The Rain in Spain

So apparently Madrid has been experiencing a drought for the last few years, and people here say that it hardly rains. However, Kevin and I seemed to have perfectly picked the rainiest time of year! :) The forecast for the next few days is light rain, heavy rain, then snow/rain! Kevin, the lover or gloomy weather is in his element!

Today we are going to head down to one of the poorer areas of Madrid to pass out sandwiches to the homeless. Wednesday we met up with a couple who are missionaries here, but live more towards the center of Madrid. Last night we helped out at our church's homework club and attended a Bible study. All in all we have been getting a small taste for life here in Madrid. Saturday we hope to walk around the city doing a prayer walk. Please pray that God continues to give us discernment with all of the information and opportunities that we are learning about.

Spain at last!

We made it! After a very long trip Kevin and I landed in Spain Friday morning. We were more than a bit tired, but happy to be in Spain. First on our agenda was to figure out how to get to El Escorial, a super cute little town on the outskirts of Madrid where we would be participating in an evangelism conference. An hour and a half later we found ourselves at our hotel, but they wouldn't have rooms available for another four hours! So we walked around the town, taking in the sights. When we got to our room we took a quick nap and then started right in with the conference and the Spanish schedule. Dinner that night was at 9 pm, and our last plenary session of the day started at 10 pm, not finishing till nearly midnight. Still, we really enjoyed the whole experience. We met a lot of people who are doing ministry all over Spain, and got to have an idea of what it is to do ministry here.


This is a picture of one of our worship times, which were really neat.


It is not super warm here in Spain, and has been raining our drizzling quite a lot. Still that did not keep us from venturing out to try to go to see the famous monastery of El Escorial, where all the Spanish kings are entombed. We did not go in as there was a really long line, but enjoyed it from the outside.

Our conference ended on Monday, and we are currently living with a Free Methodist missionary family in Madrid. We will keep you updated on our adventures!

On Our Way

So in about eight hours Kevin and I will be getting up to get ready to go to the airport. Our flight leaves at 6:10 in the morning, and we will be traveling all day across the U.S., then in the evening we will be leaving from New York to fly to Madrid. Our first event will be a conference about evangelism in Spain. I actually think it will be very interesting, but am a little nervous about jumping right into everything, and I am hoping that we won't be too jet-lagged since the conference begins the same day we land. Please be thinking of and praying for us as we are traveling. Some specifics to pray for are: rest, successful travel (we have to navigate from the airport to where the conference is with all of our luggage on public transportation), and good connections with the new people we will meet. I am not sure what our internet access will be during the conference, but we hope to post at least once while we are in Madrid, so stay tuned!

Newsletters Out! Two Weeks to Go!

With our first set of newsletters out in the mail, I (Kevin) feel the reality setting in and have grown all the more excited. In just a couple of short weeks, we will be touching down in Madrid where we feel God has led us to minister.
As we approach this time, we do so with increased prayer.

We’ve been blessed to be able to stay with missionaries while we are there, reducing our costs dramatically, and, to boot, we get to see how to be a family while ministering in Madrid. Please be praying for us as we learn more about the culture, the nuances of bringing the Spearhead ministry to Madrid and to help us envision in which part of the city we would live and minister from.

We begin our journey by quickly testing out our mass transportation knowledge and getting ourselves to a conference which begins the evening we arrive. Jet lag will be our largest contender there, which will make it difficult not only to function, but will make it all the more difficult to understand. Please be praying with us for as little jet lag as possible. (Neither of us are good airplane sleepers!)

Aside from exploring the city and discerning which area we would like to base ourselves, we will be meeting with a bunch of contacts that will help us develop our ministry and understand the culture to best serve Spain. One of these contacts will hopefully be our home church, a Free Methodist Church doing amazing community work in the area. We are excited for this opportunity to meet them and I (Kevin) am especially excited to see how Free Methodism takes shape internationally. This will be a crucial point of understanding for me as I move through the ordination process.

