Dear Prayer Warriors, (September 2010)
A book has recently been published called, “God’s Greatest Passion”, a call to our responsibility to evangelism, both personal and collective, in the 21st. Century. As Gideons we are committed to evangelize through the distribution of God’s Holy Word to the lost. In the fiscal year 2009-10 368 new camps have been opened in the 191 countries where the ministry is active. Many of these new camps are in countries where Christians are suffering persecution, such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines among others. Please pray for the Gideons in these countries and their faithfulness, in spite of the difficulties.
New Camp
After the Scripture Blitz concentrated on hotels in Lanzarote island in the Canaries, a camp has been started to carry on the work and continue distributions in other areas. In Spain itself a camp has just commenced in Vitoria, capital of the Basque country, and one is soon to start in Lugo a province of Galicia in the North West.
National Conference
The annual conference took place this year in Málaga province on the Mediterranean coast in southern Spain. A good number of delegates were present and the conference speaker was Craig Warner, the new Executive Director at the head office in Nashville, USA. Next year`s conference will take place in Valencia, the large city on the East Coast of Spain, the venue of recent Americas Cup yacht challenge races.
Camps News
The Alcala de Henares camp east of Madrid reports that it has been able to carry out a distribution at the barracks of the Parachute Regiment. This is encouraging as military distributions aren`t easy to obtain. Contact was made through the Catholic chaplain.
Also the camp reported another distribution at a local prison, which had not been possible before.
The new camp in Ciudad Real in the middle of the country is in contact with the high security prison in the area, Herrera de la Mancha, with a view to obtaining permission to distribute Scriptures to inmates. Distributions have been made in the past but on an isolated basis as no camp existed then.
The St. Jame’s Way Pilgrimage
Placements on the Pilgrim Way which commenced in 2008 have continued this year. We have now reached Galicia where the pilgrimage ends in Santiago, and visited 210 hostals to date. During two weeks of April 2010, hostals from the border with Castilla-Leon to Palas de Rei were visited, and again the majority accepted the bi- and trilingual Testaments to be placed in the lounge or bookshelves. Such is the nature of the Galicia region that many hostals were literally off the beaten track and difficult to reach. Only two stages remain to be visited and we hope to be able to arrive in Santiago in October.
A recent article in the British press confirms that 250,000 pilgrims are expected in 2010, as July 25 fell on a Sunday, and it is a Holy Year, so more than usual will visit. Twenty years ago only 5,000 made the trip.
Now, apparently a film is being made called The Way, by the actor Martin Sheen and his son, about an American who carries his son’s ashes on the Camino to the Spanish pilgrimage city.
The article comments that “Priests sit ready in confessionals to absolve penitents of the sins they confess in a dozen languages”.
We know that what the Scriptures teach us is very different, and that only Christ can wash away their sins because of the blood poured out at Calvary.
Pray that as many of these pilgrims will have God´s Word within their reach this year as they progress along the road, they might be drawn to it, and as they read it, the Holy Spirit would challenge them of their need of a Saviour.
A number of Gideon testimonies confirm that God told the subjects of these to read the book on the shelf and it led to the reader’s conversion.
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Prayer Points
- Prison ministry
- St. Jame’s Way pilgrimage
- Bible Blitz – Barcelona
- New camps and members
Bible Blitz
A Blitz is due to take place in Barcelona in October when Spanish Gideons will be joined by a few others from some self-supporting countries. Distribution will be mainly in the universities in the area, of the new Testament in Catalan.
Conclusion
O. Hallesby the author of a book on prayer, considered a classic, said, “The purpose of prayer is the glory of God.”
May we be so consistent in prayer that He receives the glory continually.
“It is not our job to make the Gospel acceptable, but to make it available.” Vance Havner
(12th) September 2010
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The Ministry of The Gideons International – Spain
Dear Prayer Warriors, At the beginning of this new year, we are reminded that in the Western world it is becoming a growing predicament to place Scriptures in the traffic lanes of life. This secular generation is not too worried if we stay in our churches, but when we go out with the Good News, the protests come thick and fast.
What compels us to continue is that men, women and children are desperately hungry for the Bread of Life, and to make no attempt to offer this bread contradicts His instructions.
The only goal of the Gideon ministry is to win men and women, boys and girls to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We do this with confidence because we know that we belong to an “unshakeable kingdom” (Heb.12:28), whatever the future may bring.
New Camp – Since last summer another another camp has been opened in Spain, in Ciudad Real. This town is the capital of La Mancha, the area South of Madrid, where Cervantes` novel about Don Quijote was based. We thank the Lord for raising up a team to commence Scripture distribution in this large rural area. Please pray for cities like Lleida and Girona in Catalonia where the possibilities of opening new camps are being investigated.
Distributions – In October a Blitz of Scriptures took place in Fuerteventura, one of the Canary islands. Like the one that was held the previous year in Gran Canaria, the main island, the distribution concentrated on the hotels. A small team of Gideons from Germany went to help the local Gideons.Please pray that those who stay in the hotels, in their time of relaxation, may find time to read the Bible on their bedside table.
