A successful first Jet Set Tour

It’s been a couple of days since our first official Jet Set Tour wound up, and the funny thing is that the tour participants are still on that side of the pond, while the Upstreamers are the ones who have left Barcelona and Madrid! Eric, John and Barbara are enjoying some vacation time in Spain since the tour’s conclusion.

The final couple of days in Madrid were pretty packed. They included everything from city mapping and prayerwalking to meeting with language exchange partners. I (Tep) enjoyed seeing the tour participants really dive into their surroundings in Madrid, whether it was hanging out with new friends, striking up conversations or learning to navigate the city.

Tuesday we primarily sent the group out to explore and prayerwalk on their own in various parts of town. When the day was done, we learned they had covered a university campus, a large neighborhood in the northern part of the city and even another part of the city center! Talk about being troopers!

After lunch, the team met up with Larry and a couple of his friends to learn more about church planting going on in a northern suburb of Madrid, as well as some new work with local high schoolers. So add two more perspectives into what God is doing among Madrid’s people!

Tuesday night, all five of us gathered for some traditional pintxos, a Basque type of finger food, and we debriefed the day and talked about some next steps for Eric, John and Barbara and their churches. I think we came away with a pretty good plan to stay in touch and keep dialoguing about what their churches’ (and personal) involvement can look like, even if it’s totally different from what they’ve seen this week.

We closed out the first Jet Set Tour that night with prayer and a commissioning of sorts for all of us as we go back to our respective circles. I think we’ve all seen a lot over the past week, and our prayer is for God to show us exactly what He wants us to do as a result.

We’re taking notes on the group’s feedback about this first tour and will be incorporating their ideas into future trips. Thank you for praying about this first Jet Set Tour. Watch The Upstream Collective Web site for updates on future tours, and let us know if you want to get involved!

Monday

It is Tuesday morning. We are staying in a hostal on the west side of the city in an area called Moncloa. It does not have a restaurant or even much of a front desk but there is restaurant/bar at the side of it. They must be getting use to be being there. I walk in this morning and by the time I walk up to the bar to order my cafe con leche he already was the milk into my coffee. I could get us to this.

Three things have been consistently happening on this trip.

First we are logging about 7 – 10 miles walking per day. We don’t even really know it but one of the people in the group brought one of counters  and by the end of the day we can actually feel like we have been walking that far. We only use public transportation. We did not rent cars or vans but we bought a metro pass that is good for the entire time while we are here and we simply jump on a bus or go underground to the metro and pop up wherever we need to be. Madrid is a city that is well connected with the metro and you can get most anywhere without a car.

We are also logging long hours. The days here in Spain can be long. We start around 9 am in the morning and we have been pretty much been going until 1230 or 1 am without much rest.  Yesterday we met with some people who minister amongst  immigrants who live in the city. Many of these come from Muslim backgrounds. Europe is the home of millions of people who come from places other than Europe and from places where many traditional mission agencies focus their work on these peoples. The great opportunity believers have in Europe is that they can openly  share their faith here amongst these people.

The third cool thing that has been happening  is every day we are meeting new people who are willing to talk.  We call these divine appointments.  I think God sets these up for us. I think these can often be  an opportunity to share the good news.  The Lord has given us opportunities like this all week on the trip. We are grateful for these chances to tell people about how Jesus has changed our lives.

Today we are off to more miles walking and on the metro. We have quite a few appointments in the afternoon. We pray that God will give us some divine appointments where we tell people about Jesus Christ.

 

to madrid

We flew from Barcelona to Madrid on Saturday evening. We arrived in Madrid around 11 pm just in time for supper. Yesterday we went to Immanuel Baptist Church in Madrid which is an international Baptist church. Immanuel is a multi cultural church led by pastors David Dixon and Tim Melton. We went to lunch with a group of people from the church and then went over to some spanish friends house for tapas last night and talked about religion in spain and various aspects of what it means to be a follower of Jesus here.

