REPORT on Mission in Albacete, Spain

I was not the most motivated Spanish student (but compared to the other students, I was very motivated), so I never particularly wanted to go to Spain when there were enough other countries where I spoke the language enough to visit. But, CEM was going there on a trip, so I was happy to be forced to come along.

Just any old BEAUTIFUL traffic circle.

The Mission Trip to Spain was a collaborative project between the churches in Geneva, Switzerland, Lille and Marseilles, France. We were working with the very small Church of Christ in Albacete, Spain. They had organized a conference and wanted us to spread the word, to “go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in.”* The Marseille church chorus (composed of CEMistes and the Young family) sung in public parks, schools and nursing homes. While we were singing in the parks, the Geneva church would hand out flyers to our audience. While the choir was singing at a school, the Geneva team would go through the streets to hand out the flyers.

The choir headed out for our next singing engagement.

Our mission trip to Spain, in terms of spreading the gospel, was not visibly successful. We handed out over 2000 flyers to individuals and apartment mailboxes, inviting everyone to a Conference entitled “The Work of His Hands.” Each night, there were 3-5 faces that we didn’t recognize already who came. The conferences were held in the hotel where we were staying at, which was an excellent idea. It is possible that some people don’t feel comfortable coming into churches, and besides that, the church itself was very small.

The Church in Albacete needs your prayers: it is very small (third or fourth time I said that) and recently lost some members to become even smaller. The conference had the potential to infuse them with new contacts. The attendee yield was low but unfortunately not nonexistent, so there is potential for growth through the conference. And though not many people came to the conference (they found at about it at short notice; maybe they already had plans) they still have flyers in their mailboxes with the church’s information on the back. And even if they throw away the flyer immediately, they will still see the words “Existe Dios?”** for a split second and be forced to momentarily consider this life changing question.

For me, the trip to Spain was excellent. I was able to spend 20 hours in a car with Katie Young, one of the full-time missionaries at the church in Marseilles, and 2 other CEMistes (I dubbed us the ‘MERICAN MOBILE because I had the guilty pleasure of being a linguistic slacker and speaking English with them). On the car ride to Albacete, we shared stories of times when God’s spirit clearly led us to do something great or when we trusted in God’s power and He did it. My eyes were open to the beauty of a life spent following the will of God. God's plan for us are way cooler than our own. On Saturday, during our free day, I was able to take a walk with some CEMistes and we discussed the goals and methods of the conference and the difficulties of evangelism in Europe.

I am very thankful that I am doing CEM and I think that the friends I make here will be the future spiritual saints. My friends from Columbia will be great in the World: they will lead countries, corporations and businesses and make great contributions to the environment and their respective fields of technology. My friends in CEM will be the founders of churches, the builders of orphanages, the neighbor who takes care of everyone and shares her faith through gentleness and compassion: they will be great in God’s Kingdom. I think the two sets of school friends complement each other nicely.

Besides all that deep stuff, I really like Spain! Albacete is a really pretty town. It was bright and colorful; a relief after the dullness of Marseille (no offense). The country side, which we drove through, is different from that of any country I’ve visited; it inspires me to imagine knights, i.e. Don Quixote, setting out across the wilderness in search of adventure.

The impressive landscape to which I am referring!


*Luke 15:23
**Does God Exist? Would be the translation. And btw, if you have never researched this question, you should think about it, talk to someone about it (I recommend a Christian) or, if you don’t feel like talking to anyone, check out this website: www.doesgodexist.org

Mission in Albacete, Spain

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are going on our mission trip to Spain! We will be working with a very small church there by helping them to invite people to their sermon series taking place Thursday-Saturday night. We will be "La Coral," and be singing in various public places throughout Albacete. As a choir, we have prepared a number of Christian songs in both French and Spanish.

This will be my first time in Spain. It is a 10 hour drive to Albacete, so I will see alot of the country out the van window.
We return Sunday night late and then have a day off from classes. Expect some updates and pictures from the trip next week!

Pray for our team; for our good spirits, and that God works through us and our singing (which at the moment is kind of iffy) to bring many people to Him.

A "Typical" Week of CEM

"Typical Week" of CEM is a misnomer; there are no typical weeks! After one month of weeks with almost-the-same-schedule, we will enter a month where EVERY weekend we will be traveling to a retreat/another country (see the side-bar calendar). But to give you an idea of what the life of a CEMiste is most-often like, I have composed the schedule below:

We begin each day with a 30 minute devotional with singing and the reading of a Psalm. At 9 AM, we start our three hours of classes. Then we have a 2 hour lunch break, because we are in France.

