Profile: Lisbon Team

I have been traveling a lot lately. I have tried to update my blog on some of the travels. You can check it out at www.conexiona.blogspot.com . I just returned from Iceland where I helped an SC church that Lonnie Reynolds has been working with. I got to spend some time with the guy who is getting ready to move up there for four months early next year and we were able to do spend some time with the family who is already there from this church in Virginia who has rented an apartment for a year and is sending their staff family by family to invest a pretty dark and cold area. I am impressed at how this relatively small SBC church is really making an investment to Iceland.

I wanted to just send you an article I wrote a few weeks ago after my trip to New York City. For the time being I will be sending you the inotes via email while we are working on some things with our cluster website. Thanks for your patience with it.

New York, New York. It is indeed my kind of town. Actually Madrid is but that was not the song. smile

I was able to visit NYC for the first time a few weeks ago. I was not there for Thanksgiving so I missed the big parade. I have been through the airports but that doesn’t count. I was able to experience the Pastrami Sandwich at Carnegies Deli, New York Pizza, an off Broadway production, Central Park, the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, the Statue of Liberty, Starbucks coffee (of course), Macys, Tiffany’s, Sax 5th Avenue, The Subway system, hailing taxis, Times Square, the United Nations Building and I am sure the list could go on and I am sure I missed lots but I had a great time.

I also got to see and hear some things that sounded like home. I turned the corner into Times Square and saw “H and M” which is a clothing store from Spain. I was walking down 5th Avenue and went into “Zara” another store from Galicia, Spain. It made me feel like home. I heard many people speaking Castellano and I was able to have a café con leche at a bar in a Spanish Restaurant. I was able to read “El Pais” a newspaper from Spain and I talked with people from Spain. One person told me that 36% of the people in NYC speak Spanish. I believe them now.

As many of you do I work short term workers (some call them volunteers) who come to our city. We talk to them a lot about not getting distracted by the “bright lights big city syndrome”. I thought I knew better. I needed to take heed to my own advice. It was a good reminder for me. It is so easy to get off of task in a big city. There are so many noises, sights, smells. There are new adventures all along the way. There are the things you only have heard about and never have seen for the first time.

My admission here is that normally when I go to a new city or I return to a familiar one I make it a habit of praying for the city and its people. I love to prayer walk to converse with God about the people there. I pray that God will bless that area and that he will make me a blessing to the people I come in contact with. I noticed quite often that I would get off task here for some reason and I think it is for the same reasons that I listed above and for the reasons sometimes groups get distracted when they visit our city. I guess I will have to lighten up on them the next time around.

I love to get to know a city and get a feel for its people. I like to get a sense of the needs of the city both physically and spiritually. I like to pray for the people who are the salt and light who live in that city. But I also know that you can get distracted. I find that it helps to go visit the older churches in the city to get a feel for the state of the church not to mention it is usually a great place to stop and be still and to pray. I find that when I carry my journal around with me and stop for my coffee (which is several times a day) that I write out my thoughts and I become more conscious of the atmosphere around me. I find that staying on my schedule with quiet time with the Lord is very helpful.

Regardless of being on vacation or on my job I want to pray for that city and the people. I am often reminded of the verse where Jesus looks out over the city and he had compassion on them. I don’t think the buildings moved him to compassion but the people who moved around and within the city. I hope you will take some specific time this week to pray for the people in the cities where we serve: Lisbon, Porto, Sevilla, San Sebastian, Barcelona, Barajoz, Fuerteventura, Madrid and Bilbao.

iNotes: 7 December, 2006

I have been traveling a lot lately. I have tried to update my blog on some of the travels. You can check it out at www.conexiona.blogspot.com . I just returned from Iceland where I helped an SC church that Lonnie Reynolds has been working with. I got to spend some time with the guy who is getting ready to move up there for four months early next year and we were able to do spend some time with the family who is already there from this church in Virginia who has rented an apartment for a year and is sending their staff family by family to invest a pretty dark and cold area. I am impressed at how this relatively small SBC church is really making an investment to Iceland.

I wanted to just send you an article I wrote a few weeks ago after my trip to New York City. For the time being I will be sending you the inotes via email while we are working on some things with our cluster website. Thanks for your patience with it.

