MEET CHRIS AND HILDE MATHIESON

Chris joined OAC in 1983. He began his ministry training Spaniards to reach people effectively on the streets. At this point Chris had no permanent base in Spain and spent six months every year travelling around the country. He also ran outreaches in many towns.

In 1988, Chris got to know Hilde, who two years previously had arrived to join a churchplanting team in Arganda. She had spent a year in cultural training and was soon able to start Bible studies for a small group of women in the village of Morata. In 1990 Chris and Hilde were married.

Since then they have been working to bring together the local and itinerant aspects of their ministry. Chris travels less, and they have developed activities closer to Madrid. Their first opening came when the government agreed to let evangelicals teach religious education in schools.

Chris and Hilde are associates with OM. This gives them opportunities to train people in open-air evangelism, both with the year teams based in Extremadura and in the Love Europe congresses and outreaches during the summer.

However, the open-airs do not stop with the arrival of autumn. There are often more people in the streets on chilly winter afternoons. Each Friday evening the team works in 'Sol', Madrid's city centre, with a team from the Madrid City Mission.