Letter from Bryce and Phyllis Little
January 6, 2009
2009 greetings from Bryce and Phyllis Little!
We want to highlight several items that happened in our ministry in 2008:
Dinner at General Assembly 2008 with representatives from Northern Waters Presbytery and Dr. David Valente of Portugal.
The PC(USA) General Assembly met in June in San Jose, California, and two ecumenical representatives came from the Iberian peninsula: Dr. David Valente, an attorney in Portugal and General Secretary of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Portugal, and Dr. Pedro Zamora, director of the United Protestant Theological Seminary in Spain.
At General Assembly, we helped put together the first gathering of Presbyterians interested in collaborating in God’s mission in the Iberian peninsula. We organized a luncheon to share what the Christian communities in Spain and Portugal are doing, and 25 people attended.
In September and October, the Reverend Nini Castanheira, a pastor of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Portugal, was invited to the United States by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program to be an “International Peacemaker.” Nini shared his story in local churches in National Capital Presbytery, and the presbyteries of Northern Waters, Middle Tennessee, and Lake Erie.
Pastor Emanuel Dimis in Braga, northern Portugal.
We traveled to Spain and Portugal in October. In northern Portugal we met with leadership of the Portuguese Methodists. The Presbyterians and Methodists in Portugal are working on plans to unite in 2010.
In Spain we visited our Presbyterian mission workers: the Rev. Melanie Mitchell in Madrid and Osmundo Ponce at the seminary in El Escorial. We also met with Dr. Zamora, who coordinates the work of the Spanish Evangelical Church with churches overseas.
Bryce and Phyllis Little's 11 grandchildren were with them during Thanksgiving.
We are very glad that we can share photographs from last Thanksgiving. Each one of our grandchildren is God’s special blessing to us, to their parents, and to each other.
In 2009, please continue to be with us in prayer as we seek to build more partnerships between PC(USA) congregations and presbyteries with the Protestant churches in Spain and Portugal. We will keep you posted as 2009 efforts unfold.
Bryce and Phyllis Little
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 170
