Arise, January / February 2005

We need to pray on without ceasing

Bulletin nº 18 (February 2005)

The Bulletin of the Prayer Network for the Evangelisation of Spain

"Jesus told his disciples a parable, concerning the need to pray without ceasing." ( Luke 18 )

Greeting, sorry and new beginning

Dear brethren, all of you who are praying for Spain using this prayer bulletin.

Greetings in the love of the Master, to you all! Firstly, we are sorry that there was no bulletin in January. But we are sure that this did not cause you to cease praying. There are never no topics to pray for, right?

We now want to encourage you to continue in prayer. We recognise, of course, that may made a commitment to pray for a specific 15 period each week until the end of the 6th Conference for the Evangelisation of Spain. This took place in January. Your commitment had already been extended for a year and perhaps some would now wish to leave it at that. On the other hand, we have seen some great answers to prayer, while so much remains to be done - those are encouragement both for what has been achieved and to keep on praying towards the completion of God's plans for Spain! We have therefore decided to continue publishing a monthly prayer bulletin. Dear brother or sister, the decision has been taken to allow everyone to pray when it best suits each person. We will then reactivate the 'prayer chain' when necessary. At that moment we will publish the requirements necessary to participate. If yoiu have a query concerning this don't hesitate to ask us through the contact form on this site: http://www.prayforspain.com/home/index14.html .

So here goes with a new round of requests:

Prayer requests for the start of 2005

6th Conference for the Evangelisation of Spain: report

Thank you so much for praying for this event. It should have a great impact on the evangelisation of this country. It took place between the 6th and 9th of January, with the title: 'You feed them!' The challenge was: we can't allow ourselves to miss the current opportunity to reach Spain with the Gospel. This is the time to act! Each speaker gave ua a new sense of the importance and urgency of the task. Prayer meetings helped the participants to respond with personal and corporative commitment. From the early morning devotional to the late night testimonies of work in Spain and or Spaniards on the mission fields abroad, we were greatly inspired to new faith and hope in the work of evangelisation and mission. as we departed there was a feeling that we can do it, we can feed them. Pray for the new board of the Conference, that they may be able to lead and support evangelistic outreach in our cities, such as the Gospel is Life tour recently in Girona. The next major event is to be Festi-Madrid, with Luis Palau, during the last week of June.

Other topics:

-Bill on homosexual 'marriage': this has already been in our bulletins. The Cabinet, in its last meeting of 2004, approved the bill for presentation in parliament. It could go before the Congress any moment, so we need to be praying that it would not get passed. already many Spanish evangelicals, including the Evangelical Council of Extremadura, have written in to their deputies concerning it. The Catholic church has also been campaigning against it. A petition is hoping to collect half a million signatures.

- 11 tol 15 Feb. Pocket Testament League is holding several evangelistic conferences in Malaga and Melilla. The request, from Esther Rodriguez, national coordinator: 'Pray that we will see many people born again'

- 13 Feb El Salvador church (Valencia): open airs

- 19 Feb IFES-related GBU holds a concert in Madrid to raise funds for the outreach in the universities, with Sylvia Santoro and Keltoi Patris.

- Operation Transit. Follow-up of summer outreach contacts. This is a ministry reaching out to people in transit between Europe and Africa, as they pass through our ports. Their most recent newsletter asks us to pray for the following:
1- For the follow-up efforts now being undertaken to stay in touch with those people who came to know Jesus and that they can be brought together in groups.
2- This month we are also holding training courses for those who will be leading teams in the future in different ports.
3- For recruitment of more workers and for the distribution planned for the coming summer. May the Lord choose those who will come and where they should go; also that they would make a longer-term commitment.. Pray that there would be a good number of young Spaniards among them.

Here are a couple of examples of answered prayer from OT to encourage us to keep on praying!

1- A worker in North Africa tells us: 'Every member of our team has met at least one person who has a Bible from the port distributions.
2-Another worker in the same country tells us of a man who found a cassette tape in the street, picked it up and on listening to it came to Christ. He had already been interested in the gospel, but had never met anyone who could explain it. Once converted, he met a foreigner who could introduce him to a growth group This is God's time for North Africa! Keep praying with the assurance that the Lord will do wonders. No other people are so hungry for God as the moslems!

-Gospel is Life in Girona: You know that over 1000 people asked for the DVD of the Jesus film. Pray for those following up these contacts and for many to come to Christ.

- 3- 5 March. A prayer encounter will take place in Córdoba on the subject 'The advance of Islam in Spain'. Many thousands are arriving every year from the moslem world to work here, but the 'advance' is not only that! Prayer is necessary so as to know how to react and how to share the Lord's love with these people.

Evangelistic resources and initiatives

-The Centre for Reformation Studies, CER led by the most extraordinary historian Gabino Fernández, has as its aim to help us to get to know, understand and admire our evangelical roots and give our ancestors their due recognition. This is not just an exercise for Evangelicals, but rather a project to get the entirety of Spanish society, particularly local and national authorities, to recognise the contribution of the Spanish reformers to our culture. It aims to demonstrate the significance of the Spanish reformers and Spanish Protestantism to our history, at the same time placing the Scriptures in their due position of significance. Pray for the programme of the CER on Canal Sur on 22nd February. Likewise, pray for the regional history tour held 26th to 28th February covering the city of Toledo and the lands of Don Quijote.

-Alpha courses and the DVD. A special edition is now available in Spanish for young people. It includes video sections and powerpoint sessions for each meeting, as well as teaching outlines, etc.. Pray for its widespread use across the country. There are also a CD of worship music and a training video available in Spanish.

Thank you once again for praying for Spain! If you have any queries or contributions, don't hesitate to get in touch! http://www.prayforspain.com/home/index14.html

Old Arise bulletins

There is now an Arise archive with past numbers of the bulletin for your interest.

To access it: http://www.prayforspain.com/arise/index30.html

If you want to read our newsletters in the original Spanish, you can read this one here: http://www.prayforspain.com/projects/index13.html. As for previous numbers, they are now available on the sister site http://www.confevan.org/oracion

Spanish sister site: www.confevan.org

As from mid-December, our Spanish language sister site http://www.confevan.org is up and running. This is the official site of the Spanish Evangelists' Conference and shares the same webmaster and Carrelet web technology.