Well, good morning, everyone. Why don't I open us in prayer and then we'll begin. Our Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the gifts you give us, technology like this that we're able to be together with our brother across the world. And we thank you for his ministry and we thank you for his time as well. Please bless this so that all of the things we say and do would be to your glory. And we pray that you would also build us up as your people. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Amen. All right, well folks, by way of a brief introduction, I'd like to introduce Matt Layton to you, who I trust you can all see on the screen. And Matt and Nuria, his wife, they live in Barcelona. They have five children and they've been serving in Spain now for Over two decades, is that right? That's right. That's wonderful. And so Matt is a professor of New Testament and he's the Dean of Students at the Evangelical Seminary in Barcelona. I-B-S-T-E is the quicker way to say it. Instituto Biblico y Seminario Teologico de España, right? Very nice, very nice. When can you come teach class? I have to practice these things, make sure I don't mess them up. And Matt is also an elder. Elder at his church there in Villasar de Mar. And his wife Nuria, also she is involved in children's ministry and music ministries. And so all of these are the reasons that we're just delighted to know Matt and to be supporting him. And it's just a treat to be able to spend a short time here together. So welcome, Matt. Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm really glad that you took the initiative to set this up. And let me say from the beginning that we're very grateful and encouraged by Dayspring's participation in our ministry as a family and also in Ypsi's ministry. Amen. So brother, you know, one of the things that we're really hoping to do here is You know, we really believe that support is supposed to be personal, right? Not just some line item on a budget, but we want to be invested in you and your family to be praying for you personally and not just, you know, kind of broad strokes. So please bless the mission missionaries out there. And so we just really love to just get to know you and, you know, those basic sorts of ways. And so we would love to hear a little bit just about your upbringing, you know, where, where do you come from? Okay. Yeah. I was born in Georgetown, Colorado, which is a little town about an hour West of Denver, right off I-70. So as you're driving up out of Denver and you're heading towards all the ski areas, it's right before the Eisenhower tunnel. About 900 people. So I grew up. Skiing and then when I was older, riding motorcycles and driving my pickup truck up and down the side of the mountain. Went to a small high school there. And I grew up Roman Catholic, actually. So we we went to mass every Saturday evening. It was the fastest mass in the West. The priest we had could say mass in 20 something minutes. We were in and out. I was an altar boy, so I would ring the bells during communion, and so I actually know why they do that. They do that because when the mass was in Latin, people would fall asleep and when they raised up the host and blessed it, they wanted to wake people up. So one of the things that I bring from my Roman Catholic upbringing. I will say this, though. Well, I'll get to maybe that just in a second. I graduated from from high school. And I went on to college and I became a Christian at Brown University, which is in Providence, RI. I graduated from there with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and it was there that I really came to understand the gospel. There was a strong campus crusade for Christ group there on campus at Brown. And right off the bat I was. I was playing football. And a number of the guys on the football team were Christians were really committed Christians. And so I came in as Roman Catholic, and I believed in God. But I would pray, and I wanted God to bless me on the football field, really. I was trying to do a deal with God to get him to help me to score touchdowns. And I promised that I would thank him afterwards. But I met these guys who were Christians. And I saw, wow, these guys, they're athletes. And yet, they're reading the scriptures. And this is really interesting. And I started to go to Bible studies. At some point in my first year there at Brown, the light came on and I understood the gospel and I could articulate it clearly. And I understood that at that point, I understood that Jesus had fulfilled all righteousness in my place. And I mean, the good thing about my Roman Catholic upbringing is I was familiar with the scriptures to some extent. So I had some pegs there that the Lord could hang ideas on as he was reworking my thinking and giving me a clear understanding of the gospel. But yeah, it was really there at Brown University that I was converted. And it's in some ways, it's a really dangerous place. Brown University is one of the most liberal schools in the country. It was gay pride day like every month. And this was in, you know, the late 80s, early 90s. So in some in some ways it was a dangerous place, but it was also a good place to be a Christian in the sense that you couldn't walk the fence. So if you were a Christian and you were a little vocal about your faith, you were challenged immediately. And that was great. That really forced me to think through what I believe and to be able to learn, to be able to explain why I believed it. So I remember lots of conversations in the cafeteria doing apologetics and talking about the gospel and about other things more broadly, about homosexuality, about abortion, about all kinds of stuff. But that was a very formative time for me. And I look back on that. I give I give thanks to God for that time and for the Ministry of Campus Crusade there that that was it was the that was a really strong chapter of the Campus Crusade ministry, at least in that time when I was there. So should I keep going? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, no, this is wonderful. And then so at some point Barcelona starts taking shape. What's that look like? So when I graduated from Brown University, I came on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ full time. And I was working initially at the University of Oregon there in Eugene and evangelizing, especially I was working with the football players. So I had a budget and I had enough money to every single, I could invite out every single one of the freshmen football players. There was 30 something of them that would come in every year and I would take them to McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, the restaurant of their choice. As long as they would listen to me and my presentation of the gospel. So that was kind of my main job there at the University of Oregon. And that was that was also a formative time. Really enjoyed that. But I was while I was there, I met a fella who also worked with with Campus Crusade for Christ in Barcelona. An American guy who was working in Barcelona. He was back on home assignment. And we got to