Hospitality houses...

I seem to have done a lot of cleaning and making up beds this week! One reason for this is that I was cleaning Villa Eden and washing all the bedding and towels after my friends in the King's Kids leadership team had stayed there for a few days this week. The other reason is that I've been getting my own house ready and making up beds for the arrival of my whole family who are coming here to have a holiday in the sun. 

It's the first time that my parents have been able to travel since my Dad's critical illness and long hospital-isation, so they're excited but feeling a bit nervous, too. It's also the first time that Dad is travelling overseas with his mobility scooter. My brother and 12 year old niece will be coming with them for the first week, so that they can help with the scooter and other luggage.

The family will all be staying at my house in Ahaurín. It's a town house and I don't have a pool but, as it happens, Villa Eden isn't needed next week for the marriage retreat happening at the leadership development centre. This means that I still have some time during the week to finish getting Eden ready for the next retreat group arriving at the beginning of July.  It also means that my family can have their own private swimming pool, any time we feel like taking a drive over there. The weather forecast is for pleasant sunny days of around 25 degrees, so having the use of a pool will be a welcome blessing.

People care.... animal care....

In the missionary world, we sometimes talk about "member care." It's quaint way of talking about the fact that missionaries (people who spend their lives reaching out to and caring for others) need to be cared for too.  They need support, encouragement and pastoral care if they are to be able to persevere through often challenging circumstances and serve long term on the mission field. In fact, missionary societies are recognising this to be so important, that most missions organisations have a number of missionaries who are specifically called to "member care" - helping to develop and care for other missionaries.

My own involvement in missions has not been primarily in the area of pastoral care; most of my involvement over the years has been in mobilising young people for missions and training leaders to reach and disciple children and teens. However, some of what we do in and from the leadership development centre could be described as "member care" because it is an important part of equipping and encouraging missionary leaders, so that they are able to serve more effectively in the ministry and nation they are called to.

Today, for example, I have a number of coaching appointments with missionaries around the continent. One is a lady in transition: after more than thirty years in the same nation, she is contemplating a move to another part of the world. Another of my coachees is a younger missionary who is still in the process of discerning the areas of calling and service that she will commit the rest of her life to. And so "people care" will form part of my schedule on this Spanish summer day.

You could be forgiven, however, for thinking that "animal care" was part of my job description. This morning at 8.30, I was already at my friends' home, where I'm looking after their cat (Luci) while they're on home assignment for a few months. And now I'm at the home of other friends, and will be doing my coaching from here, as they've asked me to look after their dog (Brandy) while they're out and about all day.

People care.... animal care....  I have to admit that both are very rewarding for me :-)

Encouraging outcomes...

We've just had four intense, but very fruitful days with the KKI European leadership team. Lots of meetings from morning to evening, but also plenty of time to chat together over meals, to pray for each other, to take a dip in the pool and to go out for an ice cream. Three of us in the group actually live in different parts of Spain, but the others are from colder parts of the continent and they enjoyed being able to eat lunch outdoors or to have an ice cream at our local "heladería." Spanish time is very different from northern Europe, and one of our guys found it funny that people were sitting in the street eating ice cream at nearly midnight!!

Many thanks to those of you who were praying for this time of leadership meetings. For me, the most encouraging outcomes were:

a) we managed to make great progress with planning the youth camp and outreaches that we're holding in Senegal, West Africa, this August.

b) we got a clear sense of direction and began making specific plans for the regional conference that we'll be holding in Belgium during October.

c) we are working towards the appointment of new national leaders for King's Kids in four or five European nations, and we identified two younger leaders who will be joining us on the regional leadership team. ("Younger" in this case means people in their thirties; the other team members are already in their forties and fifties.)

d) we began planning and strategising for a new format of child and youth ministry training for our mission-based and church-based workers across Europe.

So it was very encouraging.... and we look forward to seeing good fruit from these initiatives over the coming year or so.

Looking after Lucy... and writing for Reto

Well, after starting the week with a puppy rescue mission, I'm ending it with a cat care assignment! Friends of mine, missionaries with another organisation, are going to England for almost three months. Guests are living in their home for most of that time, but there are three weeks where their house is empty, and so I've committed to dropping in several times a week to check on their cat, Lucy. She gave me a warm welcome when I arrived at the house this morning. Meanwhile, back at my own house, my three were settling down for their usual summer schedule of a long, lazy nap on the bed!

