Day 7 (night 5) communion communication & (relative) calm

One of the daily traditions on the island of Ibiza as mentioned in other posts is the 'clapping of the sun' which happens during sunset, where people staying on the island alongside a many local residents from Ibiza meet to listen to 'chilled beats' from the famous cafe mambo and cafe del mar and clap the setting of the sun to signal the end of the day & the start of the night. Whilst it is said that this is an ancient tradition, it was certainly revived (if not started by) the hippies who moved to the island in search of a more peaceful existent or to escape the Vietnam draft for whom sun worship was important*. However we decided that instead of clapping the sun we'd hold our own form of worship by having communion as the sun set on the rocks next to the sunset strip (the name of the promenade next to the sea where you get the best view of the sunset).I found this personally a very powerful reflective tool and a perfect way of focusing on the night ahead, however within this time I did receive my first insect bite of the trip which was a little annoying but this couldn't distract from overall significance.

The nights in Ibiza have been muggy at the best of times and with the first cloud cover we'd seen whilst we had been here this very much continued. I was personally worried that the muggyness would effect the atmosphere of the west end. However I needed not to have worried as the night itself was reasonably quiet affair from a helping perspective, (I was once again out with Becky, who is calmness personified & we did end up helping one couple to the taxi rank who we had found right at the end of the night (morning ??)from a supermarket in the west end), this however left loads of space for conversation, which I have enjoyed equally to actually helping people. Conversations range from the very simple of how are you, how are you enjoying you trip here, to deep discussion covering all sorts of issues which I don't think it is fair to the people involved that I go into too much about here. The Ibiza team also have prayer cards and encourage people they meet whilst about in the west end to fill these in to take back to the 24-7 Ibiza centre to pray for. I love how the team refer to these filled in prayer cards as 'treasure', and it certainly has moved me some of the things people have written while we have been out, showing that people really do have healthy understanding of the world in which we live. 

Until tomorrow Paul signing off

Bible verse 

James 1:19Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Hearing and Obeying

19 My dear friends, you should be quick to listen and slow to speak or to get angry.

*for more information regarding the history of Ibiza I'd recommend the book The White Island by Stephen Armstrong. It is available from amazon and other good books stores (as well as some bad ones as well I imagine).