What happens after lunch:
Monday afternoon:
1:30-3:30 we have a meeting where we talked about what we learned the past week.
5-6 I help out 2 women at the church lead an English class for 3-6 year olds at the local community center.
6:30-8 Choir Practice

Tuesday Afternoon:
2:30-5 Prepare for “Club Cool”. Rehearse puppet show and skits.
5-6 Club Cool, a weekly Bible fun time for kids ages 3-18
7-8 Prayer time with the church family

Wednesday Afternoon:
2-5 help children with their homework at the church OR help at a program for autistic children OR work on a painting project with residents at a local nursing home

Thursday Afternoon:
2-5 Attend a Bible study on the book of Hebrews at Eliane’s apartment. She always provides an excellent spread of cookies and chocolates. She has been hosting a Bible study for at least the past 10 years.
8-10 Attend a Bible Study at Constantin’s dorm room. He lives in University housing. We have just started meeting there and are hoping to create a space where we can invite University students to study with us.

Friday
2-5 St. Maurs Rest Home: Sing, play games and talk to nursing home residents.

Saturday
(FREEE)
7-10 PM Every other week, attend a Youth Group Get-Together for ages 12-25.

Sunday
10-12:30 Bible Class and Worship Service
4-6 Soccer practice and match with church soccer team

A typical CEM girl's night with not-so-typical fancy French desserts.

To see which weeks will be "typical" and which will not, check out the blog's Google Calendar side bar!

Boite a Questions

*Box of Questions*

Today was the first opening of the CEM Box of Questions. We are going to open and unleash our questions upon the CEM teaching staff almost every Wednesday, starting today.

The French do not have an idiom equivalent to "Opening a Can of Worms." They say "Opening Pandora's Box," an ancient Greek mythology reference that doesn't appeal to my love of ridiculous folksy sayings.

Here is a sampling of today's questions and responses. Perhaps it will encourage you. If anything, I think the questions asked really display the raw hearts of the CEM students; their desire to follow God as best as they possibly can.
As my readers, let me know if you have any big (religious-related) questions you'd like me to pose to the CEM staff and students!

Q: How do we know if we love God? What if we are motivated to serve God/be baptized/become a Christian because we are afraid of God’s wrath or because we want to go to heaven?
A: Fear: fear is not necessarily a bad thing.
Desire for heaven: What is there in heaven besides God? A desire to be in heaven is a desire for God.
To answer the question with an illustration from marriage: When I got married, I thought I loved my wife. Looking back, I see how imperfect my love was and how much of my own egoism was in it. My love is imperfect because I am not perfect. But over time, we LEARN how to love God.

Our baptism question, after being read, spawned live class participation and further questions posed by class members, the dynamics of which is somewhat conserved here:

Q: Is baptism essential for salvation? What purpose does it serve?
A: John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentence and conversion in preparation for Jesus’ kingdom. AFTER Jesus has resurrected, in the great commission and in Acts 2:38, Jesus commands the disciples to baptize for the forgiveness of sins.
Q: Do we have to be baptized to be saved? Is baptism the only way to be saved? Do we have to be baptized in water to be saved?
A: (Avoids saying Yes or No) First, I AM SAVED BY CHRIST. It is the work of Christ that saves me. Let’s look at what the apostles taught, and follow that as closely as possible. In the early church, baptism always meant immersion and was used to represent the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. There weren’t unbaptized Christians in the New Testament Church. Believers were baptized.
Q: If you are a baptized Christian and fall away into sin, are you still saved?
A: Grace before and after baptism. What if our theology is wrong? We will be saved by grace.
Q: Can we be Christians without being baptized?
A: This was not even a question until after the reformation. Protestants questioned baptism and every ritual of the Catholic church. Baptism had become a magical ritual. It had nothing to do with faith. The Protestants wanted to get rid of all rituals. They reacted too extremely in the opposite direction. Let’s look at the principal question: When you are before the throne of God, will you say, “God, I am before you because I had faith” or “because I was baptized”? You are going to say “Jesus has saved me!"

We still don't have a straight answer to the above question: perhaps we will receive an answer next Trimester when we study the book of Acts, or perhaps there is not a "straight answer."

SUGARSUGARSUGAR

An account of one of our rare free-Saturdays:
One of the skills we are to learn at CEM is hospitality. Over the course of the year, we are to have invited the entire church over to our apartment for a meal. Today was our free Saturday, and I spent most of the day baking cookies so that we will have snacks ready for spontaneous guests. Normally, it is hard to have guests spontaneously if you are too much of a cheapskate to order pizza, so I am trying to be creative.
For lunch/a very late breakfast, we were invited to the other CEM girls' apartment for American-style pancakes, with Canadian-style maple syrup. After lunch, I made yet-more cookies and went shopping for yet-more ingredients, returned and made churros for our "Soiree des Jeunes", tonight with a Mexico-themed meal.
"Les Jeunes" meet every 2 weeks and includes ages 13-25. This Soiree and the last had about 30 in attendance, each time including a few young people that we've never seen before at the church.
At our Soirees, we first eat a very long meal, then play a few large-crowd-party games. After, we sing about 10 songs in a circle and then have a lesson. Last time, we went over the story of Joseph and how it is similar to the story of Jesus, and this week we did the same with Moses. After the 20 minute lesson, we have discussion groups, which are very fruitful and unfortunately too short.
Fortunately/unfortunately: The next Soiree des Jeunes is not for a month! That is because there is a country-wide youth retreat in mid-November. That is great for the young-people in our church but unfortunate for our visitors. Please pray that they will keep their interest in the Lord and come to our next group!

