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News, January 2010News from the Churches Gospel Choir in Burgos A conference given by a Brethren church on the subject of abortion was broken up by women 'pro-choice' demonstrators on 20th January. The church had been invited to give the conference as part of the Saint Anthony festivities in the district of Barcelona, where the Avenida Mistral church is based. Dr Gerard Urrutia was speaking on the subject 'Abortion, solution or problem?' at the local Civic Centre. This was just one of a number of activities in which the church has collaborated in the district festivities. Several more activities remain to take place, a children's programme on Sunday, 24th in the morning, with a puppet group and participation in a concert of Choirs on Sunday evening. The church is 75 years old and well respected, generally, in the district. On Saturday 16th January a big evangelistic show took place in Burgos entitled 'The Meaning of Christmas'. Due to particularly bad wintry weather this had to be postponed from the 9th at the last minute, but finally went on successfully. A 60 voice choir travelled from Zaragoza and the main speaker from Madrid, both cities over 200km away. 240 people attended, about 100 of these not previously linked to the churches. Some of these are people who made contact at the 2008 World Expo. Thanks to those who prayed. Please pray now for the follow up of these contacts. For the 5th time there was an evangelical Christmas Service televised on TVE2. It was broadcast on Christmas Eve at 18.30. 275,000 are believed to have watched the service. Now the broadcast is available on eMision. Operation Christmas Child has come to Spain. For the first time churches in Madrid and Barcelona have collected 4880 shoe boxes to be sent to children in Western Sahara with small Christmas presents and literature telling the Christmas story. Decision has coordinated the collection, which concluded on December 13th. Now all the parcels are on their way to the Tindouf refugee camps, in western Algeria. The fate of the western Saharan people has recently been highlighted by the long fast by Aminatou Haidar in the Canaries in demand of permission to return to her home in what is now Morocco. Protestante Digital is to get a major overhaul and update. The news service of the Spanish Evangelical Alliance expects to have had over 2 million visits in 2009 and from February '10 will become a daily updated medium. We wish them well. (To read the latest from PD scroll down.) Forum 2009, a gathering of people involved in IFES related GBU and daughter organisations, took place over the long weekend of December 5th to 8th. Students and their parents, graduates, professionals and many others involved in university and intellectual life gathered to consider the call of Christ on their lives. Over 500 met at El Escorial, close to Madrid. For the first time two tracks were held for those over and under 25. Many seminars were on offer, in addition to plenary sessions, the Bible studies led by Chris Wright. Spain, we're praying for you' is an annual prayer rally held in Madrid since 2008 and will again take place in 2010 - on 6th March between 7 and 9 p.m. This time it is hoped to hold the rally simultaneously in each region. It is hoped the Evangelical Churches' Councils will coordinate the event, which will gather people from across each region and denomination to pray for Spain. December 9th is Evangelical Social Action day. Among the organisations given an award is Betel, the ministry born out of WEC which began as a drug rehabilitation ministry and has spread both objectives and locations to cover 19 countries, helping more than 120,000 people over the past 25+ years. On 23rd November the evangelical Independent Civic Observatory published its annual report, concentrating on 'white slavery' in Spain, the exploitation of women in the sex trade. Future events
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For earlier news from the churches, click here! Finally, more news from the churches is always available at the Protestante Digital site.You can also listen to some reports and comment. This week on Protestante Digital: (29th January)Online newspaper Religión Digital awarded Unamuno 2009 prize (22nd) (15th) (8th January) (29th December) |