This May Paul and Tim took a group of youth leaders and other recruits to Valdepenas in Spain. The aim was to support the work of a retreat centre that will host a few teams in the summer while also giving team members a week of encouragement and a taste for the Exodus team experience! Andy Masters describes his time below:

What do you get when you cross a builder, a master puzzle buster, a farmer, a few youth workers and Spain? A mission trip of course! This unlikely bunch met at midnight in a dark alley in Belfast to begin what was to be an incredible journey to Valdepenas Spain and beyond. After fourteen hours of travel we arrived at Monescillo, a mission/retreat centre for over one hundred years. Those skilled in construction then began to access the requirements and how best to deal with them while the rest of us nodded our heads pretending to know exactly what they where talking about!

Our work consisted of rebuilding a wall, lowering and retiling a patio, painting the interior and exterior of the boundary wall, some major clean up work and lots and lots of banter. Our days were spent working from around nine in the morning to half six or seven at night. Our meals and evenings together as a team consisted of "the obvious game", some very difficult puzzles courtesy of Frank and of course plenty of meaningful conversation about our lives and ministry.

As rewarding as it is to shovel sand and cement for nine hours a day the highlight for me was the opportunity we all got to listen and learn from each other. Our hunger for this was shown as every night despite our exhaustion we pushed bed time further and further into the early hours of the morning, as we sat on plastic chairs listening to each other tell stories about our lives, our ministries and our journeys with Jesus!

What a week! A new wall, a new patio and some new friends.
Andrew Masters (Youth Worker in Railway Street Presbyterian)