Your essential vocab for this blog post:
soiree-("swah-ray") your evening. Not necessarily a night out on the town; can be used for hanging out with your friends, having a dinner party, watching a movie; any evening activity.
Jeunes- young folks

Sample Class from "The Gospel of Luke"

Hello dear reader,
This week I shall attempt to entertain you with my notes from Monday's class. We have "The Gospel of Luke" four times a week from 9-10 AM. Hopefully the notes below will give you an idea of the kind of things we learn at CEM and the kind of thinking we do. Please note that these are only my notes and that you are not at all getting the full CEM experience.

The Temptation of Jesus

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’" 5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’" 9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; 11 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’" 13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Lecture Thesis: Jesus’ life mirrors the nation of Israel except that, when Israel failed, Jesus succeeds.

First, His baptism parallels the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.
After the Israelites cross the Red Sea they spend 40 years in the desert: Jesus faces 40 days of temptation.
The temptations Satan presents mirror temptations faced by the Israelites.
In Greek, temptation and test are the same word. Temptation/tests bring out what is inside of us.
The devil gives Jesus three tests. The goal of the tests is to turn Jesus away from his program of suffering. In each test, the devil proposes a counter-programs to Jesus’ Messianic program, all of which avoid suffering.

1 Temptation: to avoid/end his own hunger.
Hunger and exhaustion are a form of adversity. What’s wrong with being hungry, and what’s wrong with eating?
In the desert, the Israelites don't want to suffer hunger: they whine until they get what they want,(Numbers 11:4-6) just as children who always get what they want are spoiled. They don’t suffer. Jesus waits for his food and suffers.
2nd Temptation: To rule the world using the methods of Satan.
God alone is sovereign over the nations but he allows Satan to exercise a lot of influence on the world. Satan's control is shown in the use of lies, seduction, violence, the thirst for glory, militarism, injustice, cults of power etc. The Israelites tried adopting other gods to gain control over the Canaanites when they invade their lands. They were using the methods of Satan to accomplish the will of God. The conquistadors are a good example of christians deceived into thinking they could use methods of violence to accomplish God's will, telling the natives: "convert or we’ll kill you."
At the time of Jesus, the Jews wanted a political Messiah and they supported many false Messiahs who proposed to free them from the Roman's using Satan’s method of violence.
If Jesus uses Satan's methods to accomplish the will of God, he will have failed in his mission because it is impossible to accomplish God's will using Satan's methods.

3rd Temptation: To be protected from all suffering and danger.
The israelites believed "God is with us, all will go well" (Exodus 17:7). Jesus uses his power to accomplish the will of his Father, which is to die for us. He follows God's will and he suffers.

In all of these tests, Satan tries to get Jesus to keep his distance from the common people. Do a miracle to feed yourself, become ruler of the world, call on the angels to save you. Satan wants to keep Jesus from identifying with us. Part of Jesus' mission is experiencing what it is like to be human. Why?
God wants to destroy sin without destroying the sinner. To do this, Jesus must be able to identify with man! Jesus is our representative with the father. Praise the Lord that he succeeded in being the 2nd Adam, in resisting temptation to which every other human in history has fallen, and at the same time, learning what it is like to be human.

Ecole de la Foi **

School of the Faith


I thought nothing of the name "School of the Faith" when I came to CEM. I thought of "The Faith" as Christianity, as used in expressions like "keep the faith," to represent the tiny part of God's kingdom that you adhere to and defend.

But here we are literally learning faith. We have access to 3 excellent Bible professors, who have devoted their lives to studying and practicing God's word. Every faith question we've ever had is open to discussion and our teachers have read the scriptures, background materials, done their research. They are ready and willing to answer our questions.

And still, sometimes the answer to a particularly big question is "I don't know."

Q: "Is Jesus God or human?"
A: "He is 100% God and 100% Man."
Q: "How can he be both?"
A: "I have no idea, but isn't it amazing!"

Yes, we are learning the answers to some of our biggest questions. But we are also learning faith: how to say "God, I don't understand. It's a mystery. But it's awesome!" I hope to get answers to some of my questions, to learn more about my faith. But we must also learn faith for when there is no answer that we can comprehend.

Pray for my fellow students and I; that we take the opportunity to ask big questions, to learn all we can, to develop a habit of always learning and always asking questions, and to be content with God's response.