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From the Plain in Spain, prayer news from the Barretts, April 2015Alcalá de Henares, 24th April 2015 Dear partners in prayer with us for Spain,Please find our prayer news in full in the letter following these bullets. Here is a brief summary of some of the prayer points : 1. Publications. Ken has visited churches to promote the Madrid Bible Teaching Centre´s books and to emphasize that reading is one means of assured Christian growth. Meanwhile back in Madrid the Centre´s AGM has reviewed the book and Ken has been reading proofs. Another commentary is at the printers. Please also to continue to pray for a trustworthy outlet for book sales among the Hispanic churches in America. 2. Kofi Jaus continues to see the Lord´s provision and to try and reach out to the unchurched young people of the district. Please pray for the extra stimulus of our interns in the month of May, Lydia and Rebecca. 3. Give thanks for A. who has been reading His Bible intensively and extensively. Pray for increasing maturity in the congregation as they learn to relate to a plural leadership team. 4. Give thanks for encouragements to preach in the open air. Pray for Ken´s voice temporarily affected by a spring allergy. 5. Pray for safety on the road in the UK in June and part of July, for churches and friends to be encouraged in mission and their stand for the Truth. 6. Gratitude for a visit from Esther and a visit from Tim (and girlfriend) in May. 7. May and June are the tax months for declaring and paying. Please pray for our patience in paperwork and the Lord´s provision. 8. Elections in Spain. Please pray that the Lord would raise up honest, effective and wise (ie God fearing) leaders and politicians.
Dear Partners in prayer for Spain,Thank you for holding our arms up to pray for people who are precious to God in the Spanish speaking world. Your company in prayer strengthens us when we are so often inclined to discouragement or frustration, when spiritual battles lengthen or don´t seem to go the way we think they ought! Publications April is a month often associated with the publication of books in Spain. In part it´s because the 23rd April is associated with the deaths of both Cervantes and Shakespeare. It´s also when the prestigious Cervantes prize for literature is awarded a recognized writer or poet from Spain or Latin America. Ken travelled to Seville for the weekend of the 11th – 12th and part of that was to present the books of the Madrid Bible Teaching Centre to two congregations there. The book presentation part of such visits is perhaps the less satisfying. Many evangelical believers are increasingly immured to growing spiritually by reading. However the time was redeemed by teaching another church group about preaching and painting, and going out to the city centre on Saturday evening to practice. The following weekend on the 19th, our former church in Vallecas, Madrid, had Ken to preach about spiritual growth and reading as well. Meanwhile Alison attended the annual general meeting of the Bible Teaching Centre in Madrid on the 12th despite being temporarily deaf. Please pray for the Lord´s blessing on the outcomes of the visits and the plans discussed in the AGM. In the last fortnight Ken has finished proof reading a reprint of a book on Wisdom literature in the Old Testament and the book of Job which should come from the printer next week. Please pray for Alison as she thinks through a reform of who does the administration of the national magazine Edificación Cristiana. She has run the office for the last 25 years and needs to pass on some of it. It´s not easy to pass on responsibilities on. In the case of the column about international Christian news, Alison only had five years respite with help from another writer and then the task was handed back. It´s good to know when one is considered a “safe pair of hands” but it´s not exactly training up the next generation. Kofi Jaus April also saw the annual meeting of the Associations committee and associates. The work continues to hold its own with the Lord´s provision coming from UK supporters and the contributions mainly made by grateful users of some of the projects. However our continuing Achilles heel in the work is the lack of suitable volunteers, with the weekly programme held together by four or five helpers. In May we have the help of two interns, Lydia Evans and Rebecca Guevara. We pray that the two or three weeks that they´ll be learning with us, will help in doing something more than the routine opening times for the projects. Please remember to pray for our Sunday evening occasional openings for contacts with the “unchurched” (“unchurchable”?) young people who hang around the area. Several of these are on the fringe of small time crime, doing drugs. Currently we have not yet got any offers of team visits from outsiders to help in Alcalá from September 2015 onwards. Please pray for the right offers to come in on time. We have had to sympathize with a missionary couple who were put on the spot because one of their sending church suddenly told them they were sending them a team in July. The notice was too short, the team had nothing to offer and the dates were not appropriate to organise useful projects. All this put a young missionary family under a lot of extra pressure during what should be their language learning period. With a little more thought, prayer and prior consultation this could have been avoided. In our own case we are grateful for those offers of help we have received in the past which have helped move the Lord´s work forward. Pastoral Remember we told you in March that A., who had just made a profession of faith, was moved across the province by his boss. Well, A. found that there was no television in the lodgings where he was, so he set himself to read more of the Bible in his few free hours, separated from his wife. A month later this young Christian had almost read through the entire Scriptures once! How´s your Bible reading going?! We´ve almost come to the end of the international Bible studies because our students have their nose to the grind stone as the end of the academic year looms. Please pray for one last study programmed for the 22nd May, so that as this group disperses, the Holy Spirit may impress on them that His living Word goes with them. As few of our present congregation come from a traditional Brethren background, not everyone appreciates following the New Testament pattern of having a plural leadership, mutually responsible. So we are again teaching the congregation that they can´t expect to approach the particular member of the leadership team who they think is most favourable to their point of view! Please also pray for us in finding honest ways to encourage those long term unemployed among us who face a tough challenge. Another learning point in a local church who believes that many have something to share from the Word in worship is to help people discern chaff from wheat. Please pray for God´s work in our hearts so that worship doesn´t degenerate into “wordship”. Preaching in the open air Recently a visitor to the Madrid city centre team came up to encourage. He said, “I liked the way you said it and what you said”. Coming from a Christian, Ken values that kind of comment because that is what we pray that the Holy Spirit will use as we preach the Cross of Christ, thus seeking to draw people to Him. An allergy to one of the kinds of spring blossom has left Ken with a husky voice and running eyes. We are grateful that we aren´t as affected by allergies as some people can be, but suppose that so many years living in polluted air wears down one´s defences. UK Travel in June and July For six weeks we´re “on the road” in order to visit churches, friends and supporters. For a number of reasons we don´t publish all the details, but if you´ve not been contacted by us during the planning stage (- and we or Ken didn´t see you in January- ) and you would be interested to know if we´re in your area, please drop us a line. We never cover all the ground we want to and yet feel indebted to many in the Gospel. But the Lord in his merciful wisdom only put 24 hours into a day! We enjoyed a visit from Esther last weekend and we hope she can get some time off work in July to join us as we return to Spain through France. Tim (and girlfriend) have said that they will drop by around the 22nd May on a lightning visit from Australia as they “do Europe”. Please pray that it´s a time of love and communication of things that matter. Pray for Spain. In May there are municipal and regional elections in the midst of a corruption meltdown with few real options for political change. A revived evangelical church would be key to infusing real hope. Thanks for giving. Amongst the provisions of the Lord was an anonymous gift of 500 pounds through Echoes at Bath on the 17th March for which we are also grateful. The month of May is when both our Spanish income tax has to be assessed and paid, together with local property taxes. Please pray for our patience in the present atmosphere of increased official vigilance - and paperwork. We rejoice in having seen the Lord´s provision over many years in similar exercises. With our love and thanks in the Lord, Ken and Alison BarrettP.S. You can follow more of our weekly and daily activities for prayer by becoming a friend of “Ken Barrett” on Facebook or asking
echoes@echoes.org.uk
to send you their weekly update for prayer which includes our requests. Ken is also an editor of the Pray4Spain Facebook page. |