The DVD project is going well. We have gotten out over 16,000 DVD’s into 16,000 homes in Parla, Spain. This means that if there is an average of 3 people per home, 48,000 people have had the chance to hear and watch a clear presentation of the Gospel. We are excited about what God is doing through the DVD project. I will update more on that later.

For this post, I wanted to concentrate on our friend Estefan. Estefan has come 3 Sunday’s in a row. It is always nice to have visitors but when they come back it is even more exciting. Estefan came because he was out for a Sunday morning stroll and he passed by the building and saw the posters and books we had in the escaparate (window). He joined us for the service and has come back every Sunday since then. The amazing thing to me is that we haven’t even officially opened the doors of the church yet. The escaparate had only been up and visible for one week when he passed by. Up until about 3 or 4 weeks ago, the metal door that protects the window had been closed and it looked like the building wasn’t open. We haven’t made a big announcement, passed out flyers, etc. letting the community know that we are starting a church. We are still a little ways from being able to do that. We don’t even have a sign up yet. People don’t yet know what we are. You see, our purpose is two-fold. Not only are we starting a church, but we are trying to evangelize our city, our entire city in a systematic, organized fashion. What does that mean? That doesn’t mean that we are going to win every single person to Christ, however that would be nice. What it does mean is that we are going to give every person in our city a chance to hear the Gospel at least once, but if the Lord allows and we fulfill all that we have planned, we will give every person a chance to hear the Gospel over and over and over again in a very systematic fashion. I am not talking about standing in a populated area passing out tracts or randomly witnessing to people on the street. There is nothing wrong with that and we will do that, however, there is no way to measure that. But what I mean is getting the Gospel into every home by means of various ways in an organized fashion, so everyone has the chance to hear the Gospel. Our first attempt at this is being accomplished through the DVD project. We have done a lot, but much more needs to be done. So all that to say, so far we have been concentrating on seeding our entire city before we actually have our grand opening. We are also dealing with paperwork (which is a process in and of itself) and waiting for our last member of the team to arrive before we open officially. In the meantime, as we saturate the city, we have been systematically thinking through how we can make our building as appealing and informative as possible so people will be curious and stop in. We are offering free Bibles via our website www.estudialabiblia.com, Facebook.com and will soon be offering them via our escaparate (window) and possibly by way of Billboard or advertisement. Much groundwork is being laid so it amazes me that God is already bringing people.

That leads me back to Estefan. I ask that you pray for him. As I said before, he has been to 3 of our Sunday Morning Bible Studies in a row. My father-in-law and I had the privilege of taking him out for coffee yesterday and just simply “shooting the breeze.” We have “laid on pretty thick” the salvation message in our conversations before and after the Bible Studies so we decided just to go out and do a little “relationship building” with him. He, like so many others, is struggling in this economy without work. He tries to be a “good” person and even thanks “God” for many things, but he still lacks the repentance and faith that brings us into a true relationship with God. So please pray for him. Pray that God will draw him to Himself. Pray that Estefan will have a tender heart to the Lord’s conviction and that we will be able to be used of the Lord to help meet his need.

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

The months of April and May have been exciting for us as we have had the privilege of distributing 12,900 Gospel DVDʼs to homes here in the city of Parla. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning we meet at the church and then head out to a different area of the city and begin the process of putting these DVDʼs in the mailboxes in houses and apartments. Six of us have been participating in this endeavor and it is truly an exciting project. We have received a few requests for Bibles and we trust that we will have some solid contacts in the days and weeks ahead. We pray that as the people watch this DVD, their hearts will be touched by the message, they will see themselves as sinners and in need of a Savior. We still have over 35,000 DVDʼs that we will need to distribute in order to reach every home. We have duplicated over 5000 more and are in the process of doing another 5000. After that we will need more money in order to continue duplicating more DVDʼs. Remember that each DVD costs us .50 cents. If an individual or Sunday School class or church would like to send a love offering to help us duplicate more DVDʼs, please send to us at BIMI and designate for DVD project. For the past two Sundays we have had a man visit our services. He is of Romanian and Greek descent and has shown an interest in hearing the Gospel. Pray that Esteban will come to know Christ as his personal Savior. Also pray for our neighbors who are Colombian. I have had the opportunity to visit them several times and just recently gave them a Bible. Pray that they will come to the church and also come to know the Lord. We know that the process of sowing is necessary and it takes time and we pray that God will bring in the harvest in His time.