talking and and I was interested in doing a short term overseas missions trip maybe three to six months. And he told me about an American football league in Barcelona, which I didn't know existed. And I said, well, hey, I played football in Brown University. Maybe I could play on a team there. He went back to Barcelona, made a few phone calls. And sure enough, I got a phone call at like four in the morning one day in October of 1999, I guess it was. Yeah. Ninety nine. And it was this crazy American football coach in Barcelona. And he had called my coach from Brown and done some background check on me or whatever and said, we want to sign you, come on over and play for us. So that's how I went to Barcelona. And it was great because I went with the goal to do evangelism, really. Then I went officially, I was still fully employed by Campus Crusade for Christ, but I didn't have to raise any support because this team paid my plane ticket and you know, put me in an apartment and I played with 40 something Spaniards. None of them were Christians. You know, these are that we were not very good. We did. We had our lunch handed to us by a good high school football team. But these are, you know, college sort of college age or older soccer rejects. You know, the guys who were good at playing soccer. And I played football with these guys and they couldn't understand why I didn't want to go out and party with them. I mean, I would go hang out with them, but I wasn't going to go to the disco all night long, like like these guys wanted to do. And so at first they thought that I was a Mormon because I was blonde. No, I'm not a Mormon. And well, what are you? You know, is there something wrong with you? I thought maybe something was wrong with me. No, no, no. As my Spanish got better, I was able to start sharing the gospel with them. And it was me. It was because I was just immersed in this non-Christian context that was Four years on and off, I played football. And that was probably some of the best, some of the best evangelistic opportunities that I that I've had since being in Spain. And it was not long after I got to Spain that I met my wife to be. So I met Nuria, we were at a Christmas party in a church and everybody was speaking Catalan. So I don't know if you guys know about Catalan. My wife's first language is not Spanish. It's alright, so my wife's first language is Catalan, which is as different from Spanish as Portuguese. So folks come to Barcelona from Madrid and they can't understand what the Catalans are saying to each other. It's it's that different. Well, anyway, we're at this Christmas party in a church and I've been in Spain for about a month and they're all speaking Catalan and I had no idea what was. I mean, I'd had Spanish in high school, but I couldn't understand a thing. And somebody introduced me to Nurdia because she spoke English and that was it. Love at first sight. I mean, it took us a year and eight months to finally get married, but we did. In 1997, we were married in August of 97. And we're coming up on 25 years. This summer, we'll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. I just love that story. I mean, just What a blessing when you just get forced to hang out with your wife-to-be. It's like, no, she's the only one who speaks your language. Yeah, that's right. Just so happens she's the prettiest one in the room. So worked out really nicely. Gift from God. Gift from God. That's right. That's right. Amen. And so then, I mean, I imagine it has to be just a huge decision when you're starting to switch from short-term thinking to long-term thinking. I mean, how did you go about really discerning that that call? Yeah, that's that's a great question. Initially my my plan was to be in Spain. Like I said, for three to six months. I hadn't intended to stay. I figured I would probably go back to the United States and continue with crusade. Maybe at some point go to seminary, pursue pastoral ministry. I mean, I don't know. I had, you know, different ideas at the time. But while being there in Spain or here, I started to attend local churches, especially the church that my wife and her mother were members of at the time. And I heard guys preach, Spaniards, Catalans preaching, guys who were very gifted, very articulate, that were preaching sermons that I thought weren't that great. And I hadn't been a Christian really for that long. I'd only been a Christian, I don't know, seven or eight years at that point. never been to seminary, but I could tell that something was missing. I felt like a lot of times the exposition, the articulation was good and there were a lot of stories and examples and there were things that were biblically true that were being said in these sermons, but those truths didn't come from the text that they'd chosen to preach from, you know? Or I heard things that weren't biblical. And yeah, I've actually heard quite a bit of that as well. And these are the sorts of things that this could happen in the United States too, but I thought. I was I started. I was reading more theology, serious theology. At this time I was thinking about going to seminary and I thought. Wouldn't it be great if I could go to seminary and get a solid theological education? And and come back and try to share that with Spaniards. So I knew a little bit about the institution I teach in now. and a couple of other small Bible colleges. And I knew that they were struggling and I knew they had a really hard time finding professors. And so, yes, I can't say that there was a point where there was a day where the Lord just got me, you know, but it's sort of like that dimmer light switch that you turn on in your house. It was over a period of a couple of years of being in Spain and playing football and doing evangelism, but also being involved in local church ministry, that this desire welled up in me to to go get training and to come back and to continue in local church ministry, but also to teach. And the Lord has blessed that. It took, yeah, it was three years at Westminster from 99 to 2002. So we moved back to the United States. My wife and I moved back. We had our first child there in Escondido. And then in 2002, after graduating, we came back to Spain. And another four or five years later, I started to teach at the seminary where I teach now. And folks, I forget if I told you this, but our common thread actually runs through Escondido. And so Matt went to the same church I went to, same seminary I went to. Him finishing in 2002, Naomi and I arrived in 2006. And so we just missed each other. And so Matt, for years was actually just a name we prayed for. You know, Grace, they were always great at modeling. No, we pray for our missionaries, right? So we knew your names long before we knew you. And then we finally met at a fire conference. I don't know how long ago that was now, four or five years? Yeah, it must have been five years ago, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and so it was just a joy to finally have that that meeting and then there's just we have so much in common. There's just a tremendous, tremendous like mindedness