Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends,

It’s hard to believe that we have already been in Spain for one year! What’s curious is that we concluded the year almost the same way as we started it. When we arrived in Spain naturally we had to find a place in which to live and we found a house about seventeen minutes from the church. At that time our church had just started and so we had to ask some missionaries and members from other churches in Madrid to help us unloading the container that we brought from the States. Well, just about two weeks ago we moved into a new home right in Parla, Madrid. After living in Illescas for a year we realized that we needed to be closer to the people in order to be more effective in the ministry so we decided to make the move. We are so glad to be living in a home that is walking distance from the church. What blesses my heart the most is that this time when we needed help moving our belongings we didn't have to look elsewhere for assistance because seven men from our church volunteered for the job. This may seem like no big deal but to me it is indicative of the work that God has been doing here in Parla for the past year. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do next year. 

In October our church celebrated its first mission’s conference. The church really got excited about this event and the people were able to learn about the need for laborers all around the world. We invited two missionaries from Spain. They were able to share about the need for more churches to be established in our Jerusalem and Judea. We really wanted the people to know that God is able to use Spaniards as well to do a work for Him. Then we invited Tyler Masters who is a missionary to the Muslims. After he preached we gathered the men from our church so that they would be able to ask Tyler some questions. Two men asked the missionary about finding God’s will for your life and how to know if God has called you to preach. Please pray because our desire is to see leaders raised up and churches established in Spain and abroad. In order to accomplish those goals we need men. Through Tyler’s testimony our people were greatly challenged to reach the Muslim community in their midst. For the last Sunday of the conference we had my grandfather, Wayne Witherell (He has been a missionary in five different countries) share about what God has done through his life and ministry. We learned that it’s important to start well but even more important to end well. During the last two Sundays in October we had 49 and 48 in attendance.

Well, I want to share some exciting news! We found out in October that Favianna is expecting our third child. As I am writing this letter I realize that it’s time to update our letterhead since the family has grown considerably since it was designed. The baby will be born sometime during the end of May. Please pray for Favianna and for the baby that the pregnancy will go smoothly. I thank God for the family that He has given me. I pray that my children would grow up to love God more than anything. I’m excited about what is in store for their lives. Thank you once again for your faithful prayers and support. Merry Christmas!

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends, 

While on deputation, during a mission’s conference, the guest speaker at this particular church event had some great advice to offer all of the missionaries. I cherish what he said. He recommended that we get a copy of the ministry presentation that we gave at various churches and listen to it after we had been on the field for a while. The idea was, “Are you still doing what you said you would do?” I know that in order to see God move in Spain it’s going to take work, but we must never lose focus of the objective. I believe that Christ gave us the blueprint for world evangelism and we must always go back to the Master plan to measure our success in the ministry. I want to be used of God to make disciples and start churches. It seems like a simple goal but I must be intentional in my efforts for his Kingdom. 

I believe discipleship begins before the person is saved as we teach them the gospel and it continues until they reach maturity in Christ and are reproducing themselves in the lives of others. We have made it our goal to evangelize our city continually in order to make Christ known and begin the process of discipleship. Through these efforts the church has grown to a core group of thirty people. With this group we are now investing our lives in them and teaching them to impact their world for Christ. Please pray for two men that I am especially devoting time and energy in training. Their names are João Gonçalves (Portuguese) and Cesar Barbero (Spanish). I have been working with João since June and recently he has been going with me as I disciple Cesar. I make it a point to do as much as I can in the ministry with others so as to prepare them for the work of the ministry. Soon we will be starting a Bible study in the home of João. He is already praying and seeking out people that he can invite to these Bible studies. I would love to see a couple more Bible studies started sometime next year. These Bible studies will give more opportunities for evangelism and discipleship in the church.  

Please pray as we plan for our mass outreach projects for next year. We are going to try to systematically evangelize every household in our city at least twice a year. It was exciting as I listened to a recording of the ministry presentation that I gave while on deputation. I was talking about the gospel DVD project and how we hoped that one day God would use it to see souls saved. At that time when I was sharing our burden Paco and Veronica and Carlos and Olenka had not yet received a DVD in their home. Now they are faithful members and are growing in Christ. When I would talk about the “Bible in every home” project it was all a dream. Today, João and Raquel and Cesar Barbero are part of the church because they received a packet in their home. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do through future projects and through the testimony of the people from our church. Thank you so much for your prayers and faithful support. God Bless.

