Here is a good article from the BBC that shows one aspect of the immigrant’s struggle in Spain.
BBC NEWS | Europe | Spain’s downturn hits foreign workers
We have a hope to encourage people like this in their struggle for survival and place.
Monthly Archive for June, 2009
Hello Family, Friends, and Partners in the Mission of Jesus!
We hope that this letter finds you experiencing the best God has for you! We just returned from a great trip to Sacramento and are beginning to turn the corner of practical preparation for our move to Barcelona. We put in our 30 day notice on our apartment in southern California and beginning to really ramp things up for our move back to Europe!
In this email we’ll talk about:
- Our new ministry blog
- Our support goals
- Introduce our Barcelona Ministry Book
- Baby News!
www.powellsinbarcelona.com
We are very excited to announce that we’ve started a new blog specifically for our ministry in Barcelona.
We are hoping that through this web-site you can:
- get up to date prayer requests
- hear stories about what God is doing in and through our lives
- see videos and pictures of Barcelona
- have a place on the internet where you can get any information that you may need about our ministry and be able to view past email updates
Click on the image below to check it out!
Take a second to look around, but stay tuned as more content will be added as we begin our lives in Barcelona!
Financial Goals
As we shared in our last email, we have some significant financial goals to meet before we can move to Barcelona. Our trip to Sacramento was great and God provided for some of these needs! Would you pray about the following:
If you aren’t currently supporting our ministry financially, we are praying for 20 new financial partners that will take the opportunity to support our ministry for $50 per month. (or the equivalent of $1000 per month). Would you please pray and ask God if this is something He is asking you to be a part of? Below is a picture that visual represents our needs. How might God be asking you to step out in faith and maybe take over one of these blocks?
If you are already a monthly supporter, would you pray about increasing your monthly support?
If monthly support is not possible for you, would you pray about giving us a one-time gift to help us with our moving expenses? Getting settled in Barcelona requires funds that are beyond our normal needs and these gifts would give us the ability to secure an apartment and provide for our relocation needs. As of today, we need $4,500 in addition to the reserve funds we need in our account with Christian Associates.
Justin has recently written on our ministry blog some thoughts about living on support in our economic state. We would love for you to take a look at if you get the chance. We are so grateful for the many of you who take the opportunity to be a part of our ministry by supporting us financially. It is humbling to know that so many of you are sacrificing much to enable the Kingdom to move forward though us in Barcelona.
Barcelona Book!
Over the past month Justin has been working on a (short) book to talk about our ministry in Barcelona. Please take a minute (or two) to download this and look through it. You can read about our ministry vision, seasons, and goals; as well as see pictures that we’ve taken of the beautiful city of Barcelona!
We created this so that you as our supporters could be as informed as possible, but also so that you can use this tool to tell others about our work in Barcelona. Once you download this, you are free to email this or send the link to others who might be interested in what we are doing. If you would like a paper copy of this, please let us know and we’ll get one in the mail for you! It is also available as a download or for online viewing at www.powellsinbarcelona.com
Baby News!
We had our first ultra-sound this past week and we found out that we are having a baby boy!!! The Powell name lives on! Jen is continuing to feel well and is starting to show more and more! (and she’s as radiant as ever!) Maisie is excited to be a big sister and is already practicing on her five babies by pushing them in strollers, singing to them, making faces at them, and feeding them.
Current Prayer Requests
Please pray that:
- We will get our visas by the end of June
- All of our funding will come in and that our faith will be strengthened through this
- Our friends who are interviewing with CA this week will clearly hear from God about teaming with us!
- That our baby boy will continue to be healthy and grow!
- God would begin to move in the people that we’ll meet and prepare many ‘people of peace’ for us!
Thank you so much for your sacrifices and work alongside of us! We are so grateful! Please email us at any time if you have questions or want to dialogue about our work in Barcelona!
Talk to you soon!
Grace and Peace,
Justin, Jen, and Maisie Powell
I loved this matter-of-fact post about multiplying churches. It’s true…If we want to see more churches take shape, we must be fearless and persistent in discipling people in the ways of Jesus.
THE MISSIONAL CHALLENGE: The Key to Multiplying Churches: Obedient Christians
This month marks the 5 year anniversary of the last time I received a paycheck from an employer and started receiving our income from the kingdom sacrifices of others. We love the faith that it builds in us, but the process of having faith built is often really hard!
We just got back from a trip to Sacramento where we got to spend time with a number of our supporters and friends. Their faith and generosity humbled me.
I have a friend whose retirement money has all but disappeared, and he still chooses faith.
I have a friend who may lose his job with 2 days warning, but they still choose faith.
I have a friend who just had a baby, is in school, is the sole provider for his family, but he chooses faith.
I have many more friends who all have unique circumstances that cause financial stress, but they choose faith. They choose to trust that giving to the Kingdom brings reward beyond what we can see and that God will provide for their needs.
All of these people’s faith has put into perspective that Jen and I aren’t the only ones living on faith!
I want to say for the whole ‘www’ to hear…we are humbled by the faith of those who send us out. Moving to another country and all that requires faith, but sending out missionaries while not knowing how you’ll feed you’re family requires a deep faith that I am inspired by.
I am sitting in a café right now beaming with joy as I think about the sacrifices that we make to God…they each make us more like Jesus, they each build our faith, they each are testament that we aren’t our own ‘gods’ and that we trust the one true God…Jehovah who provides.
All this to say, I believe that giving on faith is a reflection of a life of faith. In a world where there are many ways and places to spend what you’ve been given, we are so grateful that you believe in us and what God will do through us. Thank you so much…we are thankful to be on this journey of faith with you all!
We had a great time at our gathering in Sac…thanks for praying for us…About 20ish people showed up and Jen made a lot of delicious food, including a homemade chocolate cake for my birthday! We had a good time talking about our ministry in Barcelona and the upcoming transitions we’re going to be making.
Here are a few of the good questions asked:
Will your ministry be in Spanish or English?
We are believers in the ‘bloom where you’re planted mentality’, so when we first arrive our relational network will revolve more around our English speaking contacts. But as time goes on and we become more fluent in Spanish we hope to evolve into being dominantly Spanish. The long-term goal is to have communities in our network that speak Spanish, Catalan, and English.
How is your Spanish?
It’s coming along…we’re learning using the Rosetta Stone Software and it is really good. It’s fun and easy enough to feel successful, but is still challenging to a degree. Now that we’re a month-ish from moving to Spain we’ll be ramping up our time using this.
If you are wondering anything about these things feel free to ask!
Thanks to all of our friends and supporters who showed up and prayed for us as we get ready to head back to Europe! You are/were such a gift!
If you get a second to pray for us today please pray that:
- our support gathering in Sacramento tonight is fun, informing, and inspiring to us all.
- all is going well with our visa application and that we’ll get them soon.
- our funding will come together as God wills it.
- we’ll continue be strengthened by the presence of Jesus in our lives
Thanks so much!