between us and we have nostalgia for all a lot of the same spots. I have no doubt. Yes, I think that's probably true. Probably eating the same breakfast burritos and all that or something, you know? Yes, yes. Yes. And so then you're ministering in Barcelona. I really love hearing about your Catholic background because then that undoubtedly must be something of a bridge for your ministry in Spain. What is it like ministering there? I mean, spiritually, socially, what's the climate like there? Yeah, another great question. You know, Spain is. I mean, it's Western, so it's like the United States in a lot of ways and in Spain is. So traditionally, Spain is Roman Catholic in in a census or in a survey. Some 70% of Spaniards would say that their Roman Catholic. But what that means is maybe they were baptized. Maybe they did First Communion, but but they're not regular mass attenders. Only about 3%. of the population in Spain attends mass on a regular basis. So there's these huge, beautiful cathedrals around the country that are very empty. Some of them don't even open for mass on Sunday morning because there would only be maybe 20 people. It's not worth opening this massive cathedral or, you know, use the cathedral for tourism instead of for mass because there's really so few practicing Catholics. It's, I mean, I could, you know, tell the story historically, but there's probably many of you know, Franco, was Francisco Franco was the dictator in Spain for many years. And, you know, he he he used the Catholic Church to help strengthen his position politically. And so once he died and the country opened up. They had a parliament that a president and so forth, people rejected the Catholic Church. A lot of people because they thought it was just a political tool. that people had used in the past to manipulate and control. So like I say now, Spain became secular very quickly. The rest of Europe was more secular than Spain in the 1970s. But yet just two decades later, Spain was the second country in Europe to legalize gay marriage right after Holland. And Spaniards are very proud of having secularized so quickly. They see it as progress, you know. Uhm? So you know we I coming coming from a Roman Catholic background. Usually our friends who are Roman Catholic or it's very nominal. Some of our friends who are who are Roman Catholic who might actually put their kids through First Communion and I'm not exaggerating, might not be able to tell you the difference between the Old and the New Testament. So so really the when in evangelism and in apologetics, rarely do I meet a Roman Catholic who knows their dogma. In fact, I studied. I got my my PhD. Through a Roman Catholic University, the University of Salamanca and my professors were interestingly enough, theologically liberal. So I had professors who weren't sure if Jesus had risen from the dead physically or not. The professors who were telling me, what matters is that Jesus rises in your heart. And this is what the Roman Catholic seminaries are teaching. So really, even folks who are a little more practicing Roman Catholics, a lot of times I'm answering or talking about, we would talk about the same sorts of things that we might talk about secular Americans, you know, is is the Bible inspired? Is it God's word? Is it reliable? What about miracles? You know, things like that, or just even about the existence of God. Some 20, some 20, 25% of the Spanish population is atheistic. So just flat out atheists, you know, we we affirm that God does not exist. I say similar to the US, things socially politically, religiously, everything's a little farther to the left in Spain than it would be in the United States. But I think, you know, we do ministry in a similar climate in terms of the secularism. And so that actually leads me then to your kind of broad strokes, your two ministries, you know, between the seminary and the church. And so tell us then a little bit how IBSD fits into that climate you're talking about. Yeah, so so the seminary is, well, it technically it's a it's a Bible college. We offer an undergraduate degree in theology and it's fully accredited by the Spanish government, which is amazing. We got our accreditation a little over a decade ago and it was it was a miracle. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea. I don't know how it happened. I think there was an election coming up, and the president, who was in power at the time, overestimated just how many evangelicals there are in Spain, and he tried to throw us a bone. But we'll take it. It didn't work for him anyway, but that's another story. So we have a four-year program, which would be very similar to the program at Westminster Seminary in Escondido. So there's, you know, we're doing exegesis, biblical theology, we're doing systematic theology, doctrine, historic theology, we're studying the development of doctrine and institutions throughout 2000 years of church history, and then practical theology. And what I might say about the practical theology side is that really, our program is geared towards primarily towards pastoral ministry. So So our main goal is to train up young men for pastoral ministry, for church planning, for taking over churches that are established, for church revitalization. Those are our main goals. We have, though, a number of students that come through our program that go on to do other things, campus ministry. Surprisingly, even though Spain is so secular, If you get a degree from us and you do one more year of university, you do pedagogy, a year of pedagogy in the university, you can get paid by the Spanish government to teach evangelical religion in grade schools and high schools across the country. Isn't that amazing? I mean, you can't do that in the United States, but you can do that in Spain, even though Spain is even more post-Christian or whatever you want to say. So some of our students go on to do that. which is a wonderful ministry opportunity. And some of our students don't go into full-time ministry. Some of them are bi-vocational and do different, but mostly church ministry, a little bit. We see some students go on to do sort of more parachurch kind of things. But yeah, that's what our program looks like. Four years, we have roughly, our enrollment has been down since COVID. We were up around 40 full time students and then some other part time students. For quite a number of years and we're down now 2728. Which doesn't sound like much, but I will say this. I mean this is Western Europe. Western Europe is just. It's not like the United States where there's an evangelical church. Maybe not on every corner, but and there's. Seminaries, you can go to Westminster, you can go to Southern, you can go to Midwestern. There's great schools you can go to. Just to give an example, in Paris, there's more evangelicals in France than in Spain, but still not many. Paris is a huge city, eight million people. And there's a seminary that's very similar to ours, conservative, and they only have 40 students. So we're pretty good. We get back up to 40 in the next couple of years, and just given In God's providence, the