Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

As we begin our 31st year serving as missionaries, we have to say that each year gets sweeter and more exciting. We are not tired, but energized as we see people come to Christ, grow in the Lord and desire to serve Him. We continually receive good news from people who have been saved in our first ministry here in Spain and also those saved in Venezuela and we praise God for how He continues His work in those places.

The work here in Parla is growing numerically and spiritually. In March we were able to baptize 5 converts. In April we began distributing packets of John and Romans along with a Gospel tract and an invitation to our church. The following Sunday a young couple came to the church and said that they were saved, but were praying that God would show them a good church where they could worship and serve God. Their names are Joao and Raquel Goncalves. Joao is from Portugal and his wife from Brazil and they have not stopped attending the services. They are now taking discipleship classes and getting involved in every ministry in the church. Recently Paco and Eduardo finished their discipleship classes and their wives will be finishing soon.

We have been preaching the last few Sundays on discipleship, reaching souls for Christ and that each person needs to be involved in the Lordʼs work. Last Sunday was very special to us because after the service we had lunch at the church and then everyone stayed to help staple our Bible packets together in order to pass them out into the houses in Parla. Everyone participated. They were at the church for 6 hours working with joy in their hearts and sharing sweet fellowship. It was a blessed time for us to see how much these new believers have grown in the Lord! One year ago there were 7 people in the church and now there are 24! God has done great things!

Every day we make sure that someone is at the church during the day so that if anyone wants to know more about the Bible or our church we are there for them. Every day somebody comes into the church with questions and we are able to share the Gospel with them. Please pray for some of these people, Piedad, Blanca, Susana and Francisco. Also continue praying for the salvation of Javier who I visit in the prison once a month. In April and May we were able to distribute 27,000 Gospel packets into the homes of Parla. Lord willing we will finish the remaining 13,000 this month. Pray that we will see fruit from this outreach. Thank you for your many prayers and financial support. We praise God for you very day. May each of us keep on working for Christ till He comes!

In His Service,

Julio and Andrea Velasquez

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

What a joy it is for us to again communicate with you, our faithful supporters and prayer warriors. We are overwhelmed by your faithfulness and generosity even during these difficult economic times. May the Lord richly bless each of you as you labor for our Lord in your specific churches. We appreciate everything you do for us and never take you for granted.

We have finally been able to finish distributing the Gospel DVDs in every home in Parla! In all we distributed 38,883 DVDs. We have about 5000 DVDs left that we are going to distribute in the town nearest to Parla. We appreciate all the monetary gifts given to fund this project. In our last newsletter we mentioned two families who had come to church because they received the DVD. We are so excited to tell you that both couples are now saved and being discipled. Paco and Veronica are our first complete Spanish family to be saved! Amen! Carlos and Olenka (a young peruvian couple) are also saved! Lord willing we will be having our 3rd baptismal service on March 27 so that these new converts can take this step of obedience.

We also asked you to pray for the salvation of Angie, Eduardoʼs wife. Our daughter, Deanna, began having Bible classes with her and Angie told her that she had been saved years ago in her home country of Paraguay, but had gotten away from the Lord. She now wants to follow the Lord along with her husband. Please continue praying for her spiritual growth.

What a blessing it is each Sunday for us to go to church and see these new believers come, with a sincere hunger for the Word of God. Each one of them is being discipled and each one is taking steps towards spiritual maturity. We are amazed at what God is doing in their lives. Thank you so much for praying for them.

Our next outreach project is to distribute books of John and Romans along with an invitation to our church and a good quality Gospel tract, to every home in Parla. We are already meeting every Monday to staple these packets together. Very soon we will begin distributing them. Please pray that as people receive these packets, they will read them and that we will be able to to reach some of them for Christ. We will continue trying every method possible so that more people will come to know our Lord as their Savior.

