What can I say about my trip to Spain? I attended the National Conference of the Spanish Vineyards, it sounds grand but you have to remember that there are only a handful of Vineyards in the whole of Spain! The conference was entitled From Words to Action and I had been asked to speak about Communities of Compassion. You might have thought that God had something to so with that particular bit of arranging as Potton Vineyard is always showing the love of Jesus in our community!!! On Sunday over 30 Spanish people responded to a call for people who might be called to go and plant Vineyards in Spain...I assume that we meant churches, not vineyards??!! On the Monday the leaders of the International Partnership met up and we prayed and planned for the next phase of development for these churches. And then it was time to come home. I was dropped off at the airport nice and early, so I decided to sit in the sun and read again a book that I had referred to while speaking, the Outward Focused Life by Dave Workman. While I was reading this book a man in his thirties came up to me and spoke to me in Spanish, unfortunately he didnt want a drink of water or eat an apple so I had no idea what he was saying! He then asked me in broken English if I could give him 3 euros as he didnt have enough money to get his car out of the car park! I apologised and said that I didnt have any change. So he left me and wandered into the main terminal. Then I remembered that although I didnt have any coins I did have a 10 Euro note. So here I was, just having spoken about being compassionate instead of just talking about it, reading a book about the outward focused life, and knowing that there was a young man wandering around asking for help. Now I know that I can sometimes be a bit slow but even I realised that this just might be a God incident. So I picked up my suitcase and wandered towards the main terminal building. I could see the man through the big glass windows going from person to person asking for help. I walked up to him and handed him the 10 euro note, he looked at it, then looked at me and said that he didnt have change. I told him to take it and said that it was a simple way of showing him just how much God loved him! He wandered off looking rather amazed, and I wandered off to continue reading my book, feeling pretty good about myself as I went! When I eventually got to the departure lounge, a big room with about 6 different gates to get to your plane from, it was pretty quiet. This particular area appears to be used by Easyjet, and not anyone else. As the next flight was not due to leave for over an hour it was pretty empty. So I got myself a coffee and returned to my book. A little later an older man came and spoke to me in Spanish... again he didnt want water or an apple, what is it with these Spanish people?...eventually he started to speak to me in English, he wanted to know where he needed to go to get the flight to Luton. I told him that I was on that flight so if he wanted I would let him know when the flight information came up. He started talking to me, he was Arabic, from Morocco and a Muslim, and his name was Abdul, but more than any of these things he kept saying how he was crying inside. So I told him about Jesus who wanted to heal the broken hearted. Our conversation carried on for quite some time, so I bought us a coffee and tea and we carried on where we had left off. But then I noticed the strangest of things, we were sitting in a massive departure lounge, but the only place anyone was sitting was all around Abdul and I as I told him about Jesus. There were rows of empty seats across the walkway and at the other end of the building but all around us just about every seat was taken, all listening in on our conversation. One business man who was sitting about 3 seats along from Abdul, actually move closer for no apparent reason, other that to hear better what we were saying. Now I dont know what impact I made with Abdul, but I did get to pray with him and remind him that the next time he was crying inside, that there was Jesus who promised to take away that sadness if Abdul wanted him to. And I do wonder what those other passengers of flight EZY2268 made of the fat white bloke with a lisp who was gentle trying to lead an elderly Muslim man towards a relationship with Jesus.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 14:58:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015