We also plan to meet with some other missionaries in Madrid and we are excited to begin to develop our friendship as communication with them thus far has made it evident we have many common interests and ministry visions.
We thank you for your prayers.

Please email us at booksatterlee@gmail.com with your prayers that we may partner with you in ministering to the world, not just from where we are, but from where you are also.

Congratulations Tim, Mirna and Arely!

Last Saturday one of our sisters mexicanas, Mirna, married our friend Tim. Although we were not able to be there, we are really excited for them and for their new life. Arely, Mirna's daughter and our niece mexicana, summed it up nicely when she said, "Now I have a family!"

The ceremony. Paul, the director of Spearhead in Mexico is standing in the background. He and his wife Nydia just had a daughter, Ana Paulina!

Paul's son Andres, and our other Mexican niece, Elisa!

The happy couple, congratulations!

Update - Exploratory Trip

As Leah mentioned in the previous blog, winter has graced us with her perpetual breeze and on it rides the chilly air. It is a beautiful time on the farm however, the grasses are turning green, a brilliant color from their golden summer sheen. Clouds have produced some of the greatest sunsets I've seen since sitting in African winter fields six years ago. Gorgeous. The wasps have all but left, the cold striking the hoards down. That is great for me as I am finding that I have an irrational phobia to wasps and all things that fly and sting. Ask Leah as she laughs at me flapping my arms around running as the stupid little bug chases me. I've been even known to swipe at a bee with my foot in the middle of a restaurant. I put on quite a show...my pride is grateful that the chill has caused the departure of wasps and mosquitoes.

Plans for our exploratory trip to Spain are coming along. We have made some contacts and are watching the schedule fill up with invites, though navigating the calendar and finding places to stay are still being worked out. Here is a quick overview of what we hope to accomplish.

- We will be heading to a conference pretty much the day we arrive. This is a three day conference of Evangelical leaders throughout the country. We've been invited to attend by a future partner in ministry, Decision Espana. We'll be off and running upon touch-down.

- As I'm in the ordination process with the Free Methodist Church, we hope to meet up with the missionaries and leaders of the Free Methodist work going on in Madrid to plan on how we can be a part of the community. We will be blessed to meet face-to-face people that we have been conversing with for almost 6 months through email.

- We are also going to decipher a budget, which includes looking into areas in which we want to live and base the ministry out of. We will be doing some city exploring and ministry mapping during this time.

- I have also spoken with a missionary there who hopes to begin a Spanish-speaking international intentional community. This has been a dream of mine for some time now, and I look forward to learning how we might be able to get involved.

- We spend our last days with our future boss from LAM and our partners with Decision Espana to learn how we can be involved while we are becoming inculturated and going to language school.

What an exciting time for us. We go on faith expectant for God to show us a glimpse of what he has in store for our future. I personally have never felt so confident or at peace with my career as I do now.

Thank you for praying for us now and during this exploratory trip.

It's a cold, blustery day...

I feel like winter is arriving, whether I am ready or not! You can't see it very much in this picture, but the day has given us a steady dose or rain, combined with some strong winds.

I feel a little like we missed fall, I thought we were experiencing it for a while, those cool days, leaves falling, a certain crispness to the air.... mmmm! But then it got hot again. And now somehow we have transitioned from hot to cold!



This weekend Kevin and I made the trek down to Pasadena. We were able to visit with some of our friends, and attend our home church down there on Sunday. It was a really fun time overall, even though it was a long drive. On Friday night we went trick or treating with the family that I used to nanny for. It was really fun overall, though I missed hanging out with the oldest, Jacob, because he was with his friends. Here is a picture I took, you can kind of get an idea of how much energy the night required by the look in the boys eyes!
I know you can't tell from this picture, but there were hundreds and hundreds of kids on the street where we went to trick or treat, it was unlike anything I had ever seen. People go all out to decorate their houses as well, some of them were a little on the scary side, which I wasn't a real big fan of. One woman was dressed head to toe as a mummy and ha done of those crystal balls with a head floating in it. Hmmmm. A little scary for small children, or adults! :)