We have two more prayer requests. We have mentioned Sonia before. She was saved several months ago and baptized. She is not able to come to church every Sunday because of her job, but whenever she is free on Sundays, she is in church. Please pray for her son, Javier, who is serving a 3 year sentence in a prison in Aranjuez. I was able to go to the prison this past Saturday to get to know him and begin a friendship in order to share the Gospel with him. Please pray for his salvation. Also pray for a lady named Doris, who has come twice to the church, who has serious physical problems, but her main need right now is to know Christ. Keep on praying for us and the ministry here in Spain. God is working and we are excited!

In His Service,

Julio and Andrea Velasquez

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

Our team is finally together in Spain! What a blessing! On November 30, David and Favianna arrived here with their children! Thank you so much for praying for them! Now we are ready to work together in reaching souls for Christ here in Spain.

As we approach Christmas we are planning several activities, one of which is a Christmas program at the church on the 19th of December. Please pray that many people will attend
including some lost families that we have contacted over the past few months. Also pray for me (Julio) as I will be having hernia surgery on the 17th of December in Madrid. Pray that I will recover quickly so that I can get busy in the ministry again.

As we look back on this year 2010, we are thrilled at what God has done through us here. We were able to rent a building for our church, fix it up and then begin services back in March. We were able to distribute over 35,000 Gospel DVDs throughout the city of Parla. We were able to put up a billboard with an advertisement about the DVD and also put ads in a local newspaper. Through these outreach endeavors we have seen many come to our church, call us by phone and contact us by way of the internet. We have been able to baptize 5 converts, 3 of which were baptized just last month. Pray for the families of these new converts. Stefan, since his conversion, has suffered rejection from his wife and family as well as not being able to find a job. Pray for him that God will give him the courage to keep on going for Christ. Pray that his wife, Florina will get saved soon. Eduardo got saved and baptized, but his wife is not saved yet. Pray for Angie that she will be convicted of her sins and come to Christ. Sonia was saved and recently baptized and she desperately needs a new job that will allow her to attend church services on Sundays. Paco and his wife Veronica have been attending church for over 2 months now, after receiving the DVD in their home. Pray that they will come to Christ. There is a new couple, Carlos and Olenka, who also received a DVD in their home and have begun coming to our services. They really seem interested and we pray that they also will come to the Lord.

We recently received a call from a man in the Canary Islands who found our website and was interested in growing in the Lord. He is a Christian but does not have a church where he can attend. He along with several of his friends have been meeting on Sunday mornings and watching our church services via the internet. Pray for this group that they will grow in the Lord and in the future be able to form a local church.

As we approach the new year, we have plans to distribute portions of the Bible to every home in Parla. We also want to continue discipling new converts and we would like to produce another DVD presenting the Gospel in a clear way. Our desire is to serve our Lord and reach the lost here in Parla, throughout Spain and then to other parts of the world. Thank you so much for your prayers and faithful monthly support. We would like to thank those of you who helped with the special DVD project and for the many emails and letters we have received with words of encouragement. May the Lord richly bless each of you as you serve our Lord there in your city.

In His Service,
Julio and Andrea Velasquez

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,
What a blessing it is to serve our Lord Jesus Christ!  Since our last newsletter we have had many answers to prayer in our personal lives and also in the ministry.  Both of us have been able to renew our resident visas for another two years.  Amen!  My leg has also healed completely and I am able to walk well and do the ministry.

We asked prayer for Stefan to come to know Christ as His personal Savior, and about 6 weeks ago he came into church on Sunday morning and said he had some exciting news for us.  He then proceeded to tell us how on that previous Monday he had repented of his sins and trusted in Christ alone to save him.  Amen!    Since that time we have begun weekly discipleship classes with him, have visited him in his home and have seen his wife and two sons visit the church.  Please pray for all of his family as Stefan desires for them to be saved!   
Update on our DVD project!

We have now distributed 23,000 DVDs.  This means that potentially  69,000 people have had the opportunity to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel.  We have been duplicating more DVD’s over the past few weeks and by the middle of September we will be ready to continue distributing DVDs to the rest of the homes in Parla. Pray for the funds necessary to finish this project.  We have received love offerings from 2 of our churches these past two months and we are truly appreciative.  Click here to see the video update on our DVD project.