way things are right now, that's not a bad number. And, you know, too, you have to think about the quality of the students. We've had some real gems come through and it's been a blessing to be able to invest in their lives. What's their heart like? The student in post-Christian Spain who says, I want to go and study the word more deeply. What's their heart like? What motivates them? It's it's amazing, and this is something that motivates me too, because. So it it's really costly to to to go to seminary in in Spain. We are our program is cheap. But what I mean is that on the back end, so you go to Westminster Seminary in California and if if you if you're gifted. You get you know you you do well in school. You get trained in an internship in a church. You're an attractive pastoral candidate to be hired potentially full time and be paid something dignified. You know, you get a wage that's like a high school teacher or something, maybe even more. It's something that you could support your family with. That is not true in Spain. With very few exceptions, and I'm proud to say, I can maybe say something about this, our church is an exception. But most churches don't have enough budget to pay anybody. So there's no paid pastor or they're paying their pastor peanuts. And so when I see students come in and they want to give their lives to local church ministry, they're going to take four years. And instead of working or instead of studying something else that would be more lucrative, You know, they're going to come and they're going to study theology. And they know on the back end of that, they are not going to make a lot of money. They may have a really hard time making ends meet. And to me, their faith is an inspiration. Would I be willing to do that? I'd like to say that I would. But it's a different deal. So most of them come in with a heart for evangelism, for discipleship. And and they come big. So we have a reputation for being relatively academically rigorous. So the students that come to us know that they're going to have to work. So they come because they want to work. They want to learn Greek and Hebrew. They want to learn to do serious exegesis. They want to read these. You know these big, Systematic theology books. They value theological education, so. For me, it's just it's a huge privilege to be able to work there and and to have, like I say, a hand in. The training and the education of these students that are going to go on to minister Lord willing in different parts of Spain and sometimes even in other Spanish speaking countries. And I know you wouldn't say this about yourself, but I know that The faculty actually has to have a real passion for this too, because, you know, there's obviously bigger universities you could be a part of. I've always found that with seminary professors, they've made their own sacrifice to invest in that. And so, I mean, tell me about the motivation of the faculty. Yeah. I think, yeah, so there's not many of us. So there's only five of us who are there, say, every week. And it was so there's there's three guys who are there every day that up their offices there and then there's two of us. I live on the other side of the city, so I pile up all my classes in two or sometimes three days and I only go down those days and the other two days that work from home. But there's five of us basically in that situation, so it's not like we have this massive faculty. We have some adjunct here and there, but generally, and this is again something I'm thankful for. In our school, everybody who's teaching there values theological education. So it's like, we're doing this because, I mean, think about it like in another field. Imagine that I had a serious legal problem. Would I go to a lawyer who went to a couple conferences and read a few books and thinks that he can be a good lawyer? No, I would go to a guy who's got the Harvard Law degree hanging on his wall, the guy who's got the best training possible, because I need serious help. The same is true in local church ministry. You know, it's it's a Christian life is a spiritual battle. It's serious and we want our our leaders are our preachers or teachers or ministers to be as prepared as they can possibly be. And so I think all of us who are teaching there at each day. Jason and I were talking. I think this was before everybody else checked in, but we're talking about our books. And you know, like, He and I don't read all these books, right? These are our tools. This is what Jason said. And I guess Brian said this, right? That like tools in your tool belt, they're in your toolbox. And that's the illustration I use with my students a lot too. Like you got to fill your toolbox before you go out into ministry. And so I think all of us that are teaching there are excited to help the students do just that. And too, I would say, you know, we're all involved in local church ministry, all the professors. We're all pastors, elders in our churches, with one exception, but the guy who's not an elder, he could be, I mean, he's very involved, just hasn't been recognized at this point. But, you know, when you're involved in local church ministry, you know that it's serious business and you need all these tools. So I think that having had that experience myself helps me, it motivates me to want to teach the students and helps me to think carefully about exactly what I need to be teaching them. And you mentioned local church. We would love to hear about your church as well. Tell us about your church. What's it like? What's it even called? How about that? OK, so, well, we don't have an exciting name. So we're the Evangelical Church of Vila Sar de Mar. And our name is in Catalan. So it's Las Iglesias Evangélica de Vila Sar de Mar. Instead of Iglesia, it's Asglésia. So those words are similar. That's easy to understand. We were a church plant off of a larger church in Barcelona. But I could say this, our church in a very real sense began in my in-laws home. So my mother-in-law hosted a ladies Bible study. This is 20 years ago. And oftentimes they would have 15, 20 women jammed in her little living room on Wednesday mornings. And a pastor from a church in Barcelona would come and teach a Bible study. But it got to a point where there was so many ladies who represented families that they thought, hey, maybe we could plant a church in this area. And so after years of prayer and work, the church that the pastor was coming from, the guy was coming to teach the Bible studies, that church oversaw our church plant. In 1999, our first pastor was another American, Steve Phillips. who also is from Grace Bible Church, was a long time in fire, knows Brian. I think he and Brian, I don't know if they were roommates at some point or something, but Steve and Brian are buds. Anyway, so Steve, we met Steve and his wife, Naima, and they were able to come while I was in seminary, actually, and he was the first pastor of our church in Vilasov. Um, and then 15 years later, 14 years later, he worked himself out of a job, which was always his goal. He wanted the church to be pastored by a national. And so it