WISE MEN STILL SEEK HIM

Prince and Gina’s Praise Report from Spain

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October - December 2009

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Dear Prayer Partners,

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We send our love and greetings from Cáceres, Spain, and we want to take this time to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! May Jesus be lifted up and worshipped as you celebrate Him this Christmas season.

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God is moving in the hearts and lives of people here, and every day we see the Holy Spirit at work! We wish you could be here to see how your prayers and support are having an impact on specific people’s lives!

Consolidation/Discipleship Cells

Gina has a consolidation cell that meets Saturday night that is growing and showing promise of multiplication. Her twelve new or fairly new Believers are eagerly receiving the foundational studies series I’ve written or put together in booklets.
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We have other cells during the week that focus on marriage, family and other areas of discipleship as well as the normal weekly Bible study that I hold on Wednesday evening.

Children and Youth Ministries

Our children and youth ministries have grown wonderfully in the last few months! It seems that children attract more children and youth attract more youth. We now have the largest elementary and Jr. high school ministry in the region of Extremadura.
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Several new families have come to the church and their children have absolutely loved the church and continue to bring their classmates and friends. There are even some adults that no longer come to our services, but their children arrive faithfully by themselves!

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Some of these children have been in the church for four or five years and are now 13 or 14 years old. They have begun to attract an exciting group of the school mates and are bringing them to the services. They are also forming their own worship group; several of these kids are students in the conservatory of music. In a couple of years we are going to have a rockin’ worship group in the church!

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To the left is a recent foto of Jonathan of on a student research project

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Above on the right is a recent foto of Jonathan and Ellen, another university student at the church
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Jesús Picón, also a Spaniard, has also recently come to Christ, but is another case all together. Delivered from a life of drug selling and abuse and pimping, Jesús has an insatiable hunger for Christ and his Word and is becoming an excellent disciple. Though he yet has many problems to resolve in his life, if I had a dozen like him and Jonathan I could invade Hell to populate heaven!

The Holy Spirit in Action

On one of my recent visits to the sick in the hospital, as I was praying for and ministering to a member of our congregations, I noticed that the other man in his room – in the bed next to his - had fixed his gaze on me. So I approached him and began to talk to him about the Saviour and the eternal state of his soul.
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We conversed briefly and I asked him a few pointed questions about his soul’s state and his life as lived before God. With tears in his eyes, he recognized his need for Christ and he asked for me to pray for him. I shared a bit more, we prayed and I left him with some Gospel literature.
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As I was leaving the hospital, I saw a family that had visited our church a few years before in the hospital. After greeting them I was informed that they were visiting a family member that was in the last hours of his life. It turned out that this relative was in the same room as the member of our congregation; the very same man I had just ministered to.
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Incredulously, they asked me just how I had had a conversation with him, for he had not been able to speak or communicate in any way for four days! I later learned that he died very shortly after my visit.

Theological Seminary

We just finished the semester finals at the theological seminary and the greatest challenge in giving the classes was trying to tighten the academic screws of the students. Some say that I can be a demanding teacher… and I think that’s a good thing. But at the seminary we’ve been trying to find the balance between requiring academic excellence and not discouraging those who might not be that fine tuned [academically] but have a heart to prepare themselves to serve God in a country the greatly needs laborers in her vineyard.
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There are some very good men and women that I have been blest to be able to invest in their lives with the gift of teaching that God has given me. Like I said in our last letter; the teaching is the “fun part”; the rest is normal teacher stuff: grading papers, reading reports, etc…

Please Keep Us in Your Prayers

Brothers and Sisters please know that without your earnest and constant prayer and support we would be severely crippled. For this reason we ask that, as enjoy God’s blessings during this special time with family, friends and church, that you please do not to forget your missionaries during the Christmas “Holy Days”.
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Please know that we do thank you so much for all of your prayers and your loving support of our ministry and may God continue to bless you for your much needed generosity! As always, you are a matchless BLESSING to our lives and the lives of countless others that you help us to reach for Christ! We love and deeply value you all!
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H.M.S.,
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Your Missionaries in Spain
Dr. & Mrs. Prince M. Parker

Prince and Gina’s Praise Report from Spain

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June - September 2009

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Dear Prayer Partners,
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Greetings in Jesus’ Name! Sorry, but I am a bit behind in getting out this praise report. I simply lost track of the time.

Consolidation/Discipleship Cells

Since our last communication we have been given over wholly to the task of consolidating the new Believers that God has brought us. We are doing this by way of what we call, “Consolidation Cells”. This is how we perform our very first steps in discipleship. These are small groups (and as much as possible, one-on-one) teaching sessions on the rudiments of the Christian life.

