As we near the end of 2019, Raquel and I are grateful for the many beautiful moments God has given us with our new church family. Our co-workers, the Keisers, have been wonderful to work with, and the church members all love Raquel (I’m tolerated as long as Raquel’s with me!).
Near the beginning of the year we began meeting for a half-hour breakfast/coffee/fellowship time before the morning service. It’s been a great chance to talk with people one-on-one or in small groups, allowing us to get to know their lives better. I meet with church members during the week when possible, but with their work schedules and mine, it can be hard to carve out time for it. This has been a great way to spend quality time with each member during the week.
This year, for the first time in some 20 years, we had a ladies’ reunion at church. Raquel and I wanted to organize a regional activity for the churches in our area. As far as I know, there are only 4 independent Baptist churches in our 80-mile radius. The Puerto church is the one most centrally-located of the 4, so we in the ideal place for regional meetings. We were disappointed that several ladies in the Rentería area who had expressed interest didn’t end up coming, but the meeting ended up being a great encouragement to those who visited from the other churches. We were very excited about the result, and people are asking when we’ll do the next one!
We recently had our Christmas cantata with the Irun church. It was very exciting to one of our men bring his unsaved mother and sister to the service to hear the concert. They were presented the Gospel clearly. Praise God for that opportunity! In the week leading up to the cantata, I knocked on all the doors in our church neighborhood and offered our church neighbors a calendar, an invitation to the cantata, and some home-made cookies. That last item was a definite hit, and nearly everyone was friendly and receptive. We hope to keep doing more to build relationships with the neighbors near our church building.
I am currently investing a lot of time in Basque classes. I believe it’s worth the investment right now as it provides new ways to build relationships with the Basque people. It’s provided Gospel-witnessing opportunities with my fellow classmates already, and I trust God will bless my efforts in the future with other Basque speakers. Pray for me as I study. I have to skip classes now and then for other responsibilities (I skipped class today to get this email finished), but so far with God’s help I’ve been able to glorify Him in my Basque-learning endeavors.
We’re looking forward to 2020, and we have a lot of things planned. Please pray that the Lord will direct and help us make His plans ours, and use us as effective servants. Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support thus far.
God bless, David & Raquel+
Ps. 34:3
