That All May Know Ministries Blog

Thanks for your prayers.  Julio and Andrea Velasquez landed in Madrid at 8am this morning.  They are excited to be here but extremely tired.  They weren't able to sleep on the plane so they have basically been awake since yesterday morning.  The trick is to try to stay awake until 8pm or 9pm Spain time.  That will help get your body adjusted to the time change sooner.  We will be busy over the next few weeks helping them get settled in, doing paperwork,finding an apartment, etc.  We are looking forward to starting our work together. 

Today, during some really cold and rainy weather, Julio, Andrea, David, Favi and about 9 or 10 people from our home church, including our Pastor, packed a 40ft. container with furniture, personal items, boxes, etc. belonging to us and my in-laws.  They had 2 hours to get everything packed into the container and it is now on it's way to be shipped over here to Spain.  The container is scheduled to arrive here in about 3 weeks.  It will be dropped off at our door step and we will have another 2 hours to unload it.  I am so excited because in the container are several boxes of Kraft Macaroni and cheese that I will be enjoying.  Yes, they have macaroni and cheese here, but there is nothing like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!

 

 

 

 

 

God has been truly blessing in our lives. We are excited about the ministry here and our future ministry as well.  Listen to our lastest ministry update and find out details about our team members, the people who have been saved and baptized in recent months, as well as some future plans that we have for starting our church.  Enjoy!

Click here to listen to our audio update.

Here is a post from Deanna's personal blog that I wanted to share:

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just want to brag a little on my son and praise the Lord for what He is doing in his heart. Last week after school, he said, "Mommy, today I was talking with some of my friends in school about God and my friend Pau told me that he didn't believe in God. He said that he believes in reincarnation (these kids are 6!). Then my other friend, Alejandro said that he believed in God but when I was explaining to him about trusting in Jesus as your Saviour to go to Heaven, he said he didn't understand. And my other friend Juanjo said that his Daddy believed in God." At this point I gave him a big hug and told him I was so proud of him for telling his friends about Jesus. I told him we would have to pray that the Lord would work in their hearts. A few moments later he said, "I thought I had to wait until I was bigger to tell others about Jesus, because I was too scared, but I did it!!"

The picture above is of Aaron with his friend Pau. Please pray for his mother, Maribel, as the Lord is allowing me to build a friendship with her. The other day she invited me over for a cup of coffee and when she asked about why we had come to Spain, I had a chance to explain a little of why we are here. Please pray that this door of friendship would stay open, so that I would continue to have more opportunities to share Christ with her. Here is a picture of Aaron with his teacher, Marta (in the pink sweater holding Aaron's hand) and his friend Juanjo.

Then a couple of days ago he came home from school and told me about a conversation he had with his teacher at school...

Aaron: Do you know who created the trees and the animals?

Marta (his teacher): Well, they just reproduced themselves. No one created them.

Aaron: I know who created everything.

Marta: oh yeah? Who? Aaron: God did!! A long time ago He created everything! It says so in the Bible!

At this point, Aaron told me, "Mommy, she acted like she really didn't believe me! I think she believes in evolution! I told him that she probably does and then Aaron said, "Yeah well, you can't make a monkey out of me!!" jeje Then he told me that he was sad that his teacher didn't believe in God. I am so grateful that he has a tender heart for the Lord and a desire to tell others about Him. I pray that he never loses that desire, but that it will only grow."

I just got back from waiting in line for over 3 ½ hours.  Yes, I was doing paperwork.  Paperwork is one of the dreaded “missionary” things that comes with the territory.  For us, it has been a really difficult process, however, we are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  

Today, I had to get my fingerprints done which is the final stage before I receive my residence card.  It was a pretty easy process except for waiting in line for over 3 ½ hours.  But, I am back in our piso (apartment) and I have a little piece of paper that says to come back in 40 days to pick up my card.  Deanna and Aaron have the same piece of paper and will be able to pick theirs up in about 2 weeks.  What a relief to have this done.  Just in time to start helping Deanna’s parents with their paperwork.  They will be arriving in 9 days.  

I tried to get some pictures of how long the lines were, but these pictures don’t give the true reality of the amount of people that were there.  The crazy thing is, it is like this everyday.  There are so many immigrants in this country.  

Below are two pictures.  The first picture is of the building that everyone is waiting to get into in order to do their fingerprints.  Once you get in that building, if goes fairly quckily.  You only have around 20 or 30 people in front of you.  

