Christmas 2015
Cartagena, Alicante and Barcelona
I’m back from Barcelona
since Tuesday night, December 29. With
Margaret helping Sarah in Cass Lake Minnesota, USA, it was really nice to be
able to spend the Christmas season with friends. I drove so that I would have
freedom to move about from place to place, without being restricted by an
airplane ticket.
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| Logo for Spanish radio station |
I left home on
Sunday, December 20, and arrived in Cartagena at about 10:30 P.M. I stayed
with my friend, Paco, and his son. On
the 21 and 22, I was kept busy at the radio station with a lot of live
programs, including Light in the Morning,
from 10 to 12 A.M, a 4 P.M. program Amazing
Grace, and a program with another friend Rodolfo. They also asked me to do
a spot with Christmas greetings to the listeners and redo the opening for my
program, Building upon the Rock, which
covers essential Christian doctrines. The introductory music is now supplied by
a beautiful Spanish rendition of Ancient
Words.
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| Heriberto Ledesma |
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| Norma, husband and mother |
On Wednesday,
the 23, I arrived in Alicante about noon and I was with the entire family of
Heriberto Ledesma. Please pray for Heriberto’s daughter, Norma, and her husband
and son. Norma is very ill with cancer and asked her dad to cancel the ticket for
his return to Mexico on December 28, along with her mother, sister, brother,
sister-in-law, and their son. Heriberto worked with us in Mexico and his wife
worked with the Pollnows before they were married. Margaret used to visit
Heriberto’s mother, still alive at 91, when he was only 13. It was good the
whole family could be together for Christmas. Another sister and her husband
and two daughters were also there from Lisbon, Portugal. We prayed together and
I sang a verse of one of my favorite songs, Sheltered
in the Arms of God, which has been translated into Spanish. Then I was
asked to sing, The God of the Mountain.
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| Ripollet prize-winning Bethlehem scene |
I arrived in Ripollet, Barcelona quite late on December 23. There was a big meal of pork and one red
and one yellow filled pepper on Christmas Eve for all the people in RETO with
entrees of giant prawns and mussels. Dessert included a creamy, non-sugar cake.
After the meal, a small choir put on a concert with a video demonstration,
which I thought was touching and well done. It all pointed to the cross. I was asked
to share a short Christmas message.
Christmas
morning was very nice for me, because Jose asked me to share a little with the
family, Jose, Ana, David, Sofia, and twin Latvian boys, Fransua and Nicolas,
who are in Sofia’s custody, since their mother died giving birth… a story in
itself with a wonderful outcome. Every morning at breakfast, we always read a
scripture each from a scripture box. I am considered the grandpa of the family,
so when we opened presents, there were plenty for me. After that, the entrees
were served again down in the RETO dining room with a repeat of the tasty
entrees and delicious desserts. After the meal, 10 people came up on the
platform one by one, dressed in costumes to represent Bible characters and gave
their stories of the encounters with Jesus. Again, I was asked to share afterwards.
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| Fransua and Nicolas |
On Saturday, the
26th, we had lunch with five young couples, some of which (all the
girls) used to come to YP camp in Terrassa near Barcelona. They all have kids
now. After that, someone had the idea to drive
to a small village, where a live Christmas pageant is held on a hill outside of
town. Very nice! The townspeople acted out their parts and loudspeakers told
the Christmas story. A crowd of hundreds of people gather every hour and go to
a few different points, before they arrive at the main scene. We got in at
eight in the evening.
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| Meal for young couples |
At one point
the narrator said that Jesus came to destroy sin. I thought about how good it
is that we have a Christmas season, when the story of the incarnation is shared
around the world. “Every spirit that
confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” The weather
was just barely chilly, so it was nice to walk around and stand to watch the
presentation. There were other scenes as we walked over the trail, with the
annunciation, Jesus in the carpenter shop with Joseph, etc. There were live
cows, donkeys and sheep.
The regular
weekly meeting was held on Sunday and I was asked to speak. I talked about the
shepherds. We went to the usual lunch about 25 miles away in Terrassa. There
was another big meal... the fourth day in a row! Then we had coffee with a
bunch of the people in a home connected to the meeting place, where a Greek
family live. We spent all afternoon there and in the evening, one group broke
away to go out for street evangelization. There were about 20 people singing
when we arrived in a town square in the middle of Terrassa. A number mingled
through the listeners, handing out tracts and talking to whoever would listen. There
is a wonderful story to tell about a couple, who were reached by one of these
evangelistic efforts about a week before Christmas. They wrote a letter to RETO
and also the young man, who talked with them on the street.
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| Vicente, Carmen & family... Hector, tall boy on right |
On Monday, we ate
at the home of the mechanic, Vicente, his wife Carmen, and their two daughters.
Their oldest daughter has a family of her own, including twins. Their oldest
son, Hector, fell off a ladder, was in a coma and finally died in July of 2012.
The ordeal turned into a wonderful testimony of the overcoming joy of the
gospel and heaven for all who attended his funeral. That testimony is on this
blog:
We had another
meeting on Monday night, before I returned home on Tuesday. I’ll never forget
Christmas, 2015.
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