Day 16 - Monday. Our last day as a team! We met in the Luxembourg Gardens for a team debrief & final prayer session before we all started to go our separate ways. Now people are off to Italy, Belgium, Portugal, England and some are staying in France.
Day 15 - Sunday. We visited one of the churches that World Team planted over 20 years ago, where David (who heads up World Team) and Rebecca Riddell attend. The church meets in a school cafeteria. Then we had lunch with the Riddells and had the opportunity to talk with them about missions and life in France (and the Riddells have amazing flowers in their backyard - Spring in France!).
Day 14 - Saturday. We took in a ‘Fat Tyre’ bike tour of Paris before heading west to Chad & Kim’s for their monthy DVD night where they invite friends to come and watch and discuss a movie. It was an Australian themed night so we ate home made meat pies with Anzac Biscuits and ice-cream for dessert. We watched Rabbit Proof Fence which opened some great discussion about Australian history but also about racism and how we should evaluate whether current cultural ‘norms’ (such as the White Australia policy was) are right and in line with the Bible.
Day 13 - Friday. The last day of the prayer conference. The team visited Said & Fatima who seek to reach Muslims in Paris. Then the day finished with a meal and conference debrief where we heard of many answers to prayer already.
Day 12 - Thursday. In the morning we heard from Reynald Kozycki from the Evangelical Federation of France and Joshua Turnil from Jews for Jesus. Then in the afternoon we visited the town of Gisors in Normandy where France VIE are planting their next church.
Day 11 - Wednesday. A much needed rest day (mostly). Pierre, Caroline and Rachel set up a table at a university with some of the uni workers offering free bibles. They had a very positive response and gave away 88 bibles in one hour. Jo and Kathy went to a cafe night with some of the local christian university students as another part of the university ministry and had great discussion about life as a christian in France.
Otherwise the team had a good day of rest and we all enjoyed lunch and a devotion beside the Eiffel Tower.
Day 10 - Tuesday. In the morning we heard from Emilie who works with the hearing impaired in Paris (historically a neglected group) and Marius who provides free services to needy people in a town with a 70% muslim population. In the afternoon the groups switched from the day before so some went around Paris and the rest went to Magny-Les-Hameaux (http://bit.ly/e49tGF).
Day 9 - Monday. The first day of the World Team Prayer Conference. Jerry Moyer, the French Director gave us an introductions to France VIE (World Team’s name in France) and then we heard from Estelle & Charles Olivier-Diebold who run a music ministry in Paris (http://www.groupefeelings.fr/). In the afternoon half the team were taken around Paris to learn both about Protestant history and France VIE’s work and the other half went to Villers St. Paul (about 1hr north of Paris - http://bit.ly/iia5VA) where there is a France VIE church.
Day 8 - Sunday. Our last day in Gijón. After church in the morning we bade our farewells and boarded our flights to Paris. It was really hard to say goodbye to both the MIllars and Sparks but also to our host families and the other christians that we had met. We all felt incredibly welcomed and I think Gijón has a special place in each of our hearts now. Please keep praying for the people of Gijón and Asturias as we will be doing.
Day 7 - Saturday. We took our respective billets our for coffee in the morning to thank them for their amazing hospitality and then had a combined lunch with both the churches. After some down time at the skate park we hosted an Australian themed youth night with games and a talk by Sarah Edwardes. The youth normally meet every Saturday night but their normal meetings are basically a church service so they really enjoyed having a very different and fun night.
Day 6 - Friday. In the morning we all broke off in to small groups to walk around Gijón and think about and pray for the town and the local churches and christians. Then lunch with the Sparks/Millers and then dinner was Espicha (a traditional meal) with members of the local churches. It was a great day of learning more about ministry and life in Gijón as a christian and to encourage and be encouraged by the locals.
Oviedo Cathedral (click image for a larger size)
Day 5 - Thursday. The week is going so quickly! Jony, one of the members of the Sparkes’ church who has a history degree, showed us around the Cathedral and the Museum in Oviedo. It it quite a significant Cathedral in the history of Spain and the Catholic church. Words can’t really explain what it is like to be inside and unfortunately we couldn’t take photos either! We also got to visit the small chapel (Wikipedia: Cámera Santa) which is attached to the side of the Cathedral dating back to the 9th Century. Inside it we saw some important gold relics of the Catholic Church.
In the evening we all went to a prayer meeting at the Sparke’s church before some of the team went to a service at a drug rehabilitation centre on the outskirts of town.
Day 4 - Wednesday. After a morning team meeting where Angel told us some of the history of the town and the church from the Civil war to now we had the rest of the day off. The team divided into two groups again to have lunch with either the Sparkes or the Millars to have some quality time to learn their perspectives and experience of life in Spain. It was also Graham’s birthday so we all went and sat inside a barrel in a restaurant and had some traditional Asturian fare.
Also, there are these tiny chapels around town where people will duck in for a quick prayer. Each chapel has it’s own virgin of a certain domain (eg. healing, etc.) so people will go and pray at whatever chapel they feel they need at the time.
Day 3 - Tuesday. The team divided into three groups and travelled West, East and South to visit towns that have no evangelical church, each about pop. 10,000+. These photos are from the southern group, who visited Cangas de Narcea (http://bit.ly/gGp0j5), Tineo (http://bit.ly/gbeZHK) and Grado (http://bit.ly/g2Cti3).
We travelled through some beautiful countryside and saw lots of small villages churches along the way. But in each town we discovered big, old churches with closed doors.
In the evening we also went to a prayer meeting at the Millar’s church with people from both the churches attending. It is so good to see such passionate prayer and also to see people from the two churches gathering together.