The picture below it is the line waiting to get into the building.  What you don't see are the people inside the white tent to the left.  The line you see are people waiting to be filed throught the white tent.  There are probably 100 to 150 people inside that tent.  Also, if you notice the metal roof in the back ground, there are more people wating there to get into the line that files through the tent.  There are probably 50 or so people back there.  AND THEN, I couldn't get a picture of it, but to the right outside of the gate, there is a line of people as far back as a football field and a half (150 yards), waiting to get inside the gate to wait in line again.  It is pretty depressing when you first arrive and see the gobs of people.  Luckily, because of my amazing charm, wit, and good looks (yeah right)  :)  I was able to bypass the line outside the gate and get right in to wait in the line inside for 3 1/2 hours.   Just think if I had to wait in the line outside too?  I would still be there.  :)  

 

 

Trusting God in Trying Times

Dear Pastor, congregation and friends,

 

How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. (2 Corinthians 8:2)

 

 

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t never ceases to amaze me how in moments of necessity and difficulty I tend to draw nearer to God and I realize my total and complete dependence on Him. This has certainly been the case with many of the churches that we have visited in recent months. In a time when all we hear is doom and gloom about the financial state of our country and when many people are losing their jobs we have seen churches grow in their faith and confidence in God. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for all of the churches that have been faithfully supporting us while on deputation. We would like to inform our supporters as well as those who plan to support us in the near future that we are working as hard as we can to raise our support to be in Spain in 2010 and we will continue to work while in Spain to see souls saved, churches established and leaders trained. We will serve Him until he takes us home. Thank you for your liberality in this time of recession!

 

 

 

This month I had the wonderful blessing of being ordained at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. The reason we chose this month is because my parents are leaving for the field March 31st and they wanted to be in my ordination. During the ordination I had the privilege of hearing my father present the charge and my pastor, Lamar Rackley, preach the message. I was blessed to have my uncle, Lee Lawrence, in the ordination council. He used to be a missionary to Spain and is now the assistant pastor at my church. I was also able to have my other uncle, Carlos Arce, who is a missionary to Venezuela. Both of these men have known me from when I was young and they have had a great influence in my life. One of the pastors that came was Alberto Puente. He was saved under my father’s ministry in Spain and is now serving as the Spanish pastor at Madison Baptist Church. As he placed his hands on my head he prayed that God would use me in Spain to see souls saved. My heart was touched as I remembered how he was saved and his life changed by the power of the gospel and now he was praying that God would use me to reach his people. Thank you once again for your prayers and generosity towards our family. God Bless.

Last week, I posted a blog about the Baptism Service that we had.  You can view the post here if you missed it. 

I was finally able to finish editing the video.  I have put up the video on our church website here in Spain.  The video is able to be viewed in segments or you may view the entire service.  It is in Spanish but I know you will still get a blessing out of it.  You can view the videos here. 

It has been a while since I have commented on the situation between the Dollar and Euro.  Since I have been in Spain, we have seen a range from 1.24 to 1.60 against the Euro.  So what does all this mean and how does this affect the missionaries in Europe.   

Every missionary who works outside of the US in a country that doesn’t use the Dollar has to exchange their money into the countries currency.  Each country has an exchange rate of how many dollars it takes to exchange into the currency of that country.  There are places where you will get more currency for the dollar and there are places where you get less currency for the dollar.   

In our case, we exchange dollars into Euros.  As I write this post, the exchange is 1 Euro to 1.30 dollars.  So what does that mean?  Also, one of the main factors when looking at currency exchange is also the purchasing power of the currency and how it compares to the your domestic currency.  For example, how does the cost of milk here in Spain compare to the cost of milk in the States.  If we were to make the currency even 1 Euro for 1 Dollar, then we would see that it is more expensive to buy milk here then it is in the States.  Basically, things cost more here then they do in the States.  So when we add an exchange to that, the expense is even greater.  So what does it mean to have an exchange of 1 Euro to 1.30 Dollars?  

The easiest way I can think of how to explain it is like this:

When I pull out 100 Euros, it cost me $130.  Imagine that you were going to pull out $100 out of an ATM.  It would be like the ATM charging you a $30 fee, just to pull out $100.  So for every $100 you pull out, you get charged a $30 fee; you loose $30 and only get $100 to spend.  So multiply that by 10.  If you were to pull out 1000 Euro, it would cost you $1,300.  So you would be charged $300 as a fee to pull out $1,000.  That adds up each month.  

To be honest, it has been a relief to only have to exchange at 1.30.  We were here at it’s all time high of 1.60.  So for every 100 that we pulled out, we were basically charged a $60 fee.  Pretty wild.  

