Set in this beautiful scene we witnessed our first `sea baptism´ on Saturday evening! The pastor´s daughters Donata(16) and Joseba(14) gave their lives to the Lord almost ten years ago to the day and after a discipleship course and much prayer and planning, were able to give testimony to their old life dying and their new life in Christ beginning in front of a large gathering of family, friends, members from all the other baptist churches and also some from the pentecostal churches on the island! We had a great service filled with testimonies, songs dedicated to the girls (the first time I´ve sung a special in church since my illness) and a clear outline of the gospel ....not to forget the taking of offering half way through, too! After the service we all accompanied the girls and their father (dressed in white robes- true Baptist style!) down to the beach, past many cafe´s, tourists and club PR´s looking quite surprised and almost a touch nervous but very open to have a chat about it afterwards! After a short statement of intent, the three of them went into the sea and had to go quite far out to get any depth (unfortunately it was quite dusk by then and impossible to get any good pictures of it!) and in the presence of a multitude on the beach (mainly our party) and an even greater multitude looking on from the marina, hotels and restaurants, bars, clubs and cafe´s, the girls were baptised by their father in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost....thoroughly immersed and happy to have taken one more important step in their walk with the Lord! We finished off the evening with a buffett at the neighbouring Irish pub (food provided by the church, drinks provided by Dennis, the owner who has been quite open to the church and friendly to us since the beginning) since the Scandinavian cafe´(see right picture) where we meet as a church is also used by three other churches and the Finnish church had their worship service soon after. One of the highlights for me was to hear one of their friends (who is also part of the youthgroup) say that this was the most exciting thing she had witnessed in her whole life! Praise the Lord for such a great day, for the testimony of Donata and Joseba, both great witnesses among their classmates and friends already, and for the many hundreds of people who witnessed this event and join us in prayer for the souls of those who heard the gospel that night and haven´t yet made the most important decision in their lives!

Sorry for just giving news updates, without anything much to speak of, but I thought I´d say a bit about how the last couple of weeks have gone. A couple of weeks ago I was so sick of the whole business with searching for jobs here that I was about to apply for jobs in mainland Spain. At the last minute, Olaf (the pastor here) was able to find me a job as an assistant waiter on some kind of apprenticeship. I´m also paid the princely sum of 500 euros a month for six days full time work a week, which works out at under 2 euros an hour (travel costs deducted). Oh yes, and I don´t get a contract or help with travel or anything. When I asked one of my co-workers whether this was normal, I was told that hotels didn´t generally want people like me, and that I was very lucky to get a position at all. It seems that working in Spain is destined to be a lesson in eating humble pie...

Monika continues to look for jobs, but this morning decided not to go for a job as a photographer with one of the tour boats nearby. The interviewer told her that she should try to film the drunken antics of the passengers, especially when they fall overboard. She didn´t feel this was her 'style of job'. Thankfully the doctor who she had an offer from wrote that he is still interested in employing her but will return from his summer job as an aid-worker in Nicaragua in a few weeks time so she´ll keep looking for something to fill the gap until then. Her health is still improving and though she has had a bit of a set back this week, overall it is much better than even a month ago! It is such a blessing to have a place to live just five minutes from the main bus terminal, the shopping center, grocery store, internet cafe´and beach! We are trying to make the most of this time as we don´t yet know where we will be living from the first of December but there are some contacts in the pipeline that might be able to help us out with accomodation then, too!


This evening we met with Olaf (pastor)and Gudrun(his wife) and did some brainstorming for the church activities in the next few months. Please continue to pray for us as we serve the German community here and start up an English youth group. We will meet with their teenage daughters tomorrow to discuss the youth work and what they would like to have, but we will also be praying over a schedule and plans for it over the next few days to submit a preliminary plan to Olaf next week. There are two international highschools in the area which we plan to target with flyers and put adds in local English newspapers as well. As the church only rents it´s meeting room on a Sunday from another church, we plan to hold the youth group at the pastors house (their basement has got a large furnished room that would be ideal). Thank you all for your prayers sofar! We have seen the Lord to be faithful in His provision and has blessed us in ways which we could never have imagined! Praise the Lord for His goodness and strength! Praise Him for His mercy and grace! Praise Him for His love and may we shine His light for all to see....

Oh...I almost forgot! The tomato plants! As you might know already that we have aquired a love for almost all things growing, once we got here we found ourselves digging our fingers into bags of compost and planting seedlings again! we now have almost fifty cherry tomato plants and ten green pepper plants lining our balcony in empty water containers filled with compost. The first flowers are blooming now so in a few weeks we should be abounding in our very first crop of organic cherry tomatos! Appetite anyone?

I must say, looking for jobs has to be one of the most annoying ways to spend a summer. I have had a few hopeful phonecalls and interviews, but it seems with the unemployment situation here as it is, I may be looking around for another few weeks before I get anything. Alternatively, I could always get something tomorrow, so I continue to trawl through the various newspapers and employment agency adverts. The REALLY annoying thing is that after a fairly unsuccesful morning phoning different companies, I went to have a shower for ten minutes. Monika decided on Saturday that she should also look for jobs, and so this morning she picked up the English morning paper and by the time I´d come back she´d managed to get a part time job and a good phone call out of about 15 jobs advertised. I can´t get an English speaking job, and I don´t speak perfect Spanish, so it may be some time before I get that kind of offer...