was in, I think it was in 2000, 14, 2000, 2015, we hired a graduate from the school where I teach. So we had a Spanish national instead of two Americans as the pastors, a Spanish national. guy named Jonathan. And so Jonathan was was our Spanish. He was our pastor for for seven years. And between Steve's ministry and Jonathan's ministry, our church has 40 something members. And on a Sunday when everybody who's you know, so there's people who aren't members but are kind of regular attenders and there's other folks. If everybody were to come, we'd have 80 or 90 people. And that's how it's like on, you know, Christmas and days like that. And that is in Spain, that's a mid sized church. I mean, that's that's not a small church. That's like decent, like we have some stability. And thanks be to God. And this was also a legacy from Steve's ministry he taught on giving and really our goal from the beginning was for the church to be able to pay a Spaniard. the same kind of salary that a high school teacher would make. We just thought, you know, it's high school teachers got his degrees and it's kind of an intellectual job and that sort of thing. And kind of, that's a, that's a good thing to shoot for. And thanks be to God, our church can pay that kind of salary. Very unusual, but I'm really proud of our congregation in that regard. So, um, I'll say one more thing. Jonathan left to take another church. He left me by myself for a while. So I had eight months or so last year. that were really intense. But while the Lord was great, we had a list of candidates to replace. Jonathan wanted to hire another Spaniard. And the Lord brought another guy from from our school, a fellow named Isaac. And his wife's name is Anna. They have two. They have a three year old and a one year old. We've got the three year old in our house right now. We're babysitting. So if there's racket in the background, that's our 10-year-old who we paid five euros to take care of their three-year-old. My wife's around too, so the house isn't going to burn down. But it's really exciting because Isaac is just, he's so sweet and he's really gifted. And in the meantime, we were able to recognize another elder, another Spaniard, a guy named Jose. And he's awesome too. He leads our worship. And he's just a really gifted preacher teacher. And he's one of those guys, I don't know how he does it. So he works full time and he doesn't mind staying up till three in the morning working on his sermon, you know, and I can't, well, I'm, I'm, I'm getting old. I can't do that. But he's one of these, some of these Spaniards don't need to sleep. I don't know how they pull it off, but he's awesome. The schedule in Spain was hard to keep up with, you know, when I was there, I was really just thinking, How are you guys doing this? What do you mean we're eating dinner at 9 or 10 o'clock and you know whatever else that went into it? That's that's probably the one or maybe one of, you know, just a couple things. Culturally that I have not been able to adapt to. I mean, I do it. But yeah, we we have dinner midweek at 9 o'clock at night. Sometimes on it, we're lucky we squeeze dinner in at 83845. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's really hard. Uh, you know, we're trying to do the family devotional afterwards and dad's on the couch. Like, okay. Cause I, cause I get up early. I gotta get up a lot of days at five 30 in the morning. Um, yeah, it's, it's hard. It's hard, but, but yeah, Spain and all the Spaniards complain about it, but it's never going to change. I don't know. Anyway, we have lunch at two or three in the afternoon, you know, it's just, So yeah, go go eat a pie at 3 in the afternoon and then try to go back to work for awhile. That feels. Yeah, it's funny that the challenges you wouldn't necessarily plan on thinking about the missionary life, right? No one sleeps at the same time as I'm used to. Yeah, but but but then there's the perks. We do get to eat really good pie. Yeah, that's true. That's true, that's true. I how I do love your pie. So, you know, a little detail. Tell me, what are you guys preaching on right now? Yeah, that's a good question. You're asking all these really good questions, although this one isn't. Well, you could have asked me this question in another six months. So we've been in this pastoral transition stage, and normally we just preach expositionally. We go straight through books of the Bible. But because Isaac started full time in January, and just recently he and his wife moved to Bealazar. They were living on the other side of the city. To make things easier, I let him re-preach some sermons that he was preaching in a series in Colossians in his previous church. So he's preaching from Colossians, and I've been preaching a series on the mission and the values of our church. So we went back and reviewed, you know, what is a local church? What are elders? What are deacons? What's church membership? I preached last week on what is the Lord's Supper. So we're kind of mixing Colossians with this thematic series that I've been working through. It's been okay. Normally I would prefer for us to all be plowing through Colossians, just more continuity. I love that you're doing that. We're actually doing Colossians. Nice. All right. Yeah. So we're in Colossians 2. Tomorrow we get to do in all in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Yeah. All right fullness of Christ. Oh, man, this price. Yeah. Awesome. So, you know, one one thing very practically we want to come from this is that we want to be praying for you in particular ways. Uh, both you, your church or your seminary. And so, I mean, what kind of goals are you pursuing right now that we could be praying for? And for that matter, what kind of challenges are you facing? Okay. Um, start with family and there's great things about raising kids in Spain, but there's things that are very challenging. We usually say that the biggest challenge we feel, uh, trying to raise our kids first in the faith. but also giving them the tools to be able to think about the world and to be able to evaluate opinions, to be able to express themselves, sort of the fundamentals of a solid education. We feel like it would be a lot easier to do that back in the United States. When we were back on home assignment, the last time we had our kids in a charter school, and it was just wonderful. Your school's not that great, really. Um, so yeah, we, we try to supplement at home. We try to. Encourage our kids to and stimulate our kids and in reading beyond kind of what they're doing in school already. We're trying to get them to read and we're trying to interact with them intellectually and to try to shore up. I think, um, some of the deficiencies of what they're not getting in their schools, but that's something to pray for. But also just in terms of. Raising them in the faith, our church is small, and there are a few kids in the church, but not many. And the only time that our kids see other kids in the church is on Sunday, because they live in different, not really, really far, but they're in different towns. So they're not going to