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This is an important time where we invest quality time in the lives of these precious souls and these cells are bringing us the true fruit of the Lord’s harvest. These new Believers will be our leaders and key people in the not-too-distant future.

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To the right and below are photos of a fantastic new couple; Jorge & Sonia and their daughters. Jorge was saved in our Men's Encounter and has since brought his wife to Christ. They have four lovely daughters, the oldest of which is now an active part of our group of preadolescence. All are really excited about their new lives in Christ, the church services and cell meetings.

Below is a photo of Freddy and Dabeyba. They are both lawyers that have been saved under our ministry here. They are now activly involved in all aspects and are progressing tremendously in our discipleship cells. They have a five year old daughter named Camilla (that can almost be seen in the photo).

Children’s Ministries

This is another area where we need a lot of ministry growth, but where we are also progressing. Being that the Lord has brought us so many young families, we have close to 40 children in our children’s church!

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This might sound like good news (and it is) but just about all of the people in our church are new Christians – many have come within the last two years! This means we really don’t have many experienced workers for our Children’s ministries. Also, many of those children are now entering into preadolescence. It is vital that we effectively minister to them as they enter into the minefield of their teenage years. Thank God that one of the older Believers has stepped forward to take part in this all important ministry.

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Our First Men’s Encounter (Retreat)

In July we had our first men’s encounter. A total of twenty men were in attendance. I let two men who I’ve been discipleing organize the event and saw, once again, just how great God really is. The retreat was an organizational disaster, but yet the Spirit of God worked so impressively that the six non-Christian men that we invited to come all had a powerful encounter with Christ. If God doesn’t build the house ... (Psalm 127:1). As is proper, these men are being duly consolidated and a few are beginning to bring forth really good fruit!

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One fairly new young man named Elmer, who, along with his wife, gave their lives to Christ close to two years ago and has finally begun to bring forth good fruit via our consolidation/discipleship cells, was present. In the middle of the first night we received an emergency phone call notifying us that his father unexpectedly died and he had to leave early. None the less, Sunday morning he was present in the service and during praise and worship took his son to the front of the church and began to dance in praise before the Lord! The truest worship is often found in the midst of our deepest pain.

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Above and to the right are photos taken at our first Men's Encounter.
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Baptisms 2009

In early September we celebrated another baptismal service and two new Believers, Yesenia and Claudia, completed their first stage of discipleship and were baptised. The river was so shallow that we had to kneel in the water so that I could immerse them. It’s beautiful to see people silently weeping as they are being baptised!

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Theological Seminary Professorate

I absolutely love teaching in a Bible school or Seminary context; but the burden and passion of my heart is church planting, discipleship and pastoring. I have been offered many teaching positions, but none have been compatible with what I’m called to do here in Cáceres… that is until now.
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The Assemblies of God of Spain has asked me to become a part of their teaching staff for the Centro Superior de Teología de las Asamblea de Dios* (CESTAD), extension courses. I love it, I get the best of both worlds; the courses are intense and taught in modules. I get to stay in Cáceres and the students come in every two weeks from all over Extremadura, for four hours of concentrated teaching, exams and further assignments.

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The teaching is the “fun part”; the rest is normal teacher stuff: grading papers, reading reports, etc…
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Below are photos of our most recent baptismal service... no leeches in the water this time; it was just knee deep shallow.

Please Keep Us in Your Prayers

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Brothers and Sisters, the Gospel is FREE, but getting it to people is not. We have many spiritual, situational and financial needs here on the mission field. We know that without your earnest and constant prayer support we would be severely crippled.

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August turned out, financially, to be the most difficult month we’ve seen in close to 20 years. In our 33 years on the field, we’ve had some months where our money has really been funny and our change extremely strange. So to say that August was a historically bad month financially is quite a statement. September wasn’t as notably horrific, but it was far from being recuperative. None-the-less, God is faithful and always has been! We simply mention our financial needs so that you might be kept aware of our needs and keep us in prayer.
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Please know that we do thank you so much for all of your prayers and your loving support of our ministry and may God continue to bless you for your much needed generosity! As always, you are a matchless BLESSING to our lives and the lives of countless others that you help us to reach for Christ! We love and deeply value you all!
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H.M.S.,
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Dr. & Mrs. Prince M. Parker

Your prayerful support is absolutely vital to the success and survival of our ministry. Thank you!