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends,

Great news! If you remember in our last letter we talked about a special service that we were going to have at our church in June. We called the service “Friend Day” and we really encouraged our people to invite their friends, family and co-workers to the service. We had really been preparing our people to focus their attention on the people that they already knew to start making an impact in their lives for Christ. We told them that maybe their friends and relatives would not come on that day but they would have at least started the process of introducing them to Christ. We, of course, led by example and were able to invite several people. We had some good quality invitations printed up and gave our people a month to invite their friends and pray for them. Two weeks before “Friend Day” we had the opportunity to preach a mini-series about how God used Andrew to bring his brother Peter to Christ and how Phillip did the same with Nathanael. Then we talked about how God values every individual soul and we used the example of how Phillip was sent to preach the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch. The result was that the people really got the point. We have a core group of 25 people in our church and that’s usually our weekly attendance. On “Friend Day” the Lord blessed us with 50 people in attendance. We had 25 new visitors on that day and they were all the friends, relatives and co-workers of our members. Although no one was saved that day many people were able to hear the gospel preached in a clear way. The best part of this approach is that our people will have the opportunity to follow-up with all those that visited because they are part of their lives already. Praise the Lord!

As we have mentioned already in previous letters our ministry philosophy is based on the model of our Lord Jesus Christ and how he invested His time on this earth primarily on 12 men. We understand that we cannot do the work by ourselves and we must involve them in the mission. In order to do that we must disciple and train those that are saved in our ministry so that they can become reproducing Christians. This also means that we cannot be a one-man band and have to begin to train and equip them to do the work. As you know the Andrews family are on furlough and someone had to take over some of  Jeff’s responsibilities.   Instead of having us do everything Jeff prepared Eduardo (The guy who heard about us through the ministry website) and He has been doing a fantastic job. What’s awesome is that Eduardo immediately got busy training Joao (He came as a result of the “Bible in every home” project) in case of an emergency. Joao, whose main job is to be the greeter and usher, went ahead and trained Paco to take his place in the event that he had to take over Eduardo’s job. Another way that we involve and train our people in the ministry is by having them evangelize the lost with us. If we have the opportunity to visit someone or deliver a Bible to someone we always take someone that we are training with us. We never want to be alone and we try to use everyday situations and turn them into training opportunities. We really appreciate your prayers and support. Please pray that God would continue to work in Spain. God Bless.

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends,

Sometimes as I walk through the streets of Parla I am reminded of my childhood here in Spain. I remember like it was yesterday all of the fun things I used to do as a kid in this incredible country. I remember our church in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). Although we had a small church many pastors, leaders and missionaries came out of that ministry. My friends, Alberto, Francisco (They are both married and on their way to serve God as missionaries in Seville, Spain) and I  would stand outside of our church many times and pass out gospel tracts. What is still recorded in my memory is how many of those tracts would end up on the floor. I remember how my Dad would offer a free Bible on the radio (he had a two- minute radio spot) to anyone who was interested. In five years only one person requested a Bible. So was it all in vain? Absolutely not.

It is very easy to get discouraged if we don’t see the results that we have envisioned. But, what has God commanded us to do? We know that we can’t save anyone. Ultimately a person must make a personal decision whether to accept or reject Christ. We will be successful in Spain regardless of how many people get saved if we have been obedient in making the gospel available to them in every way possible. Also, we will be successful when we diligently disciple and train those that are saved to reproduce themselves into other  Christians. All we can do is obey God and the results are in His hands. One thing that I have observed about Spain is that it desperately needs to be seeded with the gospel. That is why we have aggressively set out to saturate this city over and over again until everyone has had a chance. Then as the Lord blesses we hope to do the same in other cities. 
Because of the gospel DVD project and now the “Bible in every home” project thousands of people have had the opportunity to hear the gospel and some have been saved. We have a billboard in the entrance of the city. We have an ad in the newspaper. We have a gospel website. We have a church building with an attractive display that has allowed us to share the gospel and personally give Bibles to many people. We do all of these things because we want to make the gospel available to them. What thrills us is that more and more people know that we are here and that we want to teach them the Word of God. 

