January 2022 Newsletter || My Refuge, My Fortress
Psalm 91:1-2
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord,
'My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.'”
View from the top of the monastery in Guadalupe
The monastery in Guadalupe
Our IMM team at the Spain Field Fellowship Retreat in Málaga
Hard at work on site in Málaga for a shoot in Darija
First of all, I need to give a big thank you for your prayers and encouragement leading up to getting here. There were many days when I doubted I’d make it, but the Lord remained faithful to fulfill His promise, so thank you for believing in Him and the work He has here in Spain.
Every day has been filled with the joy of waking up to the sunrise and a reminder of God’s faithfulness— and I’m not just being dramatic. I’m currently living at the IMM apartments located on the top floor of our office building in Madrid, and the 360 degree view of the sunrise every morning is breathtaking. The Lord is definitely shining His favor on this ministry.
Currently, there are 7 of us in the office, working every day to produce and distribute media in dozens of languages to countless nations in order to put Jesus on every screen possible.
In November, our team travelled to Guadalupe, Spain to enjoy a prayer retreat together. This took place scarcely two weeks after I arrived in Spain, and it was a beautiful and intense way to get to know the IMM team.
We spent time inside the monastery (a location that also doubled as our hotel) and ate very Spanish meals around the town. It was impactful to pray and worship in a space that has been used for such intense religion for hundreds of years, and we definitely felt the Lord speaking to our team during that time.
In December, we went on a production shoot in Málaga, Spain to film two different series in Moroccan Arabic. The mission field is hard and dangerous in Morocco, and we were blessed to even have a handful of actors willing to talk about Christianity on screen.
After the production, we spent the weekend at the Spain Field Fellowship Retreat with all of the other missionaries in Spain praying, learning, and resting on the beach as the Lord brought us together in praise.
The mission field is tough in Spain, I won’t lie. We’re constantly hearing testimonies from other teams in Madrid who will have a single meaningful conversation during evangelism in a week, and know that the complacency and secular mindset here is hard to overcome. It bleeds into our own lives, as well. If we aren’t sick or stressed, the lifestyle here threatens to distract us from the goal of being here in the first place.
IMM isn’t focused on reaching Spain (primarily), but I’ve seen countless instances of where sharing our mission and values to locals has inspired conversation and connections for bridging the gospel cross-culturally. We pray every day that the people living around us would be attracted to how the Lord uses media to bring people to Him, how he uses us as missionaries to live a humble life in order to bring Him glory.
In the next few months, I’ll be working with the team to produce our Heritage project in the language of Darija (Moroccan Arabic) as well as encouraging our partners and directors internationally to join us for the 40th Celebration in April.
It’s easy to fall into the routine of work and lose sight of the goal, but I thank the Lord for His constant reminders in the sunrise, in the mountains, in my roommates and our teammates and the city around us that He is working something we can’t even see yet.
And it’s just the beginning.
Prayer Requests
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Pray that the Lord would triple the efforts of our small team of 7, and that both short term projects (like the 40th Celebration) and long term projects (like the Heritage project) would be finished with excellence and in His timing.
All of us are struggling with health issues on and off (as I’m certain you are as well) but here in Spain it’s sometimes more difficult to have easy access to medication and health care. Pray that the stress and weather wouldn’t keep us from ministry in these winter months!
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