the same schools, and we're just not seeing each other midweek. So they don't have, it's not just the not having Christian friends, it's not seeing other Christian families who are trying to accomplish the same things that we're doing. So I don't know if we were to limit screen time or maybe not want them to watch specific things on TV. You know, we're trying to read this or that. And like, oh, we're so weird. All our friends are doing. You know, if we could point to other families in the church that they know and love and say, well, you know, the chains aren't watching this either. And the chains are also reading these books. And, oh, you know that. So anyway, if you just pray that the Lord would give us wisdom and strength to be faithful with our children. And, um, but I will say on a note of just Thanksgiving to God, our, our third child, our daughter, Tanya, she's 16 and she has something like dyslexia. It's not that exactly. It's, um, specific language impairment is what it's called. And she's had a difficult time with school here. She's gotten almost no help. So, um. She's going to go back to the United States next year and live with some dear friends of ours in Denver, really sweet Christian family. And she's going to finish up high school there. A big high school in Denver. There's lots of help. Her counselor is a Christian. I mean, it's just it's wonderful. So on the one hand, we make sacrifices going to the mission field. On the other hand, we see how the Lord takes care of the things that we're so worried about on the other end. We never would have thought it would work out this way. But it's really, I think, we think it's gonna be a really special time for her. I'm super grateful for that. So in terms of family, that's some challenges, but also something to give thanks to God for. In terms of our local church, super thankful for the elder board. A year ago, it was me and this fellow Jonathan, and Jonathan was not happy, and I'd known that for a couple of years, and his ministry wasn't, it wasn't, Yeah, I just, well, I'll say it this way. When Isaac came, it was like a breath of fresh air. And Isaac understands how to apply the gospel to every area of life. And I just sit under his preaching. And even though he's, yeah, I mean, he's only 35. He's just, but I love it. It's great. So we're just super thankful. He's awesome. Jose's awesome. And I think we're going to see, in the next three to five years growth. And better evangelism, better discipleship, but that's something to pray for. Evangelistically, we've been stagnant for some years. You know, apart from just, I mean, yeah. Had like one baptism in the last number of years. And it was somebody who found us on the internet. hey, that's all right, you know? Yeah, it was a relatively serious Roman Catholic, a young man who wasn't finding answers in it from his liberal priest. And he started coming to our church and we baptized him. That was a blessing. But yeah, I just pray that we can be more effective evangelistically. And yeah, I'd like for us to, we've got a couple of other youngish guys who occasionally will preach or could lead Bible studies and maybe just pray that we could be effective in training them as well. So better evangelism and training of even more leaders. And at the seminary, pray for more students, and it's not, you know, the enrollment being down affects us economically. But that's not really the issue. The issue is that it would be great if we could be up to max capacity, which would be something like 60 students. And just be seeing, you know, gifted young men and young ladies as well coming through, getting trained and going out and being used by the Lord in different parts of the country. So you pray that the Lord would bring more students. And I think that that means praying that local churches would come to value theological education more because there are gifted young people out there. But I think oftentimes they're not encouraged to take that step to go get theological education, mostly because the churches think, oh, well, he oh, he's great when he shares his testimony and he's just always gifted and he's so good with people. He's so good with these young people, whatever. He's got everything he needs for ministry. And well, yeah, I mean, he's got a lot of those gifts. You know, we can't put those gifts in there. But the toolbox needs to get filled. You can be a really good carpenter, but if you don't have a saw, you're going to be, or if your saw is dull, you're going to be cutting your two by fours crooked the whole time. So pray that the Lord would bring more students. And then a big challenge on the seminary front is that the local government is requiring us to make some upgrades to our building in order to maintain our license for public educational activities. And actually a lot of the upgrades are good. I think some of it's over the top, but it has to be so safe. You know, like some of it's good, just, you know, like access and some fireproofing and some things like that are good, but we have to put in this, this forced air ventilation system, which is completely unnecessary, but it's going to be like 200,000 euros, which for us is a lot of money. So we're, we're, we're hoping to raise, we're praying that we can raise in the next couple of years. Something in the neighborhood of 400,000 euros, which is about the same as $400,000. We've seen, we've started to work on support raising for that fundraising. It's for the building really just to shore up the building so we can maintain our license. And when we're done, the building is going to be better. It's going to be more useful. That's great. So our building, I should say, it's an old beach hotel. And, and it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's a little ways. It's like seven or eight minute walk from the beach, but I mean, beach, it's like built on parts of the foundation or like on sand, like in it's, it's got cracks in it. And it's, I mean, it's really rustic. It's really, so some of that's going to get fixed. Thanks be to God. Um, but Hey, you know, that's, that's, it's a challenge. Um, but we saw God pull us through the COVID thing. You know, that was, that was rough. There was a lot of schools back in the US that closed because of COVID, little Christian universities that had to close their doors. And we were able to stay open. We saw gifts, special gifts come in to help us during that time from really surprising places. And you can't read God's providence, but I look at it and I think, well, the Lord wants us to be here and keep doing what we're doing, at least now. And that's really encouraging. So to see the Lord's hand in that. So yeah, big prayer request there. Yeah, absolutely. And just very practically speaking, we will be praying for you. But beyond that, is there any way that we can be serving you? Well, I think at some point it's going to be a few years because we're going to be coming back on home assignment, not this year, but next year. So Lord willing, we'll get to see you guys during that time. But when we're here, typically, we've done in our local church