Prince and Gina’s Praise Report from Spain

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March - May 2009
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Dear Prayer Partners,

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Testimony of a New Believer

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One of the new, solid Believers in our congregation is Yesenia Weston (photo below). Her father is British and her mother is Spanish but she was born in Peru.

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Recently we proclaimed a day of fasting for healing and to combat the spirit of infirmity that had attacked members of our congregation and our loved ones. We set the fast for a day when one of our key sisters was to have a cancerous kidney removed. While there have been many marvellous testimonies about the work of the Holy Spirit in the congregation because of the fast, Yesenia’s testimony is of special interest.

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Before the day of the fast she discovered that an aunt, in Peru, was ill and had fallen into a coma. She had been trying to communicate her new found faith to her family, but to no avail. During the fast, she dedicated her time in prayer to the healing needs of the congregation and her family.
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In the middle of the night the overwhelming presence of God woke her up; a totally new experience for her. At first she was startled and didn’t know what it was, but she was at peace and wasn’t afraid. As The Presence increased, she understood that it was the Spirit of God, so she got up and continued to pray.
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Two days later she received a phone call from her family in Peru that her aunt had come out of her coma the day before and was totally alert and talking to everyone about God! She said that Yesenia had come to visit her, sat beside her and spoke to her about the love of God. She was told that God was going to heal her and that she should wake up. She woke up the next day as if from a normal night’s sleep; Healed!

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Our First Encounter (Retreat)

In April during the Easter Week vacation we were able to hold our first encounter… actually it was a combination regular encounter and marriage encounter. It was totally successful and has produced a lot of good fruit! To help us with this event I invited a couple of our disciples from San Diego, California; Pastors Hector and Ruth Esquer. Together with Gina and me, Hector and Ruth ministered marvellously and the new disciples of our congregation were moved to tears and repentance in areas that they hadn’t previously opened to Christ. Afterwards they stayed and ministered for two week in our regular church services.

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Ministry Travels

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In March Gina and I traveled to the USA to visit a couple of the churches that generously support our ministry. The highlight of the trip was the visit to our home church, Word of Faith Church, in Kennewick, Washington. We had the privilege to meet our new pastors, Ryan and Natalie Graves, and enjoy some of the richest and fruitful fellowship with them that we have had in a long time. It had been four long years since we had been there, so while there we shared in several services and special teaching sessions.
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Our brief stateside trip also took us to California where we spent a few days ministering in San Diego, in the Spanish speaking congregation of Pastor Hector Esquer as well as spent a bit of quality time with Pastor Ed Smith of Zoe Christian Fellowship of Whittier and Pastor Richard Stewart of New Creation Fellowship in Los Angeles.

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Cell Meetings

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We praise God for our cells are growing in number and size. Soon we will start our second School of Leaders and with far more experience and maturity it is clear that the congregation will produce far more fruit than the first school of leaders gave us.
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We praise God for another generation of new Believers that is being discipled in our cell groups is in preparation for baptism this summer.

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Musicians in the Church

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One of the things that tend to happen in a church planting situation is that the first generation of converts is not musicians. If they are, they are so new that they are not ready to be placed in a position of leadership such as a worship leader should be. So I usually end up being the preacher and worship leader for several years before a good team of competent psalmists can be raised up.

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There are some other very good musicians that come frequently to our services, but they're still heathens. They love our songs, like they way I play and enjoy our services, but I’ve made it clear that they have to get “good saved” in order to be a part of the worship group.

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In our congregation, we have raised up a worship group; but right now I am the only one that plays an instrument. Praise God that many of the families that have been saved now have their children in the conservatory of music and these kids are excited that one day they will be a part of the worship group to play for God’s glory!
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Having said this, I must mention a major need that I have. My guitars are over 25 years old and are in dire need of repairs and technical work. Quite frankly, even though I take excellent care of them, they’re falling apart! I’ve put a lot of miles on them. I desperately need some new guitars (I now have two – an Ovation acoustic and a Spanish classical). Please pray about helping me buy these much needed tools and help us continued our effective service on the mission field.

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Please Keep Us in Your Prayers

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We have many spiritual, situational and financial needs here on the mission field. We know that without your earnest and constant prayer support we would be severely crippled.
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Please know that we do thank you so much for all of your prayers and your loving support of our ministry and may God continue to bless you for your much needed generosity! As always, you are a matchless BLESSING to our lives and the lives of countless others that you help us to reach for Christ! We love and deeply value you all!

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H.M.S.,
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Dr. & Mrs. Prince M. Parker

Nov 08 - Feb 09 Praise Report

November 2008 - February 2009 Praise Report

Dear Prayer Partners,

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I’m so sorry that I am behind schedule in getting out my praise report. As normal, we are kept quite busy, but actually, for this, I just lost track of time.