Last month a Bolivian lady named Primitva was saved. Also, we have a new couple that is visiting our church. They heard about us from one of the packets that we left in their mailbox! We have people visiting often. Not all of them stay but we are thrilled that they had the opportunity to hear the gospel.  Please pray for a very special service that we will be having June 12. We are encouraging our people to invite a friend or relative to church that day. We are excited about the possibility of more people hearing the gospel. Thank you once again for your generosity and prayers towards our ministry. 

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends, 

It wasn’t too long ago that I was sitting in my office in Atlanta imagining myself in Spain. I am so thankful that I am now exactly where God wants me to be. As a teenager I wanted to go back to Spain but never as a missionary. I had bought into the lie that the work could never really be done in this dark place. I wanted to go someplace were I could be a “successful” missionary. God began to work in my heart and gave me the desire and the vision to go back to my people and attempt great things for His glory. I’m not saying that it’s easy but God has not given up on Spain or Europe for that matter. He is still at work and I have seen it first-hand. In the short time that I have been here I have witnessed God do amazing things and I get goose bumps when I think of the possibilities for the future. He is able.

In February we have been busy getting things ready for our next project, “a Bible in every home.” In the container that I brought from the States we were able to load 50,000 John and Romans that were graciously given to us by Bearing Precious Seed in Ohio. We have placed a beautiful invitation to our church along with a gospel tract in every Bible and we plan to saturate the city once again with the gospel. As a direct result of our Gospel DVD project we have seen 3 people get saved. We are excited to see what God will do through this new endeavor.

Do you remember that I asked for you to pray for Paco’s wife? Last month during a Bible study in her home my parents were able to lead her to Christ. Also, Carlos and Olenka (the Peruvian couple that came as a result of the DVD) have been saved. What a blessing! So far everyone that has been saved has been immediately involved in a discipleship relationship. I say relationship, because we firmly believe that discipleship is much more than just a series of lessons, it’s developing a relationship with someone and helping them to grow and mature in the Lord. We accomplish that by following Christ’s example when he trained the twelve. We want to train people who will train others. In two weeks we will have three more people baptized. So far just about everyone that is faithfully attending the services heard the gospel and was saved in our church. That encourages and humbles us because we know that God is already using our church to impact Parla with the gospel. 

As you can see, your prayers and faithful support are not in vain. You have already had a part in souls that have turned from  darkness to light. Thank you for your generosity. We know that God is doing the work and to Him be the glory and praise! Pray for my neighbors, Carlos and Monica as well as Juan and Asuncion. We are developing a relationship with them and we hope to see them saved. May God richly bless you. 

I was looking through my prayer letters and I noticed that I had failed to post my previous letter on the website and send it via e-mail. The letter was sent regular mail. I am posting it now just so that everthing will be up to date. Tomorrow I will post this month's letter. Here is the January Letter:

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends, 

We made it!!! Actually, we have been in Spain now for a little over a month and we have so many exciting things to share with you. First, we want to thank God for answering our prayers and allowing us to arrive in Spain a couple days before our original   departure date. It was April of last year that we felt the Lord leading us to leave for the field in eight months. At that time we had 66% of our needed support. Exactly eight months later we were on a plane headed to Spain with 93% of our support. We are amazed at how our great God provided for our needs and we trust that the rest of our support will come in soon. When we arrived it was wonderful to be greeted by our team/family members. They were such a help and encouragement to us. They helped us with a place to stay while we waited for our container from the U.S. to arrive. They helped us get settled in and made the transition from the U.S to Spain very smooth. We are thankful for the opportunity to work as a team with them. It took us a while to get our      container out of port and so it wasn’t until two weeks ago that we finally moved into our new home. So here we are, all settled in and ready to see God do great things in Parla, Madrid for 2011.

