Fusion is committed to championing a worldwide student movement through:
Equipping students: preparing and inspiring students for a life of mission and discipleship at university
‘…may God equip you with all you need for doing His will. May He produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to Him.’ Hebrews 13:21 (NLT)
Serving churches: connecting students to the heart of local church and encouraging churches to be at the heart of student mission
‘Glory to God in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.’ Ephesians 3:21 (NLT)
Developing student workers: training, resourcing and strengthening all those in church based student ministry
‘the harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields.’ Luke 10:2 (NLT)
As a church we support through our mission giving, Olli & Jo Davies who have spent this last 6 months travelling around Spain visiting all the university cities, meeting people, praying, and discerning their next steps towards setting up Fusion Spain.
In Spain, the picture of church and students looks very different to what we see in the UK. There are very few churches reaching students, and young people struggle to find spaces where they can engage with church or faith. Jo and Olli are working to come alongside churches in Spain, and, using the experiences and resources of Fusion, equip and support them in working with students. They hope to share stories of student mission and see more and more churches invest in student ministry and mission across Spain.
For them, partnering is about sharing this journey and sowing into what God is doing amongst students in Spain and across Europe.
A message from Olli & Jo – September 2022
Rest, Revelations and a Whole New Year Ahead…
Hey Friends! How are you doing? Happy school-starting, back-to-work, re-launch month! It’s an exciting time for us as it starts to get gradually cooler and cooler in Granada! We’re writing to you off the back of a summer that has been encouraging and refreshing for us in many ways. And there’s no saying just how pleased we are to be able to write that.
So here goes an attempt to share with you some of the journey of the last few months, and look ahead together to what God has for us and for Spain in this new academic year.
June and July were slow months for us; still a time of recovery, getting used to our neighbourhood, slowly getting to know people from our church, as well as going to some conferences and building on some key relationships.
Since then, we were able to visit the UK (we drove all the way there and back to move all our stuff to our little flat in Granada!) and have a holiday in Portugal and the whole thing felt like a series of little miracles for us.
Arriving at Fusion’s festival Sixty One, we immediately felt so encouraged being with the Fusion team again. It was a time of re-envisioning for us, and God showing us both individually the love he has been giving us for Spain over the last 2 years.
We went on from that to our first in-person gathering with the Fusion nations team (Fusion Scotland, Fusion movement leader, Fusion USA & us) & it was such a blessing to feel that we are ‘together’ in this as we pioneer in different places.
The final couple of little miracles were being able to gather of few of our partners in Manchester & share really honestly where we’re at – it was so encouraging to be face to face with some of you and to be prayed out as we came back to Spain again.
And since then, we have had a fun and relaxing holiday (honestly, a miracle in itself after the last few years!) and have felt a shift as we’ve come back to Granada – a new peace and a new acceleration in how God is speaking to us, giving us vision, clarity and guidance so that we can be more of a blessing to our church and in our work. Praise Jesus!
A whole new year ahead…
As much as a 10-year plan is a bit silly and can’t really capture much of what will need to happen within that time, nor can it predict how long anything will take, it is helpful for us at times to refer back to what we initially laid out. It is especially helpful as we reach the other side of the first few hurdles – with a big vision stretched out before us to now actually walk out and turn into reality.
So this is where we’re up to… over 1 year and 10 months in, we’ve done our language learning and the roadtrip, and we’re on our way to the next ‘marker post’, setting up Fusion Spain as a charity, building key relationships and starting to resource churches in student mission.
What will this year look like?
Prayer
We sense this is a big priority for us this year, spending time prayer walking the campuses nearby and in prayer for our church and the different churches, organisations and people we connect with. We are convinced that God is wanting to move in big ways in Spain this year, but only prayer can pave the way and really make that possible.
We would love if you could come with us on this journey – praying for God’s Spirit to move in Spain, in the church and on the campuses here, as often as you think of it!
Local Church
We’re excited to get stuck in to the life of our church this year – a church that is hungry to engage more with students and is open to God’s leading. We’re still working out exactly what this will look like but feel God asking us to ‘be available’ in serving with students, small groups and in prayer.
