September Update

Greetings from Vilassar de Mar!

Summer
We had a wonderful summer. It wasn’t very eventful, but that is what we were looking forward to. I got the permission of the church leaders here in Vilassar to spend a couple hours a day in the mornings to help Naíme “homeschool” them. Mom was in charge of Math and Spelling and I was in charge of English, Catalán and a bit of History. It was a great experience and we hope to be able to do something similar from now on during the summer months. Perhaps more than anything else it helped to give the family some structure without which summers can be trying.

I almost forgot...We had a very pleasant time with the John's (from Grace Bible Church) who visited us for about a week. It was great seeing them again. Hopefully others of you will follow their example and come out for a visit :)

School
September is here and our children are back to school. Naíme, who just turned four is attending her second year of preschool, Stephen is in first grade and Sebastian in second. Both Sebastian and Naíme have the same teacher as last year. I think Naíme is more excited about that than Sebastian.

I need to share a rather funny anecdote concerning some counsel Stephen got from his older brother. We were sitting around the table having lunch and we asked Stephen about his new English teacher (he has one hour a week). Sebastian advised him not to let his teacher know about his prior knowledge of the language so that she would constantly be impressed by his progress and congratulate him frequently J

Regarding our children’s school you all might pray about my involvement in the school’s PTA. This week I’ll be going to my first meeting and I am praying that the Lord would show me if this might be a way to meet new people with a view to sharing Christ as well as of having some influence in the school arena. My hopes lie more in the former than the latter.

Church
Things are pretty much back to full swing at church. In our ladies Bible study this year we will be studying the book of Proverbs. I will be receiving some help from Naíme and some of the other ladies in teaching this series. This is probably our strongest mid-week ministry and it is a joy. I (Stephen) am trying to work myself out of my job as regular teacher in this group. The group has a number of very gifted women and so this year we are going to working on plan to train work with some of the women in order to help them become better teachers and gruadually turn the teaching over to them. Thanks for your prayers regarding this.

I am continuing to preach through the gospel of Mark with some interruptions. I would say that the series is going well. Starting two weeks ago we also started up our adult Sunday school classes again and we started by tackling the issue of manhood and womanhood in the Bible. This has been and continues to be somewhat of a heated topic so we appreciate your prayers. Apart from the studies we hope to have good discussion times so that folks can voice their opinions and concerns. Ultimately we trust that the Lord will bless these times and that the end result would be greater unity, a clearer understanding of what Scripture teaches and mutual respect especially regarding those areas and nuances where there are differences.

An important even we have coming up is our church retreat. David Barceló and I will be the speakers. David will speak about “A Passion for the Church” and I will speak about what it means to be the church all week long. We are concerned for low views of the church that we perceive in Evangelicalism in general and also with a version of being the church which focuses too exclusively on our Sunday gathering. Please join us in prayer regarding this retreat not only for the messages, but also for the discussion groups we’ll have after the messages, as well as for the fellowship and children’s ministry.

Thanks again for all your prayers and your support,
The Phillips’

August Update

Greetings from Alcázar de San Juan!In August I had the privilege of participating in an evangelistic campaign in Alcázar de San Juan, in the heart of La Mancha. A good friend of mine by the name of José Moreno is the pastor there and they dedicate a week every summer to “doubling up” their evangelism efforts. I have been wanting to join him and his church now for a couple of years but until this past summer it hasn’t been possible.

The campaign lasted from the 30th of July to the 5th of August. On a typical day we would visit one of the nearby towns and pass out tracts near the open markets in the hopes that along with the tracts we might engage folks in conversation. In the evenings we would set up a book table in the center of Alcázar in an area which had lots of pedestrian traffic. The table featured different tracts and booklets that were free as well as a good assortment of books and some films which people could take on loan. So every evening a few people would man the table and a few of us would pass out tracts and strike up conversations with those who were willing.

A number of things caused quite an impression on me. The first was how difficult an experience it was for me to pass out my first tract. Because it has been some time since I have passed out tracts like that it was quite the butterfly-in-the-stomach experience. The second thing I observed was how much more Roman Catholicism is entrenched in this part of Spain. Whereas in Catalonia we face mainly atheism and agnosticism, in deep Spain there is still a very strong Catholic mentality and everything else is a cult. I found it quite challenging as I was quite unprepared for the responses we received.

I failed to mention earlier that I went down with Samuel Barceló, one of David’s younger brothers. We both came away with the sense of thankfulness to the Lord for the experience. We were able to talk with many people and it helped me think a lot about our own context here in Catalonia and what things we might start doing in order to more effectively share the Gospel with folks in Vilassar.

I’ll be sharing more about that in future updates...

Thanks again for your prayers and support,
Steve