December 11-16

This was our big week. It was our final push into our big evangelistic push for Christmas. It started with the distribution of 4000 invitations. I spent about six hours (with the help of several others) walking all over the city putting invitations on cars for the Christmas concert on Saturday night. It was nice to see later on in the week as we spoke to people about the concert, many of them already knew about it because they had seen the invitation. Many people responded positively to the concert, although others told us that they already had plans since this is such a busy time of year. Our final push for the concert was a brass quartet playing Christmas carols at the local mall. From 7:30 to 8:30 we played a repertoire of about 15 Christmas hymns. We had a large poster announcing the concert up, and many stopped to listen to the music and received an invitation.
The concert itself that night went well. The combined choirs from Elche and Alicante, as well as the five of us from here presented the cantata in public auditorium in Petrer. We were thrilled to see Maria Eugenia's adult children come. There were also a few people who received invitations. The program for the concert had a short presentation of the gospel and the cantata itself presented the gospel. We trust that the Lord is working in hearts, even though we do not always see the direct result of our efforts.
On Sunday we had a special day to celebrate Christmas as a congregation. We met for our normal service in the morning. I preached on John 1:14b: we beheld his glory. I spoke of the glory of Christ that John mentions here: his grace and truth. After the service we had a Christmas dinner together and then we spent some time in the afternoon singing carols and sharing different Christmas traditions. Next week we will all be involved in presenting the same cantata we did here in Alicante and in Elche.