It is hoped that another Blitz can take place in Lanzarote, possibly in 2010, which like the other islands, is a destination for tourists from Western Europe.
The St. Jame’s Way Pilgrimage
In October 2009 the distribution continued in the hostals covering the 100 miles from Burgos to Leon, across the agricultural plains of Old Castile.
Our log book records that 138 hostals have been visited to date, of which 86 agreed to take Scriptures. Only 11 have actually refused the offer of placing Bibles in Spanish, English, French and Geman, as the others had no-one to take the responsibility to accept Scriptures.
Please pray for the pilgrims, who come from so many different countries, that they will take the opportunity of reading God´s Word, and allow it to speak to them. In fact, one hostal manager told us he had received a young visitor from Mongolia!
In total 846 Scriptures have been placed for which we give God the glory.
From April onwards, when the new season starts, we shall continue visiting the hostals, and we hope to reach Santiago before the end of the year.
Prayer Points
* Blitz – Fuerteventura
* St. Jame’s Way Pilgrimage
* New Camp – Ciudad Real
National Conference – 2010
The National Conference will take place near Malaga, a city on the Mediterranean coast at the end of February.
Please pray for the Conference Committee, as they finalise preparations.
The conference speaker will be Craig Warner, who will become the Executive Director of The Gideons International, later this year.
Conclusion
Bill Fay, the author of the book on personal witnessing, “Sharing Jesus without fear”, in an another article he wrote in The Gideon magazine last year, told how he was travelling on a plane on September 10, 2001 when he handed the flight attendant a tract. The moment the seat belt light went off she went to his seat and asked him why he had given her it. She said he was the sixth person in 2 weeks to do that. “What does God want from me?” she said. He answered, “Your life”. They went to the galley where she gave her heart to the Lord. The next day she was a flight attendant on the plane to Pittsburgh that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.
The question he left hanging in the air in the article was, “What if I had been silent?
“The greatest tragedy in life, is not unanswered prayer, but un-offered prayer.” F.B. Meyer
January 2010
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18th September 2008
Dear Prayer Warriors
In an article in a Christian magazine read this summer on the subject of prayer, the following challenging phrase was highlighted on the page: “However much effort is expended for lost souls, intercession is the key, it is a high calling.” The article went on to say that God is constantly seeking intercessors, as they are are still in short supply and intercession is at the very bottom of most churches` agenda. This underlines the emphasis of the Gideon ministry in the distribution of Scriptures on continuous intercessory prayer on its behalf.
Your constant intervention at the Throne of Grace for this work is greatly appreciated, as more Scriptures are placed year on year. It is a fact that, as many Bibles and New Testaments have been given out in the last 12 years as in the previous 87 years since 1908 in total more than 1,400 million. As wonderful as this is, there remains a significant amount of work to do. The total world population is estimated to be more than 6,000 million people, the majority of which are lost and headed for a Godless eternity.
Bible Blitz – Zaragoza The Blitz took place during the 1st week of May, when 5 Gideons from the USA, Australia and Germany joined Gideons from the local camp (branch) and other Spanish camps for 5 days of intensive distribution. On the Sunday before the Blitz the Gideons visited local churches to give reports on the ministry. During the week some 30,000 Testaments were distributed in the university, secondary schools, hospitals and hotels.
This was a preliminary activity to the World Fair which is being held from June to September, where the theme is based on water as an essential element to life. As the seed has been sown, please pray that all those who received Scriptures may come to know the source of Living Water which quenches man´s spiritual thirst.
New Camps – You will be pleased to know that a new camp has recently been opened in the capital of Tarragona, on the Mediterranean coast. Tarragona is a Roman town and where the Apostle Paul would have landed had he reached Spain. (Romans 15:24) Please pray for the camp as it begins its distribution ministry in the surrounding area.
There is a good possibility that camps will also be started in the Catalan provinces of Girona and Lleida in the near future. Contacts are also being made with the churches in Andorra, the principality in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. Again your intercession will bring these camps into being.
St. James` Way Pilgrimage – The 400 kms. route from the Pyrenees to the city of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia on the North West coast of Spain, is now one of the most popular in the world for pilgrims, drawing people from Europe, the Far East and the Americas.
It is estimated that now almost 30,000 cover some of the 30 + stages each year, on foot, and on bicycle, as they wind their way over hill and down dale to the Atlantic Ocean.
It was a burden on the heart of Manuel Toledo, a Spanish Gideon, now with the Lord, for some years, and more recently German Christians who help at a Christian hostal in Lugo, requested that the Gideons place Scriptures there, as the great majority who stay overnight do not carry Bibles. This was the spur to put a plan into action to cover the whole route and visit the places which offer accommodation to the travellers.
In May the first three stages were completed, commencing in Roncesvalles, near the border with France, the main starting point. Some of the establishments, which accommodate from a few pilgrims to over 100 each night, are either owned by the Catholic church, the local municipality, or private individuals. We give thanks to the Lord that of the 25 visited, 17 agreed to accept Scriptures, so that in total 285 trilingual and bilingual Testaments were distributed. Praise God for these open doors and pray fervently that many who read God`s Word will be drawn to the Saviour.
