Spanish Missionary
Trust in the Lord
Two weeks ago I was on the way to the airport to pick up my mother-in-law thinking how unlikely that situation was 4 months ago, when she was in the ICU and I was calling Carol’s brother to come to say goodbye. God has really done a miracle! From the uncertainty of surviving the severe acute pancreatitis, to the certainty that she needed to remove part of her pancreas, to "maybe" and then to "she won’t need the surgery". We walked each day on His Grace, thanking Him for His mercies.
We spent three weeks where she lives in Italy and then came back to Spain. Carol’s aunt came from Brazil to take care of my mother-in-law as she recovered back from hospitalization. It was hard on all of us and certainly it wasn’t what we expected as transitioning to our new life. Once we got back here it was time to set up our home and getting to work.
In the last years our work has been focused on understanding a specific region of a country, working to reach a specific people group. We got to learn the language, culture, history and nuances of that specific place. Now we are looking into the needs of the whole Muslim world, especially looking to the remaining task where there are still no witness, which is overwhelming when you start. Leading a team of specialists in each region and guiding them to create plans for each need has been a great challenge. It’s been very humbling and the verse God has shared with us about this season is Proverbs 3:5-6. We are trusting the Lord with all our heart, asking Him for His ways in everything we do. God has been working and changing people all over the world but unfortunately there is still so much to be done.
One of the projects we have been involved is in the South Asia Subcontinent (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), a region of over 500 million Muslims and very few laborers. But how to recruit more laborers for the harvest? How to find pioneers eager to do what must be done in these challenging environments? How to get in and get visas to stay? Where will they learn language? How to raise intercession for this work? We have been planning for this specific project together with a team of experience workers and mobilizers, creating a plan with the end in mind. We know the challenge is great, as a example, there is one people group of 28 million people with only 40 believers (local and foreign workers sharing with them). People like you and me who are in desperate need of Christ.
We know these projects take time to mature and to get the momentum it needs to have fruits. So we work diligently that once we have people ready to go, we can support them the best way possible. We pray that soon we will be able to tell testimonies of those who are going! Pray with us that the Lord will raise up a new generation from different nations to share His good news to the people in the Subcontinent.
We hope to share more about other projects that we are involved in following newsletters. It has been a great challenge to get this newsletter into your hands, there is always a barrier to get this done and to raise up more prayer. We see that we are in a huge spiritual battle, we were not expecting to be like that here to be honest, but we trust the Lord is battling and raising prayers even when we can communicate.
The Great City
All workers in the Great City had to leave after what happened, only a few Chinese were able to stay. Also new people who were coming to the city were able to enter after a few months. In the past we were already very few working in a 8 million people city, but now is even more challenging. The NGO we were connected to is not working in the city anymore. But the Lord didn’t stop working. On the day we received the news about the danger and that we couldn’t return. One of our teammates was at the airport to come definitely to the Great City. I called her so she wouldn’t take the flight. That week the NGO she was connected (another one) cancelled her visa stating they didn’t want her as a foreigner living there. She was heart broken and everybody started praying for God to open the doors. Fast forward to one year later, He opened the door, in a miraculous way. After fights with bureaucracy, documents been stolen, this teammate has established a new NGO in the Great City to start the work there. She has join a new team there and she is now ready to work. Also another couple we were supposed to receive in our team is preparing to arrive there possibly next year. All of them have been working in language in nearby locations. But they all need to switch dialect as it’s very distinct.
One of our goals in to keep recruiting and supporting people in the Great City. So the language material we created, we are now passing to them and putting people in contact to continue developing them. Our objective is that this material will bless the workers in the Great City and maybe in a future a new center can be established there so many more workers can come. Its been pretty exciting supporting these new workers from afar and knowing that the work continues. So many will worship Jesus in that great day!
Two weeks ago I was on the way to the airport to pick up my mother-in-law thinking how unlikely that situation was 4 months ago, when she was in the ICU and I was calling Carol’s brother to come to say goodbye. God has really done a miracle! From the uncertainty of surviving the severe acute pancreatitis, to the certainty that she needed to remove part of her pancreas, to "maybe" and then to "she won’t need the surgery". We walked each day on His Grace, thanking Him for His mercies.
We spent three weeks where she lives in Italy and then came back to Spain. Carol’s aunt came from Brazil to take care of my mother-in-law as she recovered back from hospitalization. It was hard on all of us and certainly it wasn’t what we expected as transitioning to our new life. Once we got back here it was time to set up our home and getting to work.
