11.21.2023

  “Leave. And don’t come back here!”

Our team leader had crossed the line. What had begun as a friendly exchange on one side of the shack village had met a definitive end on the other side. We sat in the van and prayed over the row of homes and the robed men traipsing to the makeshift mosque. We named the place “Radicalville.” The word that had snatched us from warm hospitality and dumped us at the point of “don’t return” was - Jesus.

  North African immigrants in Southern Spain are friendly and hospitable, often extending invitations to tea or couscous even during the course of a first conversation. Another integral part of their lives is religion–it is said that to be North African is to be Muslim–and because hospitality and religion go hand in hand, it's easy to strike up a spiritual conversation.

  For the sake of being moderate, peaceful Muslims, many North African immigrants make incongruous parallels between Christianity and Islam. Others simply gloss over the differences and change the subject. Still others, like the man in Radicalville, are hostile. They want us to know that we speak blasphemy. They didn’t come to Spain to hear about the prophet Jesus whom the infidels worship as God; they came to Spain to make a better life for themselves and their children. Generous Christians are simply another rung of the ladder to economic success.

Unlike their refugee counterparts, the economic immigrants in Spain are not fleeing war or other disasters in their countries. Immigrants flock to Southern Spain to look for work in the 98,000 acres of greenhouses which supply almost 50% of Europe’s produce. The year-round growing season provides a constant demand for agricultural workers but is often overwhelmed by the flood of immigrants in the job market. Many are trapped in the same poverty they experienced in their home country. Employers sometimes aggravate matters by taking advantage of cheap labor, especially undocumented labor. Many North Africans feel marginalized and cry “racism” when Spaniards react to their country being used and unappreciated. And so the resentful cycles of financial and relational poverty continue. 

  And yet, the greatest poverty is spiritual poverty. Over the years, our team has experienced friendships deepening and hearts opening, even just for a window of time. But the reality is that economic immigrants are a rootless, shifting population. When a better work opportunity arises in another part of Spain or Europe, suddenly that man who had begun to show interest in studying God’s Word moves on.

  We continue to labor in this dry soil, often without knowing what God is up to. We pray that “the God of hope fills [us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit [we] may abound in hope” (Rom. 15:13). 

  Hope? When what lies before us looks so impossible? And then, months and months after our encounter in Radicalville, another shack village invited us in for tea and received copies of God’s Word with delight. We named the settlement “Hopeville.”

  Recently, one of our team sat down for coffee with a classmate, and the classmate pressed her for the real reason she would leave her family and come to a country with fewer opportunities than the United States. After listening to her explanation, she sat back. “You are an idealist. Do you really think you can change these people?”

  This teammate toyed with the handle of her mug while she thought. “No,” she said finally. “I can’t change anyone. But God can. That’s why I’m here.”

~AW