My 1st Prayer Letter for Spain

Dear Friends and Family,

 You know how you can hear something, and not really tune in, but know it is rattling around in your subconscious somewhere? I am a Brentwood kid who grew up in a community where Spanish is spoken at least as freely as English, but I never formally studied the language, or felt confident enough to try to speak more than a few words of it though I heard lots of it. Five years ago I taught a bilingual kindergarten class, and spent countless hours working with interpreters and translators to communicate effectively with parents who spoke little or no English, which led to more understanding, but also cultivated a desire to really learn conversational Spanish. I bought some Spanish immersion CDs and later a bilingual Bible, but four-plus years of grad school put a cramp in my language learning efforts. At the beginning of 2012, I felt God moving on my heart to sort of figuratively do what Peter did: ‘step out of the boat’ and try ‘walking on the water’, but wasn’t sure what that meant literally.

 About that time, I found a renewed desire to work on learning Spanish. In February, I signed up for what I thought was a low-key conversational Spanish adult education class at a local high school, only to find myself in a quasi-immersion course. More recently I learned of the opportunity to travel to Spain on a two week missions trip with a group from my church and sensed a real excitement about stepping out ‘on the water’ to trust God to bless my growing espanol and old talents in a new way to reach Spanish people for Christ. Might I enlist you to pray? Here’s the 4-1-1...

 ...the plan. We were told we will be helping Pastor Antonio Amigo and the Buenas Noticias Church in their new church plants by doing some painting and evangelistic work in two municipalities in the community of Madrid - San Martin de Valdeiglesias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Mart%C3%ADn_de_Valdeiglesiasand Navas del Rey http://translate.google.com/translate?&u=http%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNavas+del+Rey&sl=es&tl=en The trip dates are July 16th-31th. ...the preparation. All those who desire to participate in the summer teams my church sends out (at least six teams this year!) are asked to attend 8 weeks of Mission Bridge preparation Sunday School class, with some homework and projects attached. I have been blessed to serve on a number of short trips here and abroad, and even spent two years as a missionary teacher in Kenya, but mostly used English. I am tapping every resource God has provided in friends and colleagues who have willingly helped me practice my developing language skills, by listening to my Spanish Immersion CDs, double checking things on Google Translate, attending Thursday night Adult Ed classes and feverishly working on pronunciation, vocabulary, Scripture, and music that will be helpful in sharing Christ in Spanish.

 ...the participants. We are a group of about 10 people from Smithtown Gospel Tabernacle, with our group leader who is a veteran missionary who lived in Spain with his family for four years.

 ...the prayer requests. Please pray for God’s provision for all of us, help with my Spanish language learning, for His Protection, for unity amongst our team, for good health, direction as details are worked out for our accommodations and travel arrangements, for effective outreach and boldness as we share, and that we would especially be an encouragement and blessing to Spanish Pastor Antonio Amigo and the brothers and sisters of the fellowships in San Martin de Valdeiglesias and Navas del Rey.

 Thanks so much in advance for your prayers.

 Blessings! Tricia

  Por tanto, vayan y hagan discipulos de todas las naciones..Mateo 28:19a

ps. Watch our team facebook, page www.facebook.com/SgtSpainOutreachSummer2012 and this blog for more updates! Will send out another letter when I return. :o)