Yes, we have completed our move!

Gruetzi from sunny Switzerland! I can't believe it, but we have now been here for a complete month. So you may be wondering what has become of us? Well, the first thing is that we are still here. Secondly, as you may have noticed, it's been amazingly sunny the entire month and, despite frosty starts to the days, we see people sunbathing at lunchtimes, which for sure is at a completely different time to Spain. Yes! We are in the same time zone, but only now getting over the jet-lag! Did you ever wonder why 7 a.m. is so called, rather than the biblical 1 o'clock? We've discovered that the inventors of 'Swiss timing' have also invented a lot of additional hours which were unintended in God's original plan. However, you learn to cope and now we find it late when we are able to get up as late as 7.

As you can imagine, there are other areas of culture shock which affect us and, not surprisingly for those aware of what goes on with missionaries, its much worse for Hilde who lived here before and now finds much has changed. For me, since I can't understand the local dialect and since the first two channels I found on retuning the TV were CNN and TVE (Spanish national TV), I haven't really begun to adjust. Eurosport, of course, comes in German, as do a dozen real German channels and most of the Swiss programming. Then there are French and Italian channels. TV has perhaps taken up more of my time than it might have done in normal circumstances, but such is wartime.

Meanwhile, the cable which brings the TV into the house also has a fast broadband link, so I have been able to get on quickly with writing www.prayforspain.com . As was probably to be expected, the main delays with getting on with the site are realted to getting permissions for the links and the news. I have picked up some off the Internet, but much needs to come by e.mail, which requires that others get online, which is probably not their main ministry. Looking for sites with information about Spain is fascinating. Virtually no dedicated sites exist in English and the ones which do are all either secular or focussed on a specific mission or ministry. It really seems that what I am doing is something new. Story of my life? This one, of course, could be much more speedily transferred to others if necessary, but if the web sites I have visited are anything to go by, there needs to be a significant team to maintain any such site or at least one person giving it a lot of time if it is to be of lasting use. Even the site described by some linkers as an official Spanish web site is at least two years out of date. Its daunting for someone completely new to the medium and I am very happy to be able to count on the support of the Europe Now team who have several years of experience in messing about on the net, in one case almost profitably!

In fact I will be down in Cavaillon with Mark on April Fools' Day, learning all about it. That will be the first leg of a short trip into NE Spain to work further on our future connexions with Spain and the churches' links with the web site. i am also helping, in an indirect way, to support another evangelistic internet ministry based in Palamos, on the Costa Brava, which will be included in the trip. I will be away for 12 days. By the time I get back, much of the 'news' on the web will be out of date, so I will need to get back into the rhythm immediately... before a long w/e with Hilde's family over Easter. I expect to be back to Spain again in June and September and possibly late November, but this year the visits will be more related to working out the future and strengthening and remaking links on a national level, rahter than actual ministry visits. However, I am hopeful that an invitation to Cordoba for an Easter campaign in 2004 will come together. My campaign this year will be Reach the City, the OAC outreach in Vienna. However, originally I hoped to be able to improve my fluency in German by then, but I am realising that Bern is the worst canton of a bad country to learn the 'real' language. I suppose it's about like going to Newcastle, New York or, worse still, Barbados to learn English.

Hilde, meanwhile, is really getting into the local argot, is settling into the job and generally feels it's worthwhile having made the move. There are teething troubles, like learning what to do without trying to understand why things are done the way they do them and so on. Lots of questions and few instant answers. Time will bring the answers, if there are any. Obviously Hilde's all-round prior experience is very useful to a small clinic like this, but she needs to learn patience all over again.

Another trip I made was to Basel, to visit the closest Spanish (I should say Hispanic) church. They have closer fortnightly Bible studies in Bern and Olten, but this is the only real church. So far just one visit, but I liked it and we may just make further contact once we are back from Spain and the Easter trip. Local Swiss churches are more formal than we are accustomed... although I read in the local advertiser that there's a Vineyard church in the area -not quite Hilde's cup of tea- so we continue to pray that we will be led to the Lord's choice of church for our time here.

For more on our activities, please check out the new site, where we will be posting future news! www.prayforspain.com/mathieson

Much love and blessings from both of us!

Chris & Hilde