In the last years our work has been focused on understanding a specific region of a country, working to reach a specific people group. We got to learn the language, culture, history and nuances of that specific place. Now we are looking into the needs of the whole Muslim world, especially looking to the remaining task where there are still no witness, which is overwhelming when you start. Leading a team of specialists in each region and guiding them to create plans for each need has been a great challenge. It’s been very humbling and the verse God has shared with us about this season is Proverbs 3:5-6. We are trusting the Lord with all our heart, asking Him for His ways in everything we do. God has been working and changing people all over the world but unfortunately there is still so much to be done.
One of the projects we have been involved is in the South Asia Subcontinent (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh), a region of over 500 million Muslims and very few laborers. But how to recruit more laborers for the harvest? How to find pioneers eager to do what must be done in these challenging environments? How to get in and get visas to stay? Where will they learn language? How to raise intercession for this work? We have been planning for this specific project together with a team of experience workers and mobilizers, creating a plan with the end in mind. We know the challenge is great, as a example, there is one people group of 28 million people with only 40 believers (local and foreign workers sharing with them). People like you and me who are in desperate need of Christ.
We know these projects take time to mature and to get the momentum it needs to have fruits. So we work diligently that once we have people ready to go, we can support them the best way possible. We pray that soon we will be able to tell testimonies of those who are going! Pray with us that the Lord will raise up a new generation from different nations to share His good news to the people in the Subcontinent.
We hope to share more about other projects that we are involved in following newsletters. It has been a great challenge to get this newsletter into your hands, there is always a barrier to get this done and to raise up more prayer. We see that we are in a huge spiritual battle, we were not expecting to be like that here to be honest, but we trust the Lord is battling and raising prayers even when we can communicate.
The Great City
All workers in the Great City had to leave after what happened, only a few Chinese were able to stay. Also new people who were coming to the city were able to enter after a few months. In the past we were already very few working in a 8 million people city, but now is even more challenging. The NGO we were connected to is not working in the city anymore. But the Lord didn’t stop working. On the day we received the news about the danger and that we couldn’t return. One of our teammates was at the airport to come definitely to the Great City. I called her so she wouldn’t take the flight. That week the NGO she was connected (another one) cancelled her visa stating they didn’t want her as a foreigner living there. She was heart broken and everybody started praying for God to open the doors. Fast forward to one year later, He opened the door, in a miraculous way. After fights with bureaucracy, documents been stolen, this teammate has established a new NGO in the Great City to start the work there. She has join a new team there and she is now ready to work. Also another couple we were supposed to receive in our team is preparing to arrive there possibly next year. All of them have been working in language in nearby locations. But they all need to switch dialect as it’s very distinct.
One of our goals in to keep recruiting and supporting people in the Great City. So the language material we created, we are now passing to them and putting people in contact to continue developing them. Our objective is that this material will bless the workers in the Great City and maybe in a future a new center can be established there so many more workers can come. Its been pretty exciting supporting these new workers from afar and knowing that the work continues. So many will worship Jesus in that great day!
- Thanksgiving
For Carol’s mom miraculous healing. It is amazing that she is doing so much better. Praise the Lord. She came to help care for Thomas as we were to attend our organization's face to face annual meeting. It’s been great to have her here. We realize that she still needs care, specially with her diet and recovering her strength. Please pray as she understand her new normal. - For the house and getting established here. It was a miracle to be able to rent without having all the requirements they ask here. We are finally settled and we were even able to host already. We received my parents, my bother and his family, another worker and Carol’s mom. We love to have space so we can serve other workers coming to this city.
- Praise God for the planning meeting we had in the beginning of the month with the senior leadership in our organization. The meeting took place in Malaga, not too far from our place. We were able to participate in the meetings and still spend the evenings with Thomas and my mother-in-law. It was a very important time as we planned for the next year.
- That we didn’t suffer any flooding in our house from DANA (heavy rains) this past 3 weeks.
- We didn’t expect to have visa issues here, but we have. I was able to get residency but Carol's has become a problem. Since the process has taken too long our documents all expired (all documents need to be officially notarized, translated into Spanish and expire in 3 months). They are asking for the last 12 months of notarized and officially translated to Spanish banking statements, which I need to be in person to do it. We are waiting for some certificates to arrive from Brazil this week but the banking statement in the US we have to do it in person. Please be praying for wisdom in how we can make this work, also for funds to cover for the travel and the documents/translations.
- Thomas has been having a hard time in school. It is a small public school and they are not used to multicultural kids. He has no friends and is suffering bullying. Please pray as we engage with the teachers and Thomas in how to help him cope and adapt. Also please pray if a change of school is needed.
- For our work, developing different projects (specially Subcontinent), supervising a new team leader couple in North Africa and supporting the work in the Great City.
- For our overall being, family and marriage. We have experienced a lot of stressful situations and we had no time to pause and process in the past 6 months. Please pray that Christmas break will be restful and a time of renewal
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