We have also placed a very large billboard at the entrance of our city with a message about the DVD, asking people if they have seen it and advertising our website.  We will change this billboard approximately every three months with something thought-provoking for those seeking for the truth.   We have  recently purchased space in our city’s monthly newspaper.  We will have one-fourth of a page to write whatever we want every month.  This paper is distributed free of charge to 30,000 people in our city.  Pray for new contacts through this outreach.  We want to continue sowing the seed of the Word of God in every home in Parla.  Recently a young man contacted us, requesting a free Bible.  His name is Eduardo and he had seen our website and was interested in what he had read.  We were able to visit him in his home and even though he lives one hour away from our city, he came to the service last Sunday.  Praise the Lord he trusted  Christ as his personal Savior this week!  He is so excited about growing in the Lord. We will begin discipleship classes with him next week.    Last Sunday we had a very special service in our church with an emphasis on the Family.  We sent invitations to all the contacts we have made recently.  We were so thrilled Sunday morning when 41 people attended the service.  We were filled to capacity.  Amen!  Now, we understand that people will come to special services and  maybe not come again, but we now have more people to pray for, visit, and encourage to find out the truth from God’s Word.  The seed has been planted, we are watering and we know that in God’s time, there will be a harvest of souls. 
Continue praying for David and Favianna as they have submitted their papers for obtaining visas to come to Spain and are waiting for approval.  They are still planning on coming here on the 1st of December.  We are excited about having all the team here in Spain to serve our Lord together.  Thank you again for your faithful prayers and financial support.  You also are part of the team for reaching souls for Christ here in Spain.

In His Service, 
Julio and Andrea Velasquez

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 Co-laborers in Christ,

This month we have several PRAISES and several PRAYER requests. We will begin with the praises.

• After 17 months of paperwork and going from office to office, we now have our resident cards in hand. These cards are good for one year and so at the end of March we have to renew them for another year.
• We had our first baptism on February 7. Two were baptized. One was our grandson, Aaron, and the other was Isabel, a lady who got saved last summer in camp. It was wonderful seeing them follow our Lord.
• We are near completion of the repairs on our church building. We painted, laid carpet and and just this past weekend we were able to install the heating and air conditioning units. We only lack putting up curtains and doing last minute details. We will be having our grand opening sometime this Spring.

Now for the Prayer Requests:

• We are almost ready to pass out the Gospel DVD’s. Much work has been put into preparing these DVD’s.  Many have given sacrificially to help cover the costs. We will continue producing more DVD’s as the funds come in. Right now we need your prayers for this project. As we begin placing them in homes, we need you to pray that the Holy Spirit will convict hearts and that souls will come to Christ. Please pray fervently! Our goal is that every person in Parla will hear a clear presentation of the Gospel and have an opportunity to come to Christ.
• Please pray for those I have been able to witness to recently. Our landlord came by today and I was able to share the Gospel with him and even give him a Bible to read. Pray for his salvation, as well as the salvation of two other men, Eduardo and David, who were very much interested in hearing more about God.
• We would ask you to pray for four family requests. Pray that David and Favianna will get the remaining 35% of their support by the end of this year so that they can join us in Spain. Pray that Deborah will get her work visa so she can legally work in Spain as well as help us in the ministry. Pray for Jeff and Deanna as they are in the process of adopting a baby. Pray that God will send them the baby he wants them to raise for His honor and glory. Pray for Andrea’s father, Wayne Witherell who has recently been diagnosed with macular degeneration. He and my mother-in-law have been missionaries for 42 years and are still serving the Lord on the mission field.