In recent months, we have seen a strong comeback posed by the dollar.  Many analysts believe the dollar will continue to strengthen and even come even with the Euro.  As always, we will trust in the Lord and not in the dollar and we will pray that God will sustain us and keep us on the field to do a work for Him!  

"But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.  Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."  - Matt. 9:36-38

I remember preaching from this portion of scripture while I was on deputation.  I remember thinking and feeling like I had a tremendous burden for the people of Spain.  Each time I would stand to present the need of Spain, the burden would grow.  However, I have realized that the burden we relay as missionaries on deputation fails in comparison to the burden that we develop when we begin working with the people.  That burden that we have while on deputation is more of a burden of the statistics, a number…without a name.   It is a necessary burden that helps drive us to where we need to be, however, the true burden is realized when we finally arrive on the field and begin dealing with the people…face to face.  We begin to learn that the statistics that we threw around while travelling from State to State on deputation actually have names, faces, feelings, needs, and many of them are hurting inside and need a Savior, a Comforter.  

Jesus is Compassion by every sense of the word.  However, we see this truth as Jesus stands before the people, the multitudes…face to face, and is “moved with compassion.”  Seeing and dealing with the people as they are, hurting, reminds us of the reason we are here.  

A lady in our church who has been saved and recently baptized that has 2 precious children is married to a Spaniard who does not have a relationship with the Lord and really expresses no desire to have one.  She was living with him and the 2 children before she was saved and since her salvation, has wanted to make things right by getting married.  She is trying to be a godly wife to her lost husband; however, it is hard, very hard, to portray the biblical principles of a wife when your husband has no desire for the things of God.  However, she believes the Word of God that a godly wife can change the heart of a husband and even help bring him to salvation.  She struggles each day to raise her precious children in a home where daddy is getting drunk every week.  She weeps each week, asking for prayer and strength.  

Another couple, who have been growing and serving the Lord, who have 2 precious children, are dealing with issues in their marriage.  The wife raises her hand for prayer, only making it through half the prayer request before breaking down with tears.   

This Thursday, Spain will celebrate Father’s Day so the church celebrated Father’s Day by having the children’s Sunday School classes make a special card for their fathers.  One young boy started crying while making the card and said, “I have no daddy to give this to.”  His daddy died 2 years ago, leaving a single mother with 2 young boys.  

It is hard, it is tough, you hurt because they hurt.  Then, you walk out in the streets and you look at the people…face to face, most of which don’t have a true relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and you realize their fate, their future.  They need a Savior.  They need the Lord.  However, they reject your invitation, they reject the Word of God.  You hurt for them and your compassion grows.  You get a glimpse of the compassion that Jesus had as he looked on the multitudes and you realize the urgency of the prayer and request that he made:

“Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."

Would you pray with me that God would send more laborers into His harvest?   

When going to another country, driving is always a fun experience.  Every country is different when it comes to driving.  In Venezuela, driving was absolutely crazy.  You really had to be a defensive driver there.  You never knew what the other person was going to do.  From what the Venezuelans told me while I was there, pretty much after 6pm, all rules were off.  Red lights and stop signs meant nothing.

Here in Spain, the driving is not that crazy.  In fact, it is much like what we are use to in the States.  However, there are differences.  When we first came, one of the main differences were all the round abouts.  Instead of stop signs, they use round abouts.  Basically, you yield to the traffic in the round abouts and you make your move when there is an opening.  Most of the time, there is no problem, however, if there is a lot of traffic, it can get a little crazy.

Something else that we have had to get use to is double parking.  Double parking is allowed and a normal habit here in Spain.  It is so common, that even on major roads, you will see cars parked, with their hazard lights on, taking up the right lane of a major road.  It is something that you always have to watch for.  If you aren't paying attention, you could rear end someone.

Parallel parking is something that we have had to learn how to do (and still learng how to do).  I rememeber when I took my driving test, they had removed parallel parking from the exam.  But here, it is something you do just about everyday.

There are very few automatic transmission cars here.  You can find them, but they are far and few between.  So everyone that comes will have to learn how to drive a stick shift.  In the States, it is flip flopped.  Stick shift cars are hard to find in the States anymore.  Thankfully I learned on a stick shift, however, Deanna had to learn how to drive one when we first came here.  She is doing very well with it now.

Other then that, there may be a few more little differences, but most things are just as we know them from the States.  At least we aren't like the missionaries in England and Ireland who have to learn how to drive on the left side of the road with the stearing wheel on the right side of the car.  :)