Now that LDC is over, the summer schedule is beginning for me too. Among other things, summer is often a time for curriculum writing. I've already finished writing a number of young people's devotional booklets for our King's Kids outreach in the north of Spain and our Planting Together outreaches in West Africa; now I'm working to complete the Reto 2013 Bible reading booklets for July, August and September, so that I can print and distribute them before I leave for Senegal in August. Next week, however, I'll be hosting the KKI European leadership team here in Malaga. We'll be working on the final preparations for the West African outreaches, as well as looking ahead to plan a conference that we'll be running in October.

The PDP and the PRP...

During the last week of the leadership development course, we encouraged the students to make a PDP - a personal development plan where they outlined the practical steps they'd be taking in order to grow in their leadership over the next three months.

The PDP is designed to help them consider their different roles in life - a husband, a dad, a ministry team leader, a frontier missionary, a Bible teacher.... and to set goals for growth and development in each of these areas. Today, though, as the last of the LDC participants was about to leave for the airport, I joined them briefly to become part of a PRP - a puppy rescue patrol!

Last week, someone abandoned two little puppies in front of one of the villas where our LDC delegates were staying. Our two Ukrainian families were living there, and the children were absolutely thrilled to have puppies to feed and to play with. I'm guessing the dogs had been part of a litter in someone's house, and that they had been dumped when it proved difficult to find homes for them. They were very cute and friendly, and obviously quite used to being manhandled by children. But most of our LDC delegates left on Saturday, and the last family was heading to the airport this morning. Knowing that we couldn't simply leave those puppies alone in the street, the two little girls helped me load them into a cat carrier, so that I could drive them to the nearby animal rescue centre. I sat with them for a little bit, until they got used to the sights and sounds of the new place, and then I left them in the care of the rescue people. I knew that the vet would check them over and begin the process of giving them vaccinations.

Summer is not a good time to be a puppy in Spain: dozens simply get abandoned every year, when families go on holiday and decide that it's too expensive to put the dogs in the kennels for a few weeks. Some may gat "reclaimed" when the family comes home again, but many simply live wild in the "campo" (countryside) for the rest of their lives. So I hope that our two little guys do find a good home. Our Ukrainian and Canadian children who've been looking after them for the past week certainly did a lot of praying that the puppies would be kept safe and would find good families to take care of them.

LDC is over!

The leadership development course came to an end yesterday, and today there's already been more than half a dozen airport trips for our staff, as the delegates all headed home to their different nations around the world.
The last week was a really meaningful time, where we saw God bring to completion many of the good things that He had been doing in people's lives since we first came together only six weeks ago. A small number of delegates requested to be baptised at the end of the course - some because they had never previously been baptised as a testimony to their faith, and others because they wanted to symbolise the fact that they were being washed clean from past struggles and were entering into a new season of leadership and missionary service.
We also held a special ceremony that we called "stepping over the line," where delegates were able to speak out what they were leaving behind and what they are stepping into.... and others were able to encourage and pray for them.
We finished with kind of a "graduation" time when we had a special meal and the students were presented with their certificates for successful completion of the course. And then, on the very last morning, we had a special time of praise and thanksgiving - recognising that Father God had been the source of all the amazing ways that people had grown and changed during these last few weeks together.

On a lighter note , we were able to surprise some of the delegates by playing  a joke on them when they went out to eat in a restaurant last night. About sixteen of them went into Alhaurin de la Torre to have dinner together (while others were packing their suitcases in preparation for an early departure today, and we as staff were busy with our own evaluation and debriefing time.) Half a dozen of us staff went into town later to have an ice cream and say goodbye to each other, and we noticed that our students were still sitting chatting in the restaurant. I slipped in and asked the restaurant owner if he would go in to their table and make an announcement that there was going to be a flamenco show in just a few minutes. Eavesdropping from the back of the restaurant, we heard our guys giving murmurs of anticipation at this unexpected treat. You should have seen their faces when it was us, a group of their friends, who came bursting into the room, waving our arms around in pseudo flamenco movements. It was a real candid camera moment, and even we ourselves could hardly stop laughing at the impact we made!

Almost all of the delegates and staff are flying home today, but for those of us who actually live in  Alhaurin de la Torre all year round, there's an opportunity to see a real flamenco show in town this evening. In typical Spanish fashion, it only begins at 10 pm, so Anja and I are trying to decide if we still have the energy, after seven weeks of LDC, to go out for a late night adventure tonight.

Out and about...

Although the forty days of the LDC are among the most "intense" weeks of my yearly schedule, there was nonetheless time at weekends for me to get out and about with friends who normally like in other parts of the world. So, last weekend, for example, I went with my friends from Thailand to the beautiful turquoise lakes near El Chorro. And another weekend we went to visit the town of Antequera and the stunning rock formations at the El Torcal national park. This was a lot of fun.