Thank you so much for your prayers and faithful monthly support. We pray that God will bless each of you as you labor for Him. Until our next letter we remain in His Service,

Julio and Andrea Velasquez

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

“Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” As Christmas time approaches again, we are reminded of God’s unspeakable gift, the gift of His dear son, our Lord Jesus Christ!  What a joy it is to serve our Lord and Savior and we are so grateful for the free gift of salvation which He gave to us and which we share with the lost here in Spain.  We are excited about having our first Christmas back in Spain after so many years of being away.  We are happy to be able to be part of the Spanish Christmas traditions and to eat all their traditional Christmas foods, but greater than all of these joys is the joy that we will have to share the gift of God with so many of them.  We are almost finished duplicating 18,500 DVD’s which contain a clear presentation of the Gospel and very soon we will be putting them into the mailboxes so that 18.500 households will be able to listen to the Gospel, many for the first time in their lives. We can’t emphasize enough the importance of needing your prayers so that as the people receive these DVD’s they will watch them, listen to the message and that the Holy Spirit will begin a work in their hearts and that many will trust Christ as their personal Savior.  Will you please partner with us to pray for this project?   Our goal is to not only distribute these DVD’s to the city of Parla, but to at least 10 more neighboring cities over the next few years.  We need your prayers and we need money in order to purchase more DVD’s.  Will your help this Christmas Season?

We have a building for our future church! Praise the Lord we have found a building in a strategic area of the city which is on a busy street and only one block away from public transportation.  We have much work to do now in order to get it ready for services.  It is one large room with one small room that we will use for an office.  We are needing at least one more room and so we will be building two walls to form a nice size room.  We also have to install heat and air conditioning.  Then we will fill in holes in the walls, paint, lay carpet and put up a sign on the outside wall.  In January we are planning on starting English classes and piano classes in order to make contacts.  Through these activities, we are praying that the Lord will allow us to share the Gospel with them and that many will be saved.   We are praying that we will be able to open the building for use by the beginning of January.  Please pray with us about this. 

New Contacts! Please pray for new contacts that we have made.  We have neighbors who are from Colombia and they are very much interested in the Gospel.  I have also had the opportunity to witness to several Muslims and have made friends with a Muslim man who lives in our apartment complex. They need Christ!  Will you pray for their salvation?

The Family is Growing! We are very happy to announce the birth of our third grandchild.  Hayden Mikaela Velasquez was born on November 5 and she is our first granddaughter. David and Favianna are thrilled with this special gift from God and Ian is a very proud older brother.  We are so anxious for them to arrive in Spain to help us in the work.  Please pray that they will be able to raise the remaining 40% of their support  in a very short time so that they can join us in the ministry. 

We want to thank all of you for your faithful support over the years.  We have been missionaries for 29 years and God has been faithful in supplying our needs.  He has used you to supply that need.  Thank you for your prayers, letters, gifts and monthly support.  We love and appreciate all of you.  May the Lord richly bless you this coming year as you serve our Lord.

In His Service,                                                                                                                         

Julio and Andrea Velasquez

September 2009

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

We are close to the end of a very hot summer.  Most days temperatures were in the high 90’s and nights would be very warm also.  Spaniards usually enjoy one full month of vacation time, either in July or August.  Now most people have returned home and within two weeks school will begin again.  This is the time we have been waiting for to begin distributing the DVD’s with a Gospel message.  We would like to thank all of those individuals and churches who have sent offerings for this project.  This will really help us purchase more DVD’s. If you have not sent in an offering yet, there is still time, since this is an ongoing project.  We will continue to give out these DVD’s until every home in Parla and the surrounding areas has heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have been looking for a storefront building to rent in order to begin church services.  Most of the places we have looked at measure around 800-900 sq. feet and cost anywhere from $1200 and up each month.  Please pray that we will find the right place that God has for us.  Our desire is to use this building for church services as well as discipleship classes, English classes and counseling sessions.  We will use any means to reach people here in Parla with the Gospel.

While attending a Baptist church in Madrid over the past few months, we met a lady named Isabel, who had begun attending the church.  She was travelling over 2 hours every service to attend the services, but when she found out that we will begin services in Parla she was so excited because she lives fairly close to our city.  We thought she was already a believer in Christ, but last week while attending family camp, she realized that she was a religious person, but had never put her faith in Christ for salvation.  Now she is a true believer and is excited about attending our church as soon as we begin having services.  She wants to bring her family and friends to the services also. Praise the Lord for our first member in this new ministry.

