Dear Friends,
As those of you who receive the Free Methodist Missions Hotline may have already heard, we will soon be on our way to Portugal for a temporary assignment. We will be relocating there just after the New Year.
If this comes as a bit of a surprise to you, it does to us as well. While our desire is certainly to remain here in Spain and serve in the work the Lord has been providing and blessing to such a great degree, the reality of our work as missionaries is that there are times when we are subject to the vagaries of the economy and bureaucracies of foreign governments. This is the case now.
Our assignment with Free Methodist World Missions is to "Team Mediterranean," a.k.a. "Latin Europe," which includes Portugal, Spain and Italy. Some of you will remember that our initial assignment was to Italy, but after months of effort in applying for visas, that door was closed to us. So, we made plans to stay for a time in Portugal for a couple of years while working toward Italy, and applied for Portuguese visas. Yet all along, our hope was to work in Spain, and we hoped that sometime down the line we would have the chance to do so.
That chance came sooner than expected, as we stopped through Madrid to visit Josh and Susy Fajardo, our fellow FM missionaries already serving there, on our way to Portugal. They invited us to stay and join in the work, and the rest is history. Until now.
The worldwide economic slowdown, even more pronounced in Europe than in the U.S., has led European governments to be less open to granting visas to foreigners than before. At the same time, the Free Methodist Church in Spain is still in the registration process, and will not gain full inviting status (i.e., able to invite foreign missionaries on religious-worker visas) until June 2009 at the earliest.
So what do we do in the meantime? To us, the answer is clear: serve God where we can. Which at the moment, is Portugal.
At the same time, our hearts are very much still with the work in Spain, and it will be a difficult transition in many ways. However, we still plan to be back in Spain for a few special events, and to run the summer program in July.
Please pray for us over these next few weeks as we train and equip others in order to hand off the ministries we've been working in, and as we make the big decisions of what to do with the apartment, car, furnishings, etc. We've already been offered a place to live temporarily when we're in Madrid for special events, as well as to store our items. At the same time, our fellow workers in Portugal are looking for a place for us to stay while we're there. Even in the midst of upheaval, God has been very good to us. We are so thankful for the opportunity to serve a great and loving God!
Blessings,
Michael and Carrie (Caty) Hamley
Our prayers are with you guys. I know God will use you two well in the ministry in Portugal for the time. Pretty soon you guys will be the FM Mediterranean experts, and maybe fluent in two very important Latin languages.
Look forward to meeting you both in a few days!
Posted by: Kevin Book-Satterlee | December 02, 2008 at 05:02 PM
Thank you for the update! I'll be passing it along to our church on Sunday. Prayers sent for your transition.
Posted by: Beth Rosler | December 03, 2008 at 03:33 PM
My prayers for His continued guidance and faithfulness go with you both. Most especially that this new transition -- new place, new language -- will go smoothly and well.
¡Puede dios bendecirle rico!
Pode o deus abençoá-lo rica!
Posted by: JDM-GBG | December 11, 2008 at 07:42 PM