on a number of occasions, we've done what we call an English camp. And it's a week of teaching English, usually just in the mornings, but to kids from the community. So people here are really concerned about their kids learning English. They need to because English is the international language and for jobs, for all kinds, they need to learn English. So we put on this English camp and we've had churches send teams of people who will come and work with the kids. And just because they're, you know, if you guys were to send a team or maybe together with another church were to send a team, however that worked out, just the fact that you're from the United States, all of a sudden you're this huge commodity. And it's really a neat opportunity because you don't need to speak Spanish. It doesn't matter. You need to be able to speak English and that's not a problem. So it's really neat. A lot of people in, in the community know that the church is there just because of the English camp. And we've had dozens of people come into the, they would never step foot in our church. They would never come near our church. They think we're part of a cult. I didn't say that. I probably should have said that earlier. Like, think about, imagine, would you go into a kingdom hall, you know, just like, Oh yeah, Jehovah's Witness kingdom hall. You're just going to walk in there and have a cup of coffee. No, you're like, Whoa, this is weird. That's how people see us. But when we do things that are practical in the community that are really, useful like this English camp. Wow. Hey, you know, and it's, it's a way to break down barriers. And just one detail about that is that typically what we'll do, like if that's a week long on Wednesday or Thursday night, we send people who are, who've come from the United States to the homes of the families who are sending their kids to the English camp. And a lot of times you got to do it English, Spanish, Catalan, but there's opportunities to share the gospel there. So that would be something to shoot for. That's a couple, two or three years down the road. something like that and if there's a possibility of maybe needs for a work team as well at some point on the building but that's kind of up in the air because we're still waiting on well we have a partial permit that's kind of a long story but anyway yeah I think no I think a number of years have just peaked and the other people who will hear this later I think that sounds very exciting both the English camp and And who knows, maybe also the work side of it. So, uh, thank you for sharing that. There's some excitement. I know. I know certain people, even now they're like, they're Googling. Plane tickets to Barcelona. Yeah. So, um, you know, I, I just have 1 last thing I was going to ask you. Um. Saints, if you have any questions, now's the time to let them percolate. You can be writing me or letting me know you want to ask your own question, but just last question I wanted to ask you, Matt. I really value getting perspectives that are both like-minded but also distinct, and you not living here, yet having your background here, I think you're going to have on the one hand a real understanding of where we are. But I also think you probably can bring a perspective that would be edifying to us. And I was just wondering, as someone who's ministering outside the US, do you have any kind of exhortations or reminders that you think would be edifying for us to hear? Yeah, OK, yeah, Jason did not give me the questions ahead of time. Because that one, yeah, that one deserves more thought. I would probably be able to say something more helpful if I could think about it a little more, but I would say. One of the things that struck us when we went back on home assignment four years ago, the last time we were back. Was the ease with which we could share the gospel with people? So in the United States, you know, it's not not that everybody's a Christian, you know, obviously not. And really, in the last five to 10 years, there's just been this rapid secularization and there's the social, cultural Marxism, all this stuff like that. People are open to talking about spiritual things, whereas here in Spain. So like I'll go to, you know, soccer practice to pick up the kids and I'm friends with all the dads and they all know what I do. But, oh, man, they do not want to talk like about they have my work or like, no, like whatever. It's, it's just really hard. Whereas I remember at the charter school, our kids were going to, and this lady's like, Oh, another mom, like, Oh, you're from Spain. Like, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I teach at a Bible school, a Bible school in Barcelona. She says, Oh, that's great. Well, I don't believe in all that Christianity stuff, but I respect what you do. I mean, she was like, she was willing to talk about it and hear people look at me like I'm like, I'm part of a cult, you know? So, so Maybe we were, well, it's just, it's easy to, it's much easier to talk about Jesus back in the U.S. than it is in Spain, where there's this, there's just this wall, this barrier that it takes a long time to overcome that. So maybe one, one encouragement would be to take advantage of that. Well, it's a relative ease. I know it's not easy. It's not easy in the U.S. either, but it's a little easier to, to get to talking about the gospel with somebody to get to talking about spiritual things, transcendent things, life after death. It's easier to get to that point. Spaniards are so good at talking for hours about nothing. And well, I mean, Americans can't be too, but we found that it was easier to steer the conversation in that direction in the U.S. than it is here. May not seem like that, living there, but that's how it seemed to us. I know, I think that's so helpful. We planted the church because we wanted the gospel to go out. And, uh, you know, in some ways that's all the more reason we should come visit you. So we can try and share the gospel, get shut down in Barcelona and come back and think, oh man, this is so doable now. Well, Saints, do you guys have any, um, questions that you wanted to ask? Just send me a message or do something to let me know that you're, you want to otherwise. We can, of course, let Matt have the rest of his Saturday evening. Anyone? And you can just unmute if you decide. Yeah, go ahead. What was the attitude of your family when you left the Catholic Church and became a missionary? OK. Thank you. Yes. I was one of the fortunate ones. So my dad died when I was 16 years old. Uh, my mother was a staunch Roman Catholic. That's why we were going to church. I would have skipped mass. I didn't, I didn't care, but my mom, you know, was dragging us to mass, whatever. Well, my dad died. Some, some friends of ours, family friends who I knew, I had no idea they were evangelical Christians. I didn't even know what that meant. Really shared the gospel with my mom and my mom was converted. I mean, overnight she quit smoking. She quit swearing. It was, it was amazing. And it took her a while to transition out of the Roman Catholic Church, but she started attending