People have been praying for Spain.  I could say this any time, but we've been particularly impacted in the last couple of weeks by the interest of people wanting to come to Spain to help us establish churches.  As we've hosted some of these and communicated with others by Email, we've been reminded again of the tremendous need in Spain.  And we've been affirmed in our call to Spain.

Here is a bit of what we've heard and experienced as we hosted our friends the McMillans and the Yauns.  The percentage of evangelical believers in Spain is still under one percent.  There are 377 towns and cities of more than 5000 that have no evangelical church.  There are more than 10 million Spaniards that do not even have a church in their town.  And in cities like Madrid, where there are churches, there are still huge sections of the city representing hundreds of thousands of people that have no church.  There are about 300 churches now in Madrid, which may sound like a lot.  Madrid has a population of 5 million.  If the churches average attendance of 100 per church (the average is actually much less), more than 99 percent of the population does not have a relationship with the body of Christ.

We visited one section of Madrid with Tony Vasquez of CAM.  In this section, Lavapies, there are 100 nationalities living within a few square blocks.  Many of these are people from North Africa and do not have the opportunity to hear the gospel in their closed home country.  As Tony said, the people in Northern Africa have open hearts but the door is closed to many countries.  In Spain the door is open to preach, but many Spaniards' hearts are closed.  It was exciting to share Tony's vision for reaching Arabs around Madrid.  In fact, as I met in a cafe in Madrid yesterday several people from different denominations were meeting to strategize about how to reach northern Africans in Madrid. 

There is a Latin connection in Spain.  Some friends from Venezuela, the Tablantes, have moved to the Madrid area and would love to be involved starting a church with the couples that visited.  In fact, Pete and Sharon McMillan helped start the church the Tablantes attended in Venezuela!  It's amazing the way God puts pieces together.  In addition to that, another couple have moved to Madrid from the McMillans church, though they are currently back in Venezuela, the Miramares would also love to help the McMillans start a church.  

Pray for the McMillans, for Micah and Kimberly Yaun who were also here last week, and for Scot and Lorna Muha who visit next week.  They also have visited Tenerife, an island that also belongs to Spain, and were impressed with ministry opportunities there.  They need God's direction about where He will want them to serve.

Luis Palau said that possibly God is going to reach Spain through immigrants.  I talked with a Spaniard today who says he believes God is working in a powerful way in Spain today, all around Spain, because of the economic crisis.  We don't wish trials for anyone, but many times a person has to go through tough times to recognize he needs God.  May it be, and may many churches be multiplied as a result.  God is doing great things in Spain!

Thanks for praying with us,

Mark, Kay and Ian