Friday, December 18, 2009

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