As we mentioned in our last letter, Spain is full of immigrants from all over the world.  I have had the privilege of sharing the Gospel with at least 40 people over the past few weeks representing 8 different countries including Spain.   Please pray that the seed that was sown in their hearts will take root and many will come to know Christ as their personal Savior. One great blessing in my life this month was the salvation of my brother in Peru.  I have been praying for him for 34 years and he finally trusted Christ as his Savior.  He had gone to Cuzco to have surgery and we contacted a missionary there to see if he could share the Gospel with him.  He sent a man from his church who became friends with my brother and then shared how he could get saved.  Pray now as he returns home that he will be able to find a good church in order to grow spiritually.

Thank you so much for your prayers and faithful monthly support.  The Euro is getting strong again and makes it even more expensive for us to live here, but we know that God will continue to provide our needs.

May the Lord richly bless each of you as you serve Him.

In His Service,

Julio and Andrea Velasquez

June 2009

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

T

These past two months have been busy, hectic, frustrating, but for the most part exciting and blessed. We arrived in Spain on April 1 and were met at the airport by our team members and family, the Andrews. It was a joy to see them again and especially our 6 yr. old grandson Aaron. We stayed with the Andrews for one month while we worked on paperwork for the final approval of our visas, opened a bank account, found an apartment, submitted papers to get permission to rent the apartment and purchased a good used car. All of these things take time and patience. On May 5 our container arrived at our apartment and several missionaries came to help us unload and carry our belongings into our apartment. It was a real blessing to finally be in our own home again.

We have been visiting several  churches on Sundays in the Madrid area and renewing old friendships with missionaries and believers.  Last Sunday we were able to visit our former church in Alcala de Henares and it sure brought back a lot of wonderful memories of the 14 years that we spent there.  Most of the members that we left, are now in other places serving the Lord as missionaries and pastors.  It is a real blessing to see that our labor for the Lord is never in vain.   We would ask you to pray in particular for Manola and Belen, a young couple who were saved years ago in our church, but have been away from the Lord for many years.  They invited us to their home last week and we had a great time of fellowship with them.  They went to church with us and we could see a spark of desire to serve the Lord again.  Pray that they will come back to God and serve Him with their lives.

We are living in the city of Parla, about 30 minutes from downtown Madrid.  It is a city of over 150,000 people who need the Lord. I have walked the streets and had the opportunity to witness to several people, and I notice how hardened their hearts are to spiritual things.  I would ask you to pray for a couple, Valentin and his wife,  who own a small store close to our apartment.  They  are from Ecuador.  They are very friendly to us and we want them to be saved.  Besides Spaniards, there is a huge population of immigrants.  There are Latin Americans, Romanians and a large group of Muslims.    We have begun preparations for our first evangelistic project to reach them for Christ.  We plan on producing 20,000 DVDs with an illustration and a short salvation message.  Our son David will be recording the DVD this week and then we will be making copies of the DVDs,  and  putting them  in the mailboxes of 20,000 homes.  Please read the enclosed  flyer on how you can help with this project.

Make note of our new mailing address and our Vonage phone number at the bottom of this page.   Thank you so much for your prayers and support.

APRIL PRAYERLETTER

Dear Co-laborers in Christ,

I

t is with deep appreciation that we write this letter this month to all of our supporting churches. Many of you have faithfully supported our ministry and have fervently prayed for us for many years.  At the same time we now have many new churches who are supporting our ministry and we are thankful for all of you who have been sensitive to God’s leading in your lives to hold the ropes for us so we can do the ministry in Spain that God has called us to do. 

The month of March was a very busy and emotional month for us.  We spent the month packing boxes and purchasing household items that we will need in Spain.  On the 28th of March a group of men from our home church, Pleasant Hill Baptist church, including our pastor Lamar Rackley,  came to our house and helped us load a 40 ft. container to ship to Spain.  We are so grateful for all the hard work that these men did in spite of the heavy rain that fell that day. 

On March 11 we had the special joy of attending our son David’s ordination to the ministry.  I was able to give the charge and our pastor led the ordination.  Several pastors and missionaries, including 3 from his own family, helped in the ordination.   We are praying for him that God will continue guiding him as he tries to raise his support to go to Spain also. 



In His Service,


Julio and Andrea Velasquez