October Update

October Is a Busy Month!

The annual general assembly for the FIEIDE is this month and they are also celebrating their 50th Anniversary, so we are very busy updating the web site, creating manuals, printing directories, keeping track of hotel registrations, and a myriad other things. In addition, the fall quarter of our online school is starting up this week and there are textbooks to be mailed and notebooks to be assembled for classes held at various churches.

At the end of the month, our WorldVenture Spain Team is having their annual retreat and there are things to be done to prepare for that as well. I look forward to this time every year as our team is scattered all over Spain (Madrid, Málaga, San Sebastian and Barcelona) and this is the one time during the year that we are able to gather together and enjoy each other’s company.

This month’s quote:

“How does God’s grace meet you in your sufferings? We can make the right answer sound old hat, but I guarantee this: God will surprise you. He will make you stop. You will struggle. He will bring you up short. You will hurt. He will take his time. You will grow in faith and in love. He will deeply delight you. You will find the process harder than you ever imagined--and better. Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life (Ps. 23:6). No matter how many times you’ve heard it, no matter how long you’ve known it, no matter how well you can say it, God’s answer will come to mean something better than you could ever imagine.”

David Powlison, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

Praises & Prayer Requests:

• Praise God the Haleys now have telephone service and ADSL through the national telephone company. This is a huge answer to prayer! Thank you so much for interceding for us in this matter.
• Pray for stamina during this very busy month and for joy in our work. Pray, too, that we would be patient with one another and exhibit the love of God as things don’t always go the way we would like them to.
• Continue to pray for the monthly support I need. The dollar has dropped considerably and I am really feeling the crunch.
• I am going home for Christmas! It was much less expensive for me to fly to Denver than for my children to fly here (mainly because I can come sooner and stay a little longer). I look forward to seeing those of you in the Denver area.

Calendar Items

October 1 - EET Fall Quarter begins

Oct. 9-13 - FIEIDE General Assembly & 50th Anniversary Celebration

Oct. 25-28 - WorldVenture Spain Team Retreat

Slideshows

I'm just experimenting with a feature my son showed me on my Picasa Web Album site. I posted a photo of the Font Mágica that we saw when my daughter and her friend were here in an earlier post. Thought you might like to see all the photos I took. Let me know if this works on your computer and what you think. Maybe I'll post one of these from time to time. If you hover your mouse over the picture, it will give you some choices. If you click on it, it will take you to my Picasa Web Album.

Back to School

This past Wednesday children went back to school in Cataluña (the province where we live). They looked a lot like American school children as they set off in their new clothes with their new backpacks. I don't know a lot about the school system, but I know their schedule is very different than what we are used to in the States. They begin school at 8:30 or 9:00 (depending on their grade level) and go until about 1:30, when they break for lunch and go home. They return at 3:00 or 3:30 and stay until about 5:00 p.m. If they are in Instituto (which would be 7th-10th grades for us), their day runs from about 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Mandatory education finishes at age 16 here. If they are going on to college, then they spend 2 more years taking college prep courses before they apply to and take entry examinations for the college they would like to attend and the major they are pursuing. They can't just apply to a university and decide later on their course of study. If they don't test well, academically as well as in regard to aptitude for their field of study, the admissions staff can deny their application. It puts a lot of pressure on an 18 year old who may not be sure about what they want to do "when they grow up."

More on Suffering

A few more good quotes from the book, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God.

The suffering of the servants of God, borne with faith and even praise, is a shattering experience to apathetic saints whose lives are empty int he midst of countless comforts.

The suffering of the church is used by God to reposition the missionary troops in places they might not have otherwise gone. This is clearly the effect that Luke wants us to see in the story of the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution that came after it. God spurs the church into missionary service by the suffering she endures. Therefore we must not judge too quickly the apparent setbacks and tactical defeats of the church. If you see things with the eyes of God, the Master Strategist, what you see in every setback is the positioning of troops for a greater advance and a greater display of his wisdom and power and love.

The lesson here is not just that God is sovereign and turns setbacks into triumphs. The lesson is that comfort and ease and affluence and prosperity and safety and freedom often cause a tremendous inertia in the church. The very things that we think would produce personnel and energy and creative investment of time and money for the missionary cause instead produce the exact opposite: weakness, apathy, lethargy, self-centeredness, and preoccupation with security.

This book is challenging me on almost every page. I will continue to share some of what I read, but would recommend you get a copy for yourself. There's some great stuff in here.

Amusement Parks

One of the things our family always enjoyed was going to amusement parks, whether it was Disneyland when the kids were small or Magic Mountain when they got older (we lived in California when our kids were growing up). We always had a lot of fun. When we visited our friends in Michigan, we often drove over the border into Ohio to enjoy the day at Cedar Point with their family. In USA Today, this article told about Cedar Point winning the award for best park every year for the last 10 years. We are not amusement park experts, but it was always one of our favorites.