Seek God for Alcora!

A little over two weeks ago we held our united worship and prayer service for Alcora.  We had over 60 participants with some 6 congregations and over a dozen nationalities represented, all crying out to God for our town.  It was a beautiful time together, and it was encouraging to hear some of the responses we had from attenders:

• "This has been a dynamic night and has put Alcora on the map for our congregation."  (Daniel, pastor from Castellón)
• "We've never been a part such a powerful time of worship and prayer.  You can count on our congregation in Madrid (over 4 hours away) to help reach Alcora with the Good News."  (Abraham and Vicente from Madrid)
• "When I saw "Prayer Service" on Facebook, I didn't think I could sit and pray for an hour and a half.  But the way the service flowed made our time together fly by...it was great!" (Isaac, teenager from Castellón)
• "When are we going to do this again?"  (Rubén, University Student from Alcora)

We already know that our night was a success, and not necessarily because we’ve seen numerical growth to our group but because we’ve sensed a direct attack from the Enemy against our daughter.  The week leading up to the worship service, Miriam, who's been sleeping well for quite some time, immediately started having anxiety attacks at bedtime.  She was getting so tense and nervous that she would vomit, which she had never done before.  When Rachel's parents came for the weekend, we prayed for her together in her room and she was noticeably less anxious.  The following Wednesday they left, and that night she began to have the same anxiety, causing her to throw up again at bedtime.  This continued off and on until Sunday when we asked the elders of our church to pray for her and for us, specifically that God would protect us against any attack of the enemy.  Miriam hasn't had a problem since, and that's been over a week ago.  We certainly don't mention all of this to sensationalize what we're doing or over-spiritualize our lives; it's simply what we've lived through the past several weeks.  So we, as believers and missionaries living in Alcora, realize that we are where God wants us to be, on enemy territory, Satan is not happy about that, and we are vulnerable...and the enemy knows how to get to us.

So we urge you to continue asking God to protect us from Satan’s subtle and not-so-subtle attacks, and please continue to pray with us for Alcora as we serve the Living God here. 

Seek God for the City

During Lent, as a church (in Onda, our mother church) and as a small group of believers here in Alcora, we're focusing on praying for Alcora in a more direct, intentional and intense way than we have before, using a material called "Seek God for the City" (Clama a Dios por la Ciudad).  It's a daily guide that presents fresh, Biblical prayers for us to use personally, as a group of believers and as a help for interceding for our town. Sorry I haven't mentioned this before to try to involve you, but we've been too busy coordinating things locally that we just haven't had a chance to update you on it yet. If you're interested in jumping into it with us, go to www.waymakers.org to check it out, or you can download a 99¢ app at the App Store (Mac) or Android Marketplace.

In conjunction with this focus of prayer during Lent, we're organizing a joint worship service of praise and prayer for Alcora with our sister congregations here in Castellón, which is something that's never been done here in Alcora before. It will be Saturday, March 24th, at 6 p.m., and we're praying that it will be a powerful time of united prayer and praise as we seek our Lord together on behalf of the 10,000 people here in Alcora who need to come to know Him. Please pray with us as we prepare for this exciting event!

Prayer for Alcora: ¡No a la incineradora!

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15)

In July (or perhaps before) the town of Alcora was informed that the Community of Valencia (basically the state we form a part of) had plans to construct or, at least, is approving the construction of a large trash incinerator 2 or 3 kilometers from Alcora.  Since then the town has united against this proposal, which apparently has been years in the making (who knows why the townspeople weren’t informed of this before July…).  In any case, one could say that the trash (industrial strength stuff—not just left over chicken bones) has to go somewhere, so why not here in Alcora?  We’ve also heard the humorous logic that, given the pollution caused by the dozens of factories here, what’s a little more?  All joking aside, the only positive aspect of this incinerator would be the work it brings with it, but even that would be less than would bring a recycling center.

We still don’t know all the details of this plan, but what we do know is the following:

•  If the incinerator is built here, some 135,000 tons of industrial waste will be burned here each year.
•  The resulting pollution from such an incinerator can cause various diseases and health problems, from cancer to congenital defects in babies.
•  The pollution would not just effect the community of Alcora (its people, its land and its water) but also the surrounding towns and even the nearby city of Castellón, which happens to be downstream.