a couple of different evangelical churches and she got into a lady's Bible study and so forth. So by the time I got to Brown, my mom already understood and she was, she was feeding me books, which I wasn't reading. Um, there was one book with all these like famous NFL, you know, football players who are Christians. And it was like their testimony. And I'm like, why are you giving me this mom? I don't, my mom was trying to, she's trying to evangelize me. So the question is two parts. So one part, when I, when I came to faith and became a member of an evangelical church, my mom totally understood that and was happy that I understood the gospel. I think for her, it was, it was an answer to prayer. My mom's still walking with the Lord. She's, she's really sweet lady. And, but when I went to the mission field, that was a little harder. Because, and I don't even think she knew how seldom she would see her grandkids. She, I don't think she knew that. And, and I, I didn't know it either. I mean, this, well, the COVID thing messed up those four years that my mom hasn't seen her grandkids. Cause she couldn't come and we couldn't go and, and it's hard. It's hard. Um, I she's God's given her grace. Uh, I think, I think she does well with it. Modern technology helps. We're able to stay in touch. But it's, yeah, I mean, we're going to, we're going back to the US briefly this summer to help our daughter get settled and to see my mom, because like I said, she hasn't seen the kids in four years, but my kids, my little kids don't know her hardly. I mean, so there is sacrifice there, but my mom, like I said, she's, if she wasn't a committed Christian and committed to missions and to evangelism, Maybe really difficult, but I know she finds comfort knowing that knowing why we're here. Amen. Anyone else? I'm not seeing anything going once. I have another one. If nobody's going to ask, go for it. Um, you you shared the missionary opportunities. The missions opportunities of coming over there, but in the meantime, how can we encourage you and your students? Well, your church's participation already does quite a bit. Um? Well, one thing and this is I don't know. I mean, this is. So occasionally people will come from our churches or families that support us in the ministry will just come visit. I'm not talking about a whole team that comes to do something real specific like a project or whatever, but people come and visit and they come, maybe they'll be with us for a few days and do tourism in Barcelona. They come see the seminary, they come see the church. Um, in the fall or in the spring, that's it's, it's not expensive. Uh, I have flown back and forth. for as little as $400. Sometimes it's more expensive to fly across the United States than it is to fly to Spain. And we've been sometimes been very encouraged by visits like that. And so it's a thing where maybe people would come and come to the seminary, be in the chapel service, be there for lunch, meet some of the students, those sorts of things, come to church on Sunday, stay for the community fellowship lunch that we have afterwards, just visits. You know individuals, a couple or even a family that can. That can be very encouraging as well. Well, my wife now is Googling plane tickets. Well, that sounds wonderful. OK, well Saints, we should let our brother go. Did you have any closing thoughts? Anything you wanted to say before we pray for you? Um, no gratitude really. I mean, this has been a blast. I've been really happy to, to be able to spend this time with you guys. I'm so glad that it worked out. It's hard to find a time, you know, between weekly schedules and then obviously the difference in the time zone, but I've really enjoyed this and we're looking forward to seeing you guys. It's going to be, it would probably be not next summer, but the following summer. Um, but we'd be around for a visit like we were four years ago in Minden. Um, late August, something like that. We look forward very much to that. We would love to have you. I just invited ourselves. I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have done that, but no, we are looking forward to it. And you basically just invited a church to come visit you in Barcelona, one of the coolest cities around. So, you know, I think it's fair. That helped. Yeah, that's true. Now, though, you might have to go and tell Nuria what you did, right? All right, yeah, now comes the reckoning, yeah. Well, thanks, let's let's pray for our brother. This has really just been wonderful. Let's go to our God. Our father, we thank you so much for Matt and Nuria, for IVSTE, for the church in Villas Aremar. We thank you for your faithfulness to them over these years, for the grace that you've provided and the grace that you show every day. And we thank you for all the students who um, sacrifice to go and learn the things of God and be used in the church. Uh, we thank you for the faculty who likewise, uh, lay down, um, worldly privileges, uh, for the, for the sake of your gospel and for the sake of your church and our, our father, we pray, um, bless the Laytons in every way. We pray for their kids and the education and the community that they long for, for their kids. We pray that you would raise them up in wisdom and in faith, helping them to be ready for the world they're entering and the world in which they already live. We do pray you bring more students to the seminary. We pray that you would provide all the funds that they need for these upgrades. May the ministry be able to keep going and keep thriving, even with these sort of official obstacles in the way. And we thank you for the ways that you've blessed the church. We pray that you would only continue to do that, especially we think of their new pastor and all that he is growing into and doing. And we think also of the young ones that already Matt has his eye on for greater usefulness and greater ministry. And we pray you would bless them too. Lord, we just love that you're ministering in truly every part of this world. We love that your gospel goes out to the dark and it's still saving, and so we pray that you would keep doing that. Do it in Barcelona. Do it in Reno and we pray all this for your glory and for our good. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. So just one more look. Oh yes, may the Lord bless you guys there at day spring. I pray for you almost weekly, so you're on my weekly prayer list, but you know how it goes sometimes. But it's been encouraging to see how quickly the church plant has come together. And may the Lord bless you guys in precisely what you said earlier, Jason, your desire to get the gospel out. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. And we need it. All right, Saints. Well, that concludes. Thank you for your time, Matt. Thank you for yours, you know, on your evening before the Lord's Day. Um, hopefully the Lord blesses your ministries tomorrow and your, your rest tonight and your dinner in a couple of hours, you know, and, uh, and saying to you all, take care. We'll, we'll catch you all, uh, bright and early tomorrow. God bless you all. Thank you.