www.icevictoria.com

Dear friends and family in Christ:

Serving the Lord is something exciting. As His servants, we spend our days striving to do what is in our power to be faithful to the Lord. But when we stop and look back we can only acknowledge our many limitations and the great power of the God we serve. Through these words, we wish to emphasize the faithfulness and love of our Lord, who continues to transform lives for His glory.

The study of the book of Galatians on Sunday mornings is being a blessing. At the same time, two groups of discipleship have been formed, one male and one female, who meet weekly to meditate on the grace of God through the reading of the book "Why Grace changes everything." Eunice's parents, Pr. Pepe and Alicia, are discipling a family who gave their lives to Christ earlier this year. They heard of our church through Alicia and Eunice because their children sing in the gospel choir at the local school. We thank God for the transformation we see in the Segovia family. Carmina is a Christian lady who had not been attending any church for different reasons. She heard of our congregation through another believer and is now attending our services regularly.

The Gospel Choir is still a blessing. The next concert will be on June 8th and we expect about 180 people attending. We are excited and we pray that God continues to touch hearts through the message of the gospel preached in the songs.

We are happy to announce that soon we will be a legally constituted church. We have already completed the necessary paperwork and now we are just waiting for the definitive answer. It's exciting to see how the church continues its process, and the Lord makes all things possible. We also have a website where you can listen to the studies on Galatians in Spanish and view other information of interest. This website is: www.icevictoria.com

God has given Pr. Ivan the opportunity of running a youth program in a Hispanic church retreat in Switzerland. He will travel there the first weekend in June, God willing. He has also been invited to teach at a camp for families this summer. We are organizing our church retreat which will take place late September. Pray for these things so that God may be glorified in them.

And we cannot conclude without communicating some very important prayer requests. We continue to hope that God will provide our church with a place of our own to meet. It is becoming more difficult to minister to our children in the hotel and we are quite limited in other areas. We have seen some options, but we need a divine intervention to make it possible. We are very happy that God has given us another baby. Eunice is pregnant but her situation is quite delicate since a couple of months. She continues on bed rest so we ask your prayers for a complete recovery.

Lastly, we would like to share with you a verse that encourages us to live by and for Christ every day of our lives: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). To Him be the glory.

See you soon!

Jesus said once: "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:16). Last week we had our first Vacation Bible School for children up to 12 years old. What a blessed time we had! Twenty men and women from our church prepared for these days with enthusiasm and excitement and served the Lord and the kids with joy. Thirty-four children were taught the love of Jesus through songs, studies, games, crafts and Christian fellowship. Last Sunday we invited all the children and their families to our Sunday Service and four new families showed up. Three people gave their lives to Jesus after the teaching of the Word and the whole church was greatly edified. The Lord has truly blessed us in so many ways through this ministry. Thank you Jesus!!

This is very good news, but there's more we want to share with you. We are happy to say God opened the doors for our family to go visit our dear church in Upland, California. We'll be leaving Spain September on the 26th and returning October the 14th. We believe this is a very important and necessary visit, so we would like to ask you all for your prayers in this regard. We will be happy to visit any church or individual who is interested in knowing more about the ministry God is doing in El Rincon de la Victoria. If this is your case, please contact our church, CC Upland, or talk to our pastor, Randy Walls.

The day before our flight, our church will celebrate our first baptisms. How exciting! Three persons are going to obey Jesus by being baptized and the whole church will be there to rejoice with them. Please, pray for these people that their lives may always glorify our Father in Heaven.

Thank you, brothers and sisters for your support. We hope to see as many of you as possible these coming weeks. We love you and miss you all. Que Dios os bendiga!