Welcome!

Welcome to the Whitley’s banana boat blog! For years our newsletter has been called the “banana boat update” because when Tiffne first became interested in doing missions it was the joke that she would catch the next banana boat out. Well, now the banana boat has brought us to southern Spain. We will spend the first several months to a year in language learning. After that we will work with African migrants and refugees many of whom have taken a boat to Spain. In fact, recently we heard of a group of Africans who came over from Africa to Spain on a boat, two of these people were pregnant women. Many times the conditions for these people are not good. We are looking forward to our ministry with them.

When you visit the banana boat blog you will find updates and pictures from the Whitley family as well as our prayer requests. Thank you for keeping up with us, and for praying for us. You can continue to e-mail us at twhitley@thefellowship.info .

Prayer Requests (5/16/07)

1. Please pray for language and cultural acquisition for our entire family.
2. Please pray for us as we travel in June and July to meetings. Pray that our children will adjust well to jet lag.

Many people have asked to see what we see when we look out our window. This picture is the view looking north-east off our “front yard” terrace. It over looks our town of Aguadulce with the mountains behind.

This picture is looking south-east off the same terrace. Mountains one direction and the Mediterranean the other! We are only a couple blocks from the beach, which the kids love!

Megan in her princess room on her new scooter.

Cade and Dylan enjoying Tiff’s new rocking chair. It had been almost 3 months since we had a rocking chair and everybody loves to sit in it.

Easter Sunday morning picture of the kids.

Megan playing in the snow. Yes, this is still southern Spain! Up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains about 2 hours from our house (3 if you get lost like we did) you can find snow and a nice ski resort. Megan liked playing in the snow and even made a little snow man. The boys were not sure what to think of the snow. It was about 10 in. deep which made it hard for them to walk.

One the way home from our trip up in the mountains we stopped at this old castle. Of course it was closed the day we were there, but we took some pictures and walked all the way around it. It was really neat from the outside, situated on a hilltop overlooking the village below with the snow topped mountains in the background.

Megan’s birthday party at church. The people at our new church are so great. People we had not even met yet came to Megan’s party and brought gifts. Megan had a really fun day. At home we had a birthday cake with just the family so we took a homemade big chocolate chip cookie to the church and everyone enjoyed their first “American chocolate chip cookie.”

Any idea what to do at this intersection? Intersections like this are all over Almería and I (Joel) just laugh every time I come to one. Do I stop or do I go????

Pastors Eliezer and Virginia at our house with the kids. We had them over for some Tex-Mex food. Eliezer lived in the U.S. for a while when he was a child and speaks English. He has been our crutch when we arrived, helping us with just about everything! Virginia ate her very first taco at our house that day.

This is our living room…nice and cozy! Also, the couch folds out to make a bed just waiting for guests.