Today some of us have intercambios. We are also going to an immigrant section of the city here in Madrid and learning about work amongst some of the different people groups of Madrid. Of course we will have lots of great coffee.

One thing I (Larry) am enjoying is reconnecting with some of our friends who live here.

more about friday

Friday was our first full day in Barcelona though we accomplished a lot on Thursday afternoon. I am having computer probles and it has taken me a day to have them sort of resolved.  After some orientation around some good Spanish coffee we hit streets.  During dinner I (Larry) received a phone call from one of the guys that I had been emailing over the last weeks. He wanted to meet for an intercambio that evening. I was pretty wiped out but I could not resist the opportunity. I went to meet him and we talked for about 1.5 hours. His English was not great so we stayed in Spanish most of the time. It certainly got me back into the language. These intercambios (where you speak for some time in English so they can practice English and then you spend some time in Spanish so you can practice Spanish) can be interesting. In this intercambio there was not a lot of interest in exploring deeper questions outside of travel, weather, sports. Often I think it is more about my lack of being able to ask good questions. I thought a lot about that conversation as I laid in bed the next morning.

We are staying in a hostal. I am rooming with one of the guys on the trip and that is great but I think the rest of the rooms in the hostal are quite full of tourist who decide that 530 or 6 am is the time to get up. So Friday morning I tried to sleep in but woke up at 6 and finally just got up at 630 and went and found some coffee. Several cups.

Our group walked through the “Mercado” (market) in Barcelona located just off of the Ramblas. We then took a turn and walked through some neighborhoods where we found many immigrants from all over the world living. We did some prayer walking in this area. We talked about how could one minister in this type of area? How could a church in the states adopt a neighborhood and prayer for it, come and visit it and be salt and light in such a place.

At 1 pm I had my second intercambio. This time John and Barbara from San Antonio came with me. We met a great guy. His English was much better than my Spanish. He is between jobs and needs to have perfect English to land the job that he wants here in Barcelona. We talked about more substantial things.  He talked to us about Barcelona and his language Catalan. He talked about the history of Spain and Catalan. We talked about politics and religion and about spiritual matters that move beyond simply religion and talked about a relationship with Jesus.

I may write some more on this day. Saturday we finish up here in Barcelona and then go to Madrid. Pray for us as we travel. Thanks

 

 

 

Follow Along

It’s Eric again. It is Saturday afternoon, and we’re in the airport waiting for our Vueling flight to Madrid. Barcelona was amazing, but I know that God has even more in store for us in Madrid.

I just wanted to post a link to my Google Map, so you can see some of the places we’ve been and a little bit of what we’ve been up to. Our days have been long and filled with tons of amazing things, and our internet time has been very limited – so I’ve tried to do my best to recall some of the main spots. I intend to go back and fill in some of the details of the trip and add photos, so remember to check back, follow along, and pray that God would use us for His will.

Adios for now

Hola from Barcelona

Hi, this is Eric from Mountain Lake Church in North Georgia. I am one of the individuals on the Jet Set Tour in Spain this Fall. Right now we are in Barcelona with Larry and another couple, John and Barbara from San Antonio. Today is our second day on the ground, and everything has been amazing so far. We all landed independently of each other and had an opportunity to make our way around the city on our own – for me, it was definitely a new experience. Flight fatigue, first time to Europe, and being in the midst of a foreign language – that will definitely get you out of your comfort zone! However, we are in a BEAUTIFUL city, with great people everywhere. John and Barbara wore their pedometer yesterday and logged over 8 miles!

Larry took us around Barcelona last night, we had dinner, and observed the people. He helped us to begin to observe different people groups, their identities, and what they do. The goal is to begin to talk to others and have relevant conversations. In order to do so, we need to have a better understanding of who they are. Larry had the opportunity to have and intercambio (language exchange) with a new friend last night. In conversation, where Americans may introduce themselves by talking about what they do for a living, this Spanish friend identified himself with the recent trips he has taken.

Although Larry invited us me to join his intercambio last night, I was muy cansado from a long day. However we have several more opportunities today to meet some new friends…