New York, New York. It is indeed my kind of town. Actually Madrid is but that was not the song. smile

I was able to visit NYC for the first time a few weeks ago. I was not there for Thanksgiving so I missed the big parade. I have been through the airports but that doesn’t count. I was able to experience the Pastrami Sandwich at Carnegies Deli, New York Pizza, an off Broadway production, Central Park, the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, the Statue of Liberty, Starbucks coffee (of course), Macys, Tiffany’s, Sax 5^th Avenue, The Subway system, hailing taxis, Times Square, the United Nations Building and I am sure the list could go on and I am sure I missed lots but I had a great time.

I also got to see and hear some things that sounded like home. I turned the corner into Times Square and saw “H and M” which is a clothing store from Spain. I was walking down 5^th Avenue and went into “Zara” another store from Galicia, Spain. It made me feel like home. I heard many people speaking Castellano and I was able to have a café con leche at a bar in a Spanish Restaurant. I was able to read “El Pais” a newspaper from Spain and I talked with people from Spain. One person told me that 36% of the people in NYC speak Spanish. I believe them now.

As many of you do I work short term workers (some call them volunteers) who come to our city. We talk to them a lot about not getting distracted by the “bright lights big city syndrome”. I thought I knew better. I needed to take heed to my own advice. It was a good reminder for me. It is so easy to get off of task in a big city. There are so many noises, sights, smells. There are new adventures all along the way. There are the things you only have heard about and never have seen for the first time.

My admission here is that normally when I go to a new city or I return to a familiar one I make it a habit of praying for the city and its people. I love to prayer walk to converse with God about the people there. I pray that God will bless that area and that he will make me a blessing to the people I come in contact with. I noticed quite often that I would get off task here for some reason and I think it is for the same reasons that I listed above and for the reasons sometimes groups get distracted when they visit our city. I guess I will have to lighten up on them the next time around.

I love to get to know a city and get a feel for its people. I like to get a sense of the needs of the city both physically and spiritually. I like to pray for the people who are the salt and light who live in that city. But I also know that you can get distracted. I find that it helps to go visit the older churches in the city to get a feel for the state of the church not to mention it is usually a great place to stop and be still and to pray. I find that when I carry my journal around with me and stop for my coffee (which is several times a day) that I write out my thoughts and I become more conscious of the atmosphere around me. I find that staying on my schedule with quiet time with the Lord is very helpful.

Regardless of being on vacation or on my job I want to pray for that city and the people. I am often reminded of the verse where Jesus looks out over the city and he had compassion on them. I don’t think the buildings moved him to compassion but the people who moved around and within the city. I hope you will take some specific time this week to pray for the people in the cities where we serve: Lisbon, Porto, Sevilla, San Sebastian, Barcelona, Barajoz, Fuerteventura, Madrid and Bilbao.

-Larry

iNotes: 23 November, 2006

Greetings from Knoxville!

I wanted to write you all and wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. I know that sounds sort of weird. This is the first Thanksgiving in five years where we have been in the states. I always felt it was weird being overseas on Thanksgiving and how you handle Thanksgiving or not. Some people have family celebrations. Others of you have Thanksgiving outreach parties. It was always sort of weird with school age children since they have school in Spain. We did the latter (had Thanksgiving meal with our neighbors) over the last five years and we really miss that. Several of our friends in Spain have told us that they will miss those parties. I am not sure they miss us or the food but those parties were times where we were thankful.

I hope no matter where you read this short note that you will have a HAPPY day and that you will find some things to be thankful about. We are having a bit of an unusual Thanksgiving in that we are here but also our daughter is recovering from her gall bladder operation. She had the operation yesterday so she could recover during the rest of the week and not miss as much school this way. She has had lots of stomach problems since this summer. Even while we were in Spain she was having some problems. It progressively got worse. She has had most every test that could be given. She had some of the tests that as we get older we come to dread such as the colonoscopy. After all of the tests including much blood work they discovered that she had (it is now no more) a low functioning gall bladder and some pretty significant food allergies plus what is called Celiac’s disease which is an intolerance to wheat.

We hope that by removing the gall bladder it will solve some of her problem but most likely we will have to help her with this diet in order to give her more relief. That brings me to the thankful part. We are thankful that we have been able to go through this experience here. This is not what we came over here for but you know our God is an ALL KNOWING GOD and He knew best. We are thankful for His plans and for His purposes. It may have not been what we had planned for this Fall but we trust in our Lord and our Provider.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The McCrarys