Latin America is unique among the regions of the world in which LCMS World Mission is working in that with the exception of Brazil and a few of the tiny islands of the Caribbean, the vast majority of the nations in our region speak the same language. So even though it might seem a bit far, Spain is also included in my responsibilities as the Communication Specialist for Latin America.

On March 25th I hopped on a plane headed for Madrid to shoot an hour long Spanish Language documentary about the 10 year anniver-sary of the mission in Spain. The two missionaries serving in Spain are both pastors from Argentina, Walter Ralli and Gustavo Lavia; so the primary audience for this documentary will be Argentinian Lutheran congregations and other Latin American church bodies, as well as the Spaniards of course! We hope to use the documentary in 3 different ways, to keep a record of this critical first 10 years of mission and ministry for the Lutheran Church of Spain to have for the remainder of their history, to inspire and educate Latin Americans about their capacity for mission around the world (even to the “mother country”), and most importantly to assist Spaniards in telling their friends about the church and their faith when many have never even heard of Lutherans!

The trip was really interesting, we cov-ered tons of ground and shot up lots of video tape,

editing it together is going to be a big job but I’m excited to get working on it! We decided to tell the story from its earliest possible beginnings, follow-ing the path of the Gospel to Spain from it’s earliest beginnings of when the Early Church was estab-lished in the Roman Era to the Lutheran Reforma-tion and it’s growth in Spain, to the devastating Spanish Inquisition which eradicated all Lutheran-ism from Spain until as recently as 10 years ago!

20 Days in Spain10 years of Reformation

www.livingletter.org

I tried some new techniques on this docu-mentary that I hope to implement in future projects as well, for the first time I recorded audio and video on separate devices, which ought to give me a higher quality recording to work with, but adds a new chal-lenge of syncing up the audio and video! It caused a few headaches (once we accidently erased an hour long interview with one of the missionaries and had to do it over…) but for the most part I think it will turn out even better than ever!

Shooting interviews with church members scattered throughout Spain was very interesting, the church in Spain is full of cases where an individual comes to know Christ through Lutheran doctrine and finds themselves the only Lutheran for hundreds of miles around! Consequently the church meets in hotels, bars, public swimming pools, and all sorts of places. Our interviews were the same, some were conducted in a person’s home, some at the worship site, and even one over a few beers at a local pub!

This documentary is easily my biggest project as of yet, so keep this one in your prayers as I edit it all together of the next few months, we’re hoping to have a version ready for review in June or July.

www.livingletter.org

Prayer Requests* Thanksgiving in the acceptance of Pastor Mark Eisold to serve as a church planter in Peru alongside Volunteer Coordinator Anthony DiLiberto.

* Language and culture transition for the Wall Family.

* English Classes, that they may continue to offer members a way to reach out to their community and build relationships.