The second week of April I was on my way to Madrid to renew my resident visa, when my leg went down hard on the first step of the escalator at the train station. That simple motion caused me to tear the ligaments in the calf of my left leg. After two weeks of complete rest, several doctorʼs visits and 20 sessions of rehab I am beginning to be able to walk without crutches. The healing process is long and tedious, but praise the Lord that I am getting better. I have been able to witness to several doctors at rehab and that has been a real blessing. Last week when I visited the main doctor, he found that I have also developed an inguinal hernia. This was probably due to the stress from my accident the month before. I will have to have surgery to repair the hernia sometime before the end of the year. Please pray that all will go well.

Please pray for our son David and his family as they have set the date for their arrival in Spain for December 1. They have 80% of their support and are trusting the Lord to bring in the remaining 20% by that time. Pray that they will be able to obtain their resident visas without any complications. Also pray for Jeff and Deanna as they have been approved for adoption of a baby and are now waiting for the agency to call them about an available child. We want to thank each of you for your faithful support for our ministry and for your prayers. We need you to pray specifically that we will have boldness to share the Gospel with the lost around us. Spaniards are usually very closed when talking about spiritual matters, but we pray that God will open hearts that only He can open. May the Lord richly bless each of you as you serve our Lord in your area.

In His Service,

Julio and Andrea Velasquez

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends,

“Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men.” (Proverbs 22:29)

This has really become one of my motivations while on deputation. Although we know that God has called us to be missionaries and that where He guides, He provides we realize that this does not excuse us from working hard to reach our goals. When we pray for God to help us we are asking him to bless our efforts and our diligence. I cannot say that I have always “stood before Kings” in these past two years but I do realize that without a combination of prayer and good old fashioned work we cannot accomplish   anything of eternal value for God. Notice that I said prayer because I certainly can do nothing in my strength alone. So based on this philosophy we have set out to leave for Spain December 1st. During the month of April we were able to present our ministry in 14 different churches and 5 new churches took us on for support. Already this month we have been in 13 churches and 3 have partnered with us. So since our April prayerletter we have had 8 new churches take us on for support and we are now at 80% of our needed support. Deputation has been such a wonderful training experience for us. We desire to continue what we have learned here when we start the work in Spain. We have a plan to evangelize the city of Parla, Madrid. It is so exciting to see what God is already doing through our partners in ministry on the field.

Because the Lord has commanded us to preach the gospel to “every” creature we have developed a plan to reach the city where we will be starting our first church. In order to reach the entire country we need to evangelize Parla, Madrid first. One of the things that we have observed about Spain is that it is very difficult to visit people in their homes because most people live in apartments and they don’t open their door to strangers. We want to hit every home in Parla every year in a systematic way so we have started the gospel DVD project. We want to thank all of those that have had a part in helping us with purchasing these DVD’s. The Lord has already been using these in a mighty way. Although we are not in Spain our partners on the field have been busy with this     exciting project. As of now they have distributed 9,193 DVD’s and we know that many souls have had the opportunity to hear the gospel clearly presented in the privacy of their own homes. As most of you know the DVD ends with an invitation to visit our website, estudialabiblia.com (studythebible.com). Since my brother-in-law started the website we have had 780 people visit and over 5 people from the city have requested a free Bible. This brings us so much joy because we know that these DVD’s are very effective. Just wait until we have placed all 50,000 DVD’s that we plan to distribute in every home in Parla. Our next project will be to distribute literature and Bibles across the city. Very soon the church will officialy start and we are anticipating great things. As you can see we can’t wait to be on the ground in Spain. Only 6 more months to go!