St Peter's Anglican Church East Lindfield

What are the Cottons doing now?

0 comments | Posted by St Peters on 10 Oct 2009 in Missionary Support ::

From: Catherine and David Cotton
Sent: Saturday, 10 October 2009 1:11 AM

Hi again from Spain!

We hope that your lives have been as full and varied as ours of late (!) … and we sure do pray that the Lord will have been leading, equiping and blessing you, as He has us, and as He so loves to do.

Having come on board with OMS International, earlier this year, you might remember that we were trying to hurriedly prepare for their training program, which was held in the States, in July of this year. Whilst initially we were disappointed not to be able to get to the training this year, we look back now and realise that there were some other things the Lord had in store for us. Please scroll down for some photos.

We praise God for:

The oportunity for David to spend time with about 15 different Spaniards, (all past students of his) each week through July and half of August. I met with them individually or in pairs, in a cafe close to their work for 30 or 60 minutes each Tuesday for ‘Intercambio’ – which is an opportunity for us each to speak in English for half of the time, and then Spanish the other half of the time.

What had been a source of frustration for me turned, therefore, into an amazing opportunity to learn not only the Spanish language, but also the Spanish culture and to hear from them their thoughts on all sorts of issues ranging from ethics and christianity to politics and sport. I felt in my element as we chatted about all things Spanish! After two and a half years here, there would be few more effective ways to get to such topics so quickly with Spaniards … and furthermore, they then invited me (and I took Joshua) into their homes, on a few occasions (and they want more!) to play Monopoly with them and their colleagues, after having played it with them in a class, because of the negotiation skills and buying/selling etc in English. They speak in English and we speak in Spanish. It was quite perfect!

I have also connected with three different groups by playing either squash or paddle with them (a game like squash and tennis that is typically Spanish) and thensocialising as well.

The provision of a few students for us (mainly Catherine) to teach over the summer, to keep a bit of money coming in.

A bit of vacation time in August*, going to Valencia to visit Catherine’s sister for four nights and then a family camping holiday for four nights in each of two campsites at the beach on the north coast of Spain. It was so good to see a beach again!

Our children loving school now. Joshua has started at the girls’ school, this week, one year ealrier than we had planned, after two and a half years in Spanish schools.

Joshua missed the first four weeks of school though, as we took him with us on a speaking tour around England in September. We spoke about OMS International and the church planting work here in Spain, and the relational evangelism that is fast developing in the areas we are reaching into with the backing of both OMS and the local Spanish Evangelical church that has a parent church in Madrid.

We are so thankful for the opprtunities that presented themselves there for us to share in so many people’s lives in England and North Wales.

We spoke at various church meetings, breakfasts and dinners, prayer groups and a University Orientation night for the Christian Union, as well as meeting and staying with many family and friends who have been praying for what’s happening here in Spain for many years. One such prayer group has been meeting for over 20 years and know Spain and the issues relating to evangelism here well! We felt so loved and prayed for we wanted to bottle the feeling as we left each place we visited … so our prayer now is that we would just allow the Holy Spirit to continue to ‘warm’ us as we continue the work here, and that we might be able to bring such love, warmth and salvation to the Spaniards.

More Prayer points:

The Spanish Pastors of the two churches mentioned above, are about to meet the two Spanish Pastors from the OMS church plants more formally. Their visions are so close to identical, that we are very excited about the future. Amazingly though, we are a common link between these four Pastors, as we know all four of them well … so please pray for the on-going development of a team mentality as it will be us who host the first formal meeting between these four Pastors.

We also got back to Cascadas in the summer, so saw Jill, Alameda and Rascafria, which was great. We had missed seeing Jill on our few previous visits to the valley, as she was away. We also met up with a couple of the Board members whilst there and also in England, who we hadn’t seen since we were there in 2008.

Please pray for the right balance in our various church involvements. We are all well settled in our church (IBC) and love the connections there. Catherine, particularly, has a large part to play in the women’s group there. I will be attending a Spanish discussion group every other week after the service to chat further about the sermon. We also want to go to our local church more than the once a month we have mangaed thus far. We see the best opportunity for us to have more contact there is in their evening meetings but we are juggling this with working and learning Spanish then too. Furthermore, we look forward to getting to the Spanish OMS church in Madrid more often … but are wary of spreading ourselves too thin. We pray for wisdom with regard to this matter.

Tomorrow we have another English Camp at the OMS campsite, outside of Madrid. We are preparing for a full day this Saturday with a team from the US, to help us in a short term mission trip. The camp is for families from the adjacent village here in Cobena, which is the same group (virtually) that came to the full weekend earlier this year. We are very excited about all the potential for God’s work in further follow up this weekend and also in our new English classes throughout each week. Please pray that ‘God will open doors for us to proclaim the mystery of Christ’ Col 4:3.

Please pray for Catherine and me as we juggle significant teaching loads whilst awaiting further support, language study, working with OMS and helping the children with their schooling due to them being in an American school (part-time) and them also needing to prepare for UK exams for university.

We have both started with fresh groups of students this month, so pray that we may establish good relationships with them all and also for on-going relationships with last year’s students.

Thank you so much for your love and interest in our lives. We wish we could see you more often and pray with you guys in person!

God bless you. With so much love …

From all of us Cottons – David, Catherine, Sophie, Laura and Joshua

Photos:
(1) Baptist Church Home Group in local Spanish Pastor’s home.
(2) Youth from 5 surrounding villages in our home, playing spoons!

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