September - October
2003
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
We are so thankful for your faithfulness to the Lord in allowing us to
serve
Him here. We have turned the Military work in Rota back over to
Pastor
Chris Parker and are now laboring here in El Puerto de Santa
Maria.
We have had the opportunity to start Bible studies in our home and the
Lord
is opening doors and hearts to His Word.
Our landlords came to our first Bible study and they participated with
the
reading of Scripture and discussion. Why is that so
wonderful?
In our last prayer letter we told you how that our landlord, Enrique,
said
that he only believes what his priest says. When he came to the
study,
he was able to see and to read the Word of God for himself. When
the
meeting was over, he asked me, "What is more important, knowing Christ
or
having faith?" I was pleased to tell him that it was most
important
for Him to put his faith in Christ and know Him as his personal
Savior.
To my knowledge, he didn't accept Christ, but at least he is allowing
the
Word to work in his heart. Please, please pray for Enrique and
his
family.
The Lord has allowed us to have another man come to
the
Bible studies whose name is Gustavo. He is Guatemalan and his
wife
is Spanish. When he found out that we wanted to start a church
here,
he let us know that he wanted to help us do so. Amen!
He
also works with Enrique (above) and has been talking to him about the
studies
at their job. It is so wonderful the way that the Lord works His
plan
out in our lives. Josefina, Gustavo's wife, and Patsy are doing
what
is called "intercambio." Josefina is teaching Patsy more Spanish,
and
Patsy, in turn is teaching her English.
We want to encourage all of you Prayer Warriors to
boldly
go before the Lord on our behalf concerning the lost souls here in
Spain.
Everywhere you look you will find multitudes of lost souls in desperate
need
of the Savior. It is harvest time, and as we travel from place to
place
we see the fields full of cotton ready to be harvested. The
problem
here recently is that we have entered into our rainy season and a lot
of
the cotton that was ready to be harvested couldn't be and now is
ruined.
The Lord said, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are
few"
(Matthew 9:37). Is this not a true view of the world's situation
today?
Garrett, Seth and Chris are in the full swing of home school and
looking
forward to the break at Christmas time. Garrett is playing the
piano
beautifully now proving that the Lord rewards faithfulness. He is
still
taking lessons and finding just how challenging music can be.
Daniel
has been a lot healthier and we give the thanks unto the Lord for
specifically
answering this prayer request.
We would like to ask you all to please pray about
the
economic situation here in Europe. With the devaluation of the
dollar,
the exchange to Euro is taking its toll. When we arrived in
Spain,
they were still using the Peseta and the exchange rate was almost
2-to-1
in our favor. Now in the current Euro exchange rate one U.S.
Dollar
buys about .85 centimos. The Lord is faithfully taking care of
us,
but we still have concerns should this trend continue in the direction
that
it is going. Just in the two years since the Euro was put into
use,
we have lost 28% of our income that we have to live on and work with
here
in Spain. Some of our fellow missionaries in Spain estimate that
the
overall loss is up to 60% based on the change to Euro and the higher
cost
of living under the Euro Economy. You may or may not be aware of
this
situation but we ask that you make this a matter of prayer not only on
our
behalf, but also for all missionaries living on the Euro system.