and I had a conference call with the other two men on our KKI European leadership team - to give a report of our time in Africa and to consider the next steps for sending a pilot team to Senegal this summer.
This week, however, I'm "babysitting" at Villa Rehoboth: my friends have gone to the UK for a week, so I'm looking after Brandy the dog, Simba the cat, and the four egg-laying chickens. (Pepe, the turkey, is no more.... having been served up for Christmas dinner at the end of last year!) While I'm here, I'll also be working on some LDC admin, including the preparation of new staff and student handbooks that will be printed for this year's school.