After prolonged contact we expected a group from Barcelona, or rather: Santa Coloma de Gramenet with their pastor rev. Carmen Sánchez. It was Wednesday the 24th of July 2002 that they arrived at Schiphol airport: 

Ds Carmen Sanchez, Mari, Pepi, Nuria, Ana, Jaime, Ricardo and Jaime arrived in good time!
And they like their new and green surroundings, the youth-hostel Rhijnauwen, near Utrecht, but Carmen makes them walk all the time through Amsterdam.... Pobrecit@s! And they never expected that it would be so cold here...

Pepi, Mari, Jaime Ricardo y Jaime....
Nuria, Ricardo, Ana, Mari... really great people!!!

Gerard van Delft took them for a long, long walk the next evening. It seems they underestimated his keeping power!

On Sunday they went to Amsterdam, in search for a certain community, to join, but they found a lot of other (thing)s...

That evening they came to Utrecht, for a tour, conducted by Anthony Voerman.
First through some parts of the city we went, then to the St. Peters church, where Anthony lectured them on church history, Protestantism and more like that. 

En la capilla de la Iglesia de San Pedro cantaban... 
We sang in Spanish in the Dean's Chapel... And Pepi and I looked down on the group in the big church... high from the big organ, she was mightily impressed with it... But the guitar was easier to play, she thought...

When Ton was too tired to think in Spanish anymore, and when we realized it was high time to go home, we did so, reluctantly, but we kept looking at all the lovely old houses and at the river Rhine (below) 

Our friends are all at home by now.... They took flight 31-7 at 20.14 in stead of 19.40 hrs. so they will be at least half an hour late in Barcelona! 
They had a shopping spree that afternoon in Amsterdam, at least: they would have it, if there were any €uros left.  In the morning they left the Youth hostel, and managed to get their luggage to the first bus stop: about 700 meters away. Thank God: it was relatively cool. Not so the day before, when they came back to see Utrecht at leisure, and to visit both the Saint Peter again (Iglesia San Pedro) and the Dom, and to look at all the nice canals etc. We were glad that they had returned before the torrents came down from Heaven!!!  Well, it seems they had a nice evening in the bar, where they had their evening meal, and were well rested before they came to Utrecht in the morning, to get their train tickets and to say a final goodbye. 

Alas! The goodbyes were prolonged a good deal, because there was some railway - accident, which meant that half the trains didn't go. 

At first everybody was quite patient. 
Then their was some consulting of watches, a comparing of the exact time....

and when the tension started to build up, the devoted helper nearly started to do her pastor in. ;-)      

But at good last there was the whistle, and another one, and lo! there it was: goodbye and we'll see each other: here or There. Aquí o allí... Nos quedan buenos recuerdos... Sweet memories rest us. And of course the little dragon from Barcelona, which lives on my PC, and the nice picture they brought us. It hangs in the new premises of the Van Delft business. 

 
 We liked to have them here, and we hope they will think back with joy to the days spent in Holland. The foundation Het Evangelie in Spanje has been sponsoring them, and hopes that this little seed may germ and flourish in the future...