We expect that hostals on further stages of the pilgrimage, will be visited before the end of the year, as well as follow up to those already visited.
Prayer Points
* New Camps
* St. Jame’s Way Pilgrimage
* Bible Blitz – Zaragoza
National Conference – 2009
The National Conference will take place in Tarragona, a city which dates from Roman times, on the Mediterranean coast in March, 2009. Please pray for the Conference Committee, and the local branch as they make the preparations during the coming months.
Conclusion
In Spain, as in the rest of Western Europe, Gideons have returned from a summer break, ready to recommence the task of the distribution of God`s Holy Word, with its power to transform the human heart. However, distribution needs open doors in hotels and prisons, and absence of aggravation from school and university officials, so that “the Word of God may have free course and be glorified”. Your fervent prayers of intercession will make the difference.
Rodney Dibden. Gideons.
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Dear Prayer Warriors, (March 2008 Gideons prayer letter)
“Prayer in its highest form and grandest success assumes the attitude of a wrestler with God – ” So said the author, E.M. Bounds, who wrote a number of books on the subject of prayer.
How this ministry needs men and women who are prepared to wrestle with God on its behalf, especially for Spain.
As in many countries of Western Europe, a number of the areas where Scriptures are distributed, are becoming more and more restricted as years go by. A recent example occurred at the school’s distribution in Burgos during the National Conference. Due to protests outside one school the distribution was suspended.
As many of you know the “Mission Statement” of the Gideon ministry is to win men and women, boys and girls to our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. This requires people with a passion for the lost, and camps (branches) need members who have this passion.
National Conference
The XVI National Conference was held on the first weekend in March in Burgos, in the North of the country where a camp was opened in 2005 by B. Don Johnson. Gideons and Auxiliares gathered from different points of the peninsula, and one came from the Canary Islands, 1000 miles away in the Altantic Ocean.
Friedhelm Loeber, IOC Committee member, from Germany was the conference speaker, accompanied by the Europe West Director, Angelo Greco and his wife. At the Pastors`Appreciation Dinner on the Saturday evening, Brother Loeber gave a presentation of his visits to the Middle East countries, where the Gideon ministry operates, including Syria, where he was privileged to open the first camp in that country in Damascus, in July 2007. Please pray for this new camp as it distributes Scriptures in a predominantly Moslem country.
Bible Blitz
The Gideons in Spain will be holding a Bible Blitz from May 3-10 in Zaragoza, North East Spain, to precede the Expo which will take place in the city throughout the summer.
Gideons from the US will join others from the camp in Zaragoza and others in Spain to distribute Scriptures mainly in hotels, schools and universities. In previous years Blitzes have been held in Madrid, Sevilla, Barcelona and Alicante. The Blitz leader will be Friedhelm Loeber from Germany. Again your prayers will be vital for open doors for this venture.
Prison Visits
For a long time Gideons have visited the prisons in the areas of their camps around Spain, and the response to the distributions of Scriptures has resulted in many dramatic conversions behind bars.
One prison that has not been visited during this time is the high security prison in Herrera de la Mancha, some 90 miles South of Madrid, where the jail population includes ETA terrorists.
At the National Conference, Antonio González informed us that he would be visiting the prison at the invitation of pastors from the area and asked for prayer.
Brother González reports that his visit to the prison enabled 300 New Testaments to be distributed to the inmates, and due to the time factor only half the blocks were visited. We praise the Lord for open doors to this prison! Pray that the Holy Spirit will convince these men of their need as they read the Word of God.
New Camps
The Area Director for the Catalonia region in North East Spain, José Garcia informs us that there are strong possibilities that camps will be commenced this year in the three provinces without Gideon camps, Girona, Tarragona and Lerida.
He will be visiting pastors and prospective members in these cities during the next few months and requests prayer that sufficient men will be called to this ministry so that Scriptures may be distributed in areas which until now have not seen the Word of God sown in large numbers, and without sowing there can be no harvest.
PRAYER POINTS
* Bible Blitz – ZARAGOZA
* New Camps – CATALONIA
* Prison – HERRERA DE LA MANCHA
Time Management
Dr. Manuel Vela of the Madrid camp has related his experience of how God honours our management of time. He explained to the hospital management in a meeting earlier this year that he needed an additional day a week to dedicate to the Gideon ministry. As well as allowing him the extra day free, he was also told that, as his income would decrease because of this, the hospital would increase his salary so he would not suffer financial loss.
John 12:26
Conclusion
The recent General Election in Spain reminds us that politicians continue their hopeless task of trying to convince us that if society is improved, then the individual person will be more disposed to live in peace with his fellow man.
The story is told of a father who gave his young son the task of putting together a map of the world torn in pieces from the newspaper, but didn’t know there was a picture of a man on the other side. In a matter of seconds the boy had got the map correct and explained to his father, “You see, I got the man right and the world came out right.”
The Bible confirms that the boy had a better understanding of Scripture than politicians, and is the reason Gideons distribute to individual persons, one at a time.
Rodney Dibden March 2008