The tyre that opened Spain

The detour was not in the plan. Leaving Edinburgh, the Lord laid it on the team's hearts to head toward Bamburgh, a renowned castle on the English coast they had only heard about. About nine minutes away, the tyre hit a curb and blew out, leaving the car stuck in the middle of nowhere.

A bed and breakfast five minutes away had no rooms but let them wait inside out of the cold. When the team told the lord of the estate they were missionaries, he lent them an ear, and the Word came so powerfully that he left to fetch tea and biscuits and came back with Maria, a Spanish woman from Andalusia who worked at the castle and had been looking to go deeper in God.

The churches have failed us; they are more interested in maintaining the church building than the souls. What I heard carries light and life, and the community needs it.

By evening the car was still broken down and the household invited them to dinner. At the table, worship broke out. The master of the castle said the churches had failed them, more interested in maintaining the building than the souls, and that what he had heard carried light and life the community needed. He stood and said he could not receive the blessing unless he gave them a room for the night.

At breakfast he formally invited them back. Three months later, through Maria's father, the Mission was sitting in a cave-house church in Baza, Spain.