I remain untitled

Goodbye Galyens

We’re going to miss you.

Nathan and I had dinner yesterday with the Galyen family.  They have a cute home in Seven Corners for sale (if anyone’s interested, please let me know) in preparation for their big move to Spain.  It seems like it would be a perfect fit for them. Deb lived in Belgium while she was growing up and they love being missionaries.  Also, Luke, their eldest, is a big soccer player/fan.  I can imagine him growing up to be a great football player one day. 

In our conversation last night I realized how the Spanish landscape has changed. I’m not terribly familiar with Spanish history but from what I can remember, Roman Catholicism has been the largest religion in that country.  But, that reality is quickly changing.  A wave of immigration has introduced a great deal of Muslims into the fold.  NPR had an article about this in 2003. They wrote:

According to the United Nations, Europe’s Muslim population has doubled in the last decade, and an estimated half a million new immigrants — most of them from Muslim nations — arrive every year. 

Furthermore,

 Spain is the traditional gateway from Africa to Europe — and for Muslims in Morocco, a tangible symbol of the lost glory of the Moorish Islamic empire.

What an intriguing and challenging environment to navigate in as a Christian. Nathan and I will definitely be holding them up in prayer. 

As our discussion progressed, the topic about fertility rates having fallen in many “first world” countries came up.  Spain is not immune to this phenomenon.  In fact, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, Spain’s fertility rate of 1.37 (the number of children the average woman will have during her lifetime) is now one of the lowest in the world.  I find this all very fascinating.

What we are witnessing is a country that is an extremely favored destination - both as a place to find employment and a fairly decent standard of living; where the indigenous population has tapered off in terms of fertility rates; and where a majority of citizens do not attend religious services.

This all seems to be vaguely reminiscent of a novel by P.D. James (that eventually was made into a movie) called The Children of Men except we live in a time where mass infertility is not the issue; people just don’t want to have as many children now as they have in years past.  The question becomes - why is this all happening?