Relationships
As well as focusing on church relationships in Granada and Madrid (focusing on these 2 Cities to start with, to start supporting them in student ministry), and inviting churches further afield to pray and share stories with us in an online space, a big focus for us is building relationships with other organisation leaders, with priests and with Catholics generally to be able to learn from them and journey alongside them as we pioneer.
Charity Status
We have begun the long process of starting an evangelical Christian charity in Spain, the laws don’t make this easy, and we have to exist under a church to be an overtly Christian organisation. We will be proposing this to our new church next week, and if all goes well then all the paperwork will follow that. We’ve heard this process can take about 2 years, so we’re starting now to be able to ‘do’ more as Fusion Spain in the future (like sell resources, receive donations and employ people).
Please know that we are so so grateful for all that you give, and that it all makes a difference. It is not lost on us the gift and the privilege it is to be able to live like this – giving ourselves fully to this mission in Spain. Thank you for all that you do to make that possible, and for your prayers and encouragement along the way.
May you be abundantly blessed today.
Love and prayers,
Jo and Olli x
A message from Olli & Jo – April 2022
The journey just finished…
We finished the Road Trip with a prayer gathering for students in Madrid. Tricky to organise from the road, but a brilliant first Fusion gathering in Spain – such a joy to pray with a bunch of students from different churches in Madrid and hear more of what God’s doing on their campuses!
Thank you so much for being with us on this journey. After the road trip, we are more aware than ever of the need for a move of God both in his church and on the campuses in Spain. We long to tell the story of students finding hope in Jesus and home in local church here, but we know there is a long way to go. We could not go it alone, and so we hope you know how significant your prayers and partnership are to us in all of this.
The journey just beginning…
We’ve had some time out in Portugal to reflect and retreat and rest before getting going again with starting a new life. This was also a key time to listen to God and decide where to put down roots more long term in Spain – setting out from Portugal last Sunday we needed somewhere to head to!
And so, we are now writing to you from our new city for the foreseeable future – GRANADA!
Over a quarter of the population here are students, we felt very welcomed by the churches we met here, there’s an excellent charismatic catholic community and a hunger to do more for students.
So, it should be a fun place to start! It’s also a very cool city, with so much history and beauty, has some great coffee shops and is an hour from the beach and right by the mountains. So, there’s lots to love!
We have had a good start, as we found a great little flat right between the two main campuses (and with a garage for Victoria the van!) within a few days – an amazing encouragement that God is with us here! So last week was moving week (this is us moving all our stuff out of an Airbnb for hopefully the last time in a very long time!)
However, we are only just beginning. It is still a one-day-at-a-time journey for us. There’s lots ahead that is daunting, and we still feel we are only just starting to recover from the exhaustion and vulnerability and instability of this last season. We would love if you could be praying for us as we start over again and officially start to build Fusion Spain as an organisation, brick by brick.
We are praying for community here, for friends, for the right church, for grace for the journey and continued rest and recovery in the weeks and months ahead.
Love and blessings,
Olli and Jo x
Highlights from the final few cities!
Seville: Talking student mission with the youth and young adults’ team at a church in Seville, who also happened to be students themselves! They were so encouraged that someone actually cared about their campuses and course-mates and were excited to chat ideas about what they could do to reach out.
Huelva: Meeting an ex-pro-footballer turned church-planter in Huelva, who also happens to be on the GBU board (the equivalent of Christian Union in Spain) and passionate about student mission – a person of peace with influence who wants to help us see more student mission happen in the churches in his City.
Madrid: Meeting a group of young people (mostly all new Christians!) in a catholic parish in the outskirts of Madrid. They’re right next to a campus and want to start reaching out to the students there – so fun to hear their stories and chat student mission with them!
Road Trip Summary
🗓 6 months and 1 week
🚐 13,500k driven
🏙 38 Cities
📍17 Regions of Spain
👫 131 meetings with churches/ministries/communities/youth and young adult groups
⛺️ 37 different camping spots
🛏 40 different beds
🙏 41 campuses prayer walked
⛪️ 38 cathedrals prayed in
🏃 545k run
Please pray for Jo and Olli as they continue with their work to establish Fusion in Spain.
Contact Jo at: [email protected]
Find out more about their work:
www.fusionmovement.org/jo
or
www.fusionmovement.org/spain