Spain 2010
April 12, 2010
Howdy from Finland!
Well, this is a just a little update about our annual meeting in Malaga, Spain, this last week. It was a great time of fellowship, sharing, worship and support. We reviewed the past year’s work, failures, successes and other experiences over the 3 days that the conference took place. Everyone arrived on Monday, the 5th, we had Tuesday through Thursday for the actual conference, then people left at different points after that. I found encouragement from my co-workers and blessings through being able to worship with them. There were a few funny moments in the week due to this large group of senior Spaniards coming into our meeting room. One lady came in during an optional evening session, not understanding why we were in there. One of our members spoke to her trying to explain what was happening. The lady stayed for a moment, realized that she didn’t understand the language, turned around and waved good-bye to us. Another and, I think, funny incident was that we had music playing in our meeting room and about 15 senior men and women came in. We kind of think that they were expecting a dance party because the hotel had put on such parties every night for them. Why would this be different?
There was a small group from Stafford Baptist Church near Richmond, Virginia, which came to provide daycare services for our workers. The pastor of the church came as well to lead in our devotions, a much needed portion of the week, I may add. Future co-workers in line to serve in Sweden came to lead in the music part of worship. This, of course, elicited some jabs from the Finnish contingent…”God loves everyone, even Swedes.” (Finns and Swedes are competitive against each other, more jabs from from the Finnish side, though).
Overall, a blessed time of renewal and review of the task at hand. I am spending this week adjusting my strategy for this coming year. Pray for God’s guidance in all of our Nordic countries…Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Pray that the hearts of the people will be open to the saving message of the Gospel.
God Bless You,
Danny Barnett
