Year End letter 2023

In this busy season, I wanted to take a moment to send a year-end review and also a “Thank You” for your support throughout 2023. With the end of December, I will complete two years of my three year contract as a GBGM Missionary to Alicante, Spain. It has been meaningful and learning experience and one I will continue to cherish throughout 2024 and beyond.

2023 has been a formidable year in the life of La Siesta Evangelical Church and in my missionary work for the GBGM. In March I began hosting “Missionary Coffee Breaks” via Zoom and to date, I have hosted 5 gatherings covering such topics as: Living a Missionary Call, Engaging in Mission Work, Mission life with children and the life of itineration. We’ve been fortunate to have guest speakers Revs. Kevin and Carol Seckel, Rev. Courtney Randall and Rev. Sandy Olewine present from their experience as those who’ve learned to live a missionary life.

Our La Siesta community welcomed 11 new members this year from the US, England, Scotland, and Romania! What a joy!

This Fall, I was honored to represent La Siesta Evangelical Church at the Meeting of the Synod in Madrid. Although the gathering was conducted fully in Spanish, with the help of our lay representative and Google Translate, I was able to follow the discussions, vote when called upon and represent the English-Speaking ministries within the Spanish Protestant Church.

Our church has been supporting mission work in other parts of the world as well. We continue to support Tracey Williams, a UK missionary who works at the Zimpeto Orphanage in Maputo, Mozambique. In addition, the church raised over 900 euro to provide drinking water to a school in India. We are sharing the gospel in tangible ways with our brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Personally, our life in Spain has been eventful in 2023! I have enjoyed my travel experiences with short trips within Spain to Benidorm and Alicante and longer out-of-country trips to Scotland and India. I painted my home office wall in the manse, to add a little “Krista” into this home. We hosted various friends in our guest room from Scotland and the US and my GBGM supervisor Ullas Tankler from Estonia. Although Po was fairly ill during the summertime months, she is fully recovered and she continues to be a good companion and friend.

May God bless us all as we continue to share the love of God throughout the world.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Krista and Po