So please pray for our town:

•  That the Lord somehow blocks the plan to construct this incinerator.
•  That the Lord gives the local and provincial leadership another solution for waste disposal.
•  That the Lord will give us wisdom in our meeting the new Mayoress next week, Tuesday the 11th, so that we might be able to encourage her in her fight against this plan, as well as discuss various other issues with her.

If you'd like to see a little tour of how an incinerator works, CLICK HERE.

Not an advertisement for Chick-fil-a, just an honest opinion.

Postcards in Alcora!

This week and next week have the "Fiestas del Cristo" (the town festival in honor of the Christ) here in Alcora.  Some time ago our ministry team decided to take advantage of this time when people are a bit more open and even sensitive to spiritual things.  So this week  we've distributed some 3300 postcards to all the homes here to wish them a great time of fiestas, to make them think a bit more about Christ (and not just the parties), and to direct them to our webpage (www.conocelo.net) where they can come to know Christ for the first time or know Him better.  Please pray for the following:

• That the Lord will use these postcards for His glory and awaken the hearts of Alcorinos to His great love for them.
• That those who are seeking the Lord (or just something to fill the emptiness in their lives) will find the living Christ who loves them.
• That if people contact us personally we'll know how to take them closer to Christ and grow in their relationship with Him.

Above you have a little video we made to thank you for your encouragement and support of the ministry here in Alcora, and in particular of our distribution of the postcards.  Thanks for praying with us!

Praying for the Nations in Alcora

One of Jesus’ final commands before ascending to heaven was to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”  Earlier this year I went by the town hall here in Alcora to request some demographic information on the makeup of the town, and it turns out that many of the nations have come to us here!  There are some 37 distinct nationalities represented in Alcora, which makes it more diverse than we anticipated (though it’s not nearly as diverse as other towns nearer to the coast).  Here is a basic summary of the nationalities represented in Alcora:

Spaniards:                90% (9,852)

Romanians:              4.75% (519)

Moroccans:               3% (335) (some 379 total from Muslim African countries)

Hispanics:                0.8% (89)

Other Europeans:    0.7% (78)

Chinese:                   0.16% (17)

Israelis:                     0.04% (4)

With these statistics in mind, here is a suggestion for how you can pray for the nations in Alcora:

That their minds and hearts will awaken to their need for God.

• Joel 3:12:  “Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations on every side.

That they will be blessed with the Good News through us (the spiritual children of Abraham):

• Galatians 3:8:  Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”

That they will find the true, full healing that is found only in Jesus:

• Revelation 22:1-2:  Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Thanks for continuing to pray for Alcora with us!!!

Prayer for Alcora: Spiritual Warfare

In Ephesians 6:10-12, Paul affirms the reality of spiritual warfare, that we live in the midst of “enemy-occupied territory,” as C.S. Lewis put it, and that Satan has certain schemes and methods of attacking us.  But the truth is that we haven’t been thinking so much about demon possession and some of the more sensational displays of this reality (though we know this is real); rather, we’re continually reminded of the more subtle footholds and influences the enemy has in our world and culture.

One foothold we see here in Spain, and surely around the world (and even in our own lives) is the blatant materialism and the desire for more and more stuff.  We don’t have time to go into a deep discussion of it, but we’re convinced that this is a clear foothold and distraction that the enemy is quite pleased with…and that we’re unaware of much of the time.

Another subtle scheme of the enemy that we see, especially at this time of the year, Semana Santa, here in Spain, is the participation in the grand processions and other religious activities of this season.  Don’t get me wrong:  we're not necessarily against the Catholic Church nor religious processions, in and of themselves.  But this week many will go out to see the processions out of pure tradition, or habit, or boredom, without really thinking about why Jesus’ death makes a difference.  Others will participate to uphold a promise they made to God or the Virgin, thinking that this is really all that God expects of them, all the while missing the profound, eternity-shaking significance of what Christ has done in His death and resurrection (even as they watch the processions which represent Jesus’ sufferings).  From our point of view, this is a very subtle and, therefore, powerful hold that the enemy has on many Spaniards, keeping them from knowing God in a real way.

So please pray with us this month:

• That God will cause Spaniards to question why they are going out to see the processions and what the death and resurrection of Jesus truly means for them.
•  That God will give us opportunities to be good observers of the people and culture here in Alcora during the processions.
• That God will give us opportunities to have good conversations with people here about the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
• That God will protect us from the schemes and attacks of the enemy as we continue to serve Him here.