It finally happened! After months of prayer and preparations, a change of date, a heart attack and a significant overshoot on cost expectations, the concert took place on 13th April. Originally planned to coincide with the Valera 400 anniversary exhibition which is now happening late May, then the director’s husband had a major problem with a minor op. Causing her to drop out at the last minute. Renting sound equipment suddenly was much more expensive than expected and only the generous donation of a supporter at the last moment made it possible to fund the concert, whose entire takings had already been committed to a local disability association to repaint their building.

Behind the scenes the entire regional OM team dedicated time to distribute flyers, pray and prepare sandwiches for each of the choir members, assisted by church members. It was encouraging for all to be involved together in an event of this nature.

The Madrid Gospel Choir, made up of members of the city’s evangelical churches, is trained to a high level and produced a convincing sound. Despite being all amateur and in many cases previously untrained in music or singing, director Nancy Rodemann has produced marvellous results. Although they still sing part of their programme in English, many of the songs are now translated so that the audience can easily understand the message which clearly comes across. Christ can save us from the slavery of sin! Local pastor Paul Lizardo, with his wife Tamara were the evening’s presenters and they did an excellent job explaining the background to the Spirituals and modern Gospel which the choir sang. Since Nancy was unable to get away from her husband’s bedside, the choir was ably directed for the evening by assistant director Bob Twaddle, also from the States.

Although the small Trujillo theatre was not entirely full, about two hundred people attended the concert, many of these locals who came due to the publicity which had gone out on the radio, local TV and on flyers in the street. The donation that each person made allowed the disability association to be presented with almost one thousand Euros at the end of the evening. Unfortunately this is not sufficient to cover the entire cost of painting the building professionally, so we are now looking into the possibility of taking advantage of an American group which has offered to visit during July to do this kind of job. Your prayers would be appreciated as we work on these plans and continue to be a living testimony to the love of Christ. The church is also making plans to do more outreach through sketchboard evangelism over the coming months. Pray that there would be a changed response as people begin to understand the motivation behind the message. For long the people of Trujillo have been very reserved in their response to all that appears “foreign” (which for them includes the provincial capital, Cáceres, 45 km away!)