Foundation of Sand

In our many years of the mission field, we have planted around twenty new churches. But this has been a different experience for us. First of all, normally, there are no other churches in the areas we select to plant a new work. Cáceres, though largely under evangelized, does have other churches near by. The second, and more directly influential distinctive factor, is the fact that this church is built on the ruins of a failed ministry prior to our coming.

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We took the church because pastors from all over the country requested for us to come and help repair the breach that had been made by a ghastly scandal (that cause bad waves almost nationwide in the media).
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Even though the church we have planted here is an entire new and unaffiliated work, seven or eight survivors from the old church are part of our church. They brought with them a great need for healing and almost thirty thousand dollars (ouch!) worth of debt incurred by the former pastor (who is now serving an eight year prison sentence – double ouch!). That ministry was built on a foundation of sand.
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We took responsibility of said debt in order to clear the testimony of the Gospel in this area. Because the debt wasn’t ours, we were able to negotiate it down to about twenty three thousand dollars (€17,000). Last August, we were able to completely liquidate that 17,000 euro debt and we were able to do it in just three years. This we did while keeping solvent on all of our own church’s financial obligations. This has really helped to restore the credibility of the testimony of the Gospel in our region of the country.

The Contrasting Maturity of the Congregation

I know of a surety that money is not the measure of all things, but just so that you can see what God has done, I share this: In January (2009), some friends of ours in Madrid, pastors of a church there, suffered a terrible tragedy. A fire in their flat took the life of their four year old daughter and destroyed every thing the owned.
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I gathered the elders, the secretary and treasurer of the church and asked them how we could help this family financially. I really had no idea of how we were doing financially (I figure that if we have problems, they’ll let me know). They told me that the very next day we could send them €1,000 and have absolutely no problems in fulfilling our monthly financial obligations (which total to about €2,500)! Praise God!
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Last November, I approached the elders of the church and requested that the congregation begin to take the first step in our financial support as their pastors. They gladly agreed and since then have begun to pay my Social Security taxes – a big help to us. Eventually, as the church grows and matures, they will begin to take a larger role in contribution to our financial support. This will be the first time ever that a church that we have planted on the mission field has taken aggressive steps to support us financially.
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With the church, we’ve come a long way and we’ve yet quite a way to go. But, none the less, this is the beginning of just one way that Christ is building His church on a foundation of rock.

Buying Church Property

I believe that even though the World’s in Crisis – We Are in Christ! So we have taken another step: In another recent reunion with my elders I talked to them about stewardship and the ultimate vanity of renting property for the church.

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As a result I talked to our landlord about selling the property we have been renting to us via a “rent with option to buy” contract. He has agreed to this and, after negotiation, offered to sale it to us for an excellent price.
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Our deal is that we will sign a contract to continue to pay an agreed amount of rent that will actually go towards a 30% down payment on the building. When we have the 30% paid (in about four years), then we go to the bank about a loan to buy the property. Today, the banks here won’t give you the time of day. But, by that time, whatever trauma the world banking systems are going through now should be resolved… if not; we’ve simply paid rent that we would be paying anyway. Not a bad deal.
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Our goal is to have the property bought 100% by money directly from the congregation with little or no foreign donations. Your support is to go completely just to keep us on the field.

Cell Meetings

The cell church format of our church continues to develop, howbeit slowly. But we are seeing growth in the people that we have been discipling. Some people that have been on the nebulous fringe are beginning to get more involved and serious with their faith. We are yet a long way off from being called a cell church, but we are growing.

Tent Making

The little business that we were miraculously able to start in December has slowly but surely making headway. Even though now it is only paying its own way and we’re not “making a living” off of it, it has been extremely profitable in giving us far greater exposure to and recognition by the general public.
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All of the Believers and the other pastors in the region are very happy that we have opened the business. With the exception of a few missionaries, every single one of them also has to hold a job to make ends meet. In all, it’s a blessing, and with all of the new people that are becoming our friends, it is proving to be well worth it. As of this date, we have close to 650 new card holding video club members. We now have the film “Bella” and will soon have “Fireproof”. It’s another way to get the Gospel out to the unreached!

Thank You

Please know that we do thank you so much for all of your prayers and your loving support of our ministry and may God continue to bless you for your much needed generosity! As always, you are a matchless BLESSING to our lives and the lives of countless others that you help us to reach for Christ! We love and deeply value you all!

H.M.S.,

Dr. & Mrs. Prince M. Parker