I want to share a little about what God did through the ministry in Parla in 2010. In January, our team members found a place to rent and meet for services and so they got busy remodeling and getting it ready. Then in February, two converts got baptized. In March the building was finished and they started holding church services in the new location (before they were in my parent’s house). In April, they started the gospel DVD project with the goal to saturate the city. In May they finished the window that      displayed information at the front of the church and as a result a curious Romanian by the name of Stefan came into the church and heard the gospel for the first time. In June many contacts were made as a result of the website and DVD project, etc. In July, Sonia was saved and Stefan also made a profession of faith. In August, Eduardo was saved as a result of our evangelistic website. In the meantime all of the converts began growing in the Lord and receiving one on one discipleship time. Also, in the month of August we had a high day of 41 people in attendance. In September, we were thrilled to see a young Spaniard by the name of Paco come to the church because he had received a DVD in his home and was searching for the truth. Since then he has been saved and is    growing in the Lord. His wife has also visited the church. Please pray for her salvation. In October, the DVD project was almost complete. Thirty-five thousand households received the gospel message. The last Sunday of October three people were baptized. In November, another young married couple began to visit the church also as a result of the DVD project. It’s exciting to see souls saved but what encourages us the most is to see those same converts growing in the Lord and with a desire to serve. This year we will be passing out 50,000 John & Romans, gospel tracts and invitations to the church. We can’t wait to see what God will do in this new year. Thank you so much for your prayers and faithful support. Let’s look forward and attempt great thing for God.

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends, 

 “...Ye sent once and again unto my necessity (Phil. 4:16) As we near the end of our  deputation journey I want to praise God for His provision in our lives. In the midst of this  recession the Lord has used many of you to meet our needs. We have lacked nothing and our faith in God has been greatly strengthened. Since our last letter we have had three new churches partner with us and we are currently at 87% of our needed support! We have another 17 churches to visit before our departure. 

We have wonderful news! Last month we received a call from the Spanish Consulate and they informed us that my visa has been approved. We are still waiting for Favi’s visa as well as the kids’ but mine was certainly the most important. That day we purchased our tickets and so we have an official departure date. We are leaving for Spain November 29, 2010. 

Every day our team members inform us about what God is already doing in Spain and we can’t wait to join them. Since we started the gospel DVD project in Parla we have distributed 31,008 DVD’s. We know that people are watching them because several have called or  visited our ministry website after receiving the DVD’s in their homes. Many have requested free Bibles which has allowed our team to share the gospel with people that are already      interested. It gives us such joy to realize that thousands have been evangelized as a direct result of this project. Please pray for Paco. He is a Spaniard that showed up at the church  because he had received a DVD in his mailbox. He is searching for the truth and is hearing the gospel every week. Since August, an average of 20 people have been visiting the church each week. The last Sunday in October two new converts will be baptized. Continue praying for Eduardo. He is a young man that contacted my parents after searching on the internet the phrase, “What is the true religion?” That search led him to our gospel website. He visited the church and trusted Christ as his personal Savior. He is a sponge and is growing in the Lord every day.  

We only need approximately 15 more supporters and we will reach our goal. What’s     awesome is that God called us so we know He will provide. We are leaving for Spain in 47 days regardless of our level of support. It will be exciting to see how God provides. Would you consider partnering with us as we attempt great things for God in Spain? “Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that  may abound to your account.” (Phil 4:17) God Bless.

We are amazed at how God is providing for our Setup Fund. Last month we recieved gifts from two churches and two individuals. So what we still need to raise is as follows:

Container: $3,500.00 ($2,500.00 already raised. Praise the Lord!)

3 Airplane Tickets: We bought the Tickets! 

1 month of rent: $1,200.00 (We have found a home to rent and have put 2 months down already but we still need to pay one more month in advance when we arrive in Spain)

Vehicle:$6,500.00 ($500.00 already raised. Praise the Lord! We found out that cars are not as expensive as we first thought so we have reduced the total amount we need)

If you would like to be a part of helping us with our Setup Fund please send all gifts to:

David Velasquez

c/o M.W.B.M

P.O. Box 519

Braselton, GA 30517

Designated to:

006 Shipping/Travel

Dear Pastor, Congregation and Friends,

“For from you sounded out the word of the Lord...so that we need not to speak anything.” (1 Thessalonians 1:8) Most of you have noticed that our website is www.thatallmayknow.net. We have named our ministry in Spain thatallmayknow ministries. The reason that we have chosen this theme is because we believe that this is ultimately God’s heartbeat. Our team members have recently started a church in Parla, Madrid with the vision to aggressively and proactively find a way to reach every single household and individual in the city with the gospel message. Like the church at Thessalonica we want to make a profound impact for the honor and glory of God.

Although the church has not been officially inaugurated, many exciting things have   already taken place! Our team members have been unable to obtain the permit which allows them to place a church sign on the building. This has made it difficult to pass out invitations for the church and no official service has been held to jump-start the church. In spite of all of these setbacks we are thrilled to announce that the team in Spain has been able to personally present the gospel to several individuals and two souls have already been saved. Praise the Lord! Not only that, several people have visited the church and many have shown an interest to visit in the future. 23,329 gospel DVD's have been distributed making the gospel available to 69,987 people. Over 2,000 people every month have visited our evangelistic website and many have requested free Bibles. One person has already been baptized and very soon another will follow. We are thrilled about those that have been saved and baptized, but it is wonderful seeing those same people faithfully attend church services and begin the process of discipleship.

Since our last prayerletter we have had 7 new churches partner with us and we are currently at 85% of our needed support. Based on our average support we only need 18 more churches to take us on for support for us to reach our goal. We have already turned in our passports to the Spanish consulate. As soon as they return our passports with the stamped visas (this should take one more month) we will have 3 months maximum to leave the U.S. for Spain. We are still on track to leave for Spain December 1st. Since we already speak the    language fluently and we have a team in place on the field, as soon as we arrive in Spain we will be busy with what God has called us to do. Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.

As we mentioned in our last prayerletter we will be keeping you updated about our Setup Fund. We have great news! We received two special gifts towards the fund for $500.00 and $100.00. So what we still need to raise is as follows:

Container: $5,900.00 ($100.00 already raised. Praise the Lord!)

3 Airplane Tickets: $2,400.00

1 month of rent: $1,200.00 (We have found a home to rent and have put 2 months down already but we still need to pay one more month in advance when we arrive in Spain)

Vehicle: $9,500.00 ($500.00 already raised. Praise the Lord!)

If you would like to be a part of helping us with our Setup Fund please send all gifts to:

David Velasquez

c/o M.W.B.M

P.O. Box 519

Braselton, GA 30517

Designated to:

006 Shipping/Travel

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!

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him...” (Heb. 11:6) I was reminded of this passage of Scripture the other day during a mission’s conference that we were attending. I could hear myself repeating a phrase that I had uttered many times before but on this occasion something was very different. Someone from the church had asked me when we were planning on going to the field and I said, “Well, we would like to be on the field in one more year.” In that moment the Holy Spirit began convicting my heart of my lack of faith. I realized that it was time to make plans to leave for Spain this year. So after much prayer and planning we have set our departure date for December 1st, 2010. We have over one hundred churches to visit from now until December. We are thrilled to announce that since our last prayerletter we have had eight new churches take us on for support and we are currently at 71% of our needed support.

For this letter we have some very specific prayer requests that we want to share with you. Because we have set our departure date for eight months from now we have already begun the process to obtain our visas for Spain. Please pray that this process will go smoothly. It is very time-consuming and stressful at times but we trust God for the visas as well as the support. Favianna will have to go to Peru very soon to pick up some documents that we will need for the visa process. My wife is really excited because she will be able to say goodbye to her family in Peru before we go to Spain. Also, continue praying for our daughter. She has to go see the cardiologist in August. It would be such a blessing to know that she is improving and that the hole in her heart is closing on its own.

As we approach this final stage of our deputation we would like to thank all of you for taking the time to read our prayerletters and follow along with us in this amazing journey to Spain. Thank you for holding the ropes for us with your support and prayers. God has given us a big vision for Spain. We ask God every day to give us the privilege of being used of Him to shake up a nation with the gospel. We have a great job ahead of us but we know that if the task was impossible He wouldn’t have commanded us to accomplish it. Because this is such a special time in our lives we want to begin sending prayerletters every month until we arrive on the field. We want to allow you to see how God is going to answer our prayers in the next eight months. Based on the average support that we have been receiving we only need about 33 more churches to partner with us to reach Spain. We have visited over 200 churches since we started our deputation and we have another 100 yet to visit. We only need a small percentage of those 300 churches to join with us and we will reach our goal very quickly. Would you consider partnering with us to evangelize Spain